Song of the Fairy Queen (72 page)

The Guard would have noticed a constantly open gate. Then he would have had to wait before starting all over again and so he’d had to let it close before too long.

It had been nerve-wracking work to get as far as Hart had, for one had to keep an eye on the Guard on the walkway above, then scramble across the moat while they weren’t looking, keeping pressed into the shadows along the wall until the sluice opened, waiting until the flow had passed, then to block it enough to squeeze through but not look visibly opened and then walk up the channel. The only advantage had been that the houses built next to the castle had their backs to the fetid, foul-smelling moat and cast their long shadows over it for most of the day. Those shadows provided decent hiding spots and odor kept away lingerers.

“That won’t happen until late morning. There’s nothing that we can do.”

Impatience worked at Morgan, but he could do nothing save wait in the shadows.

They all heard the trumpets blare, but they couldn’t hear the crier’s words, just snatches of it.

All of them could see.

They brought Kyri out on an open wagon, slumped on the floor, her shining wings drooping over the sides.

Kyri
.

Morgan’s heart ached to see her.

The sun. Warmth and light. It was nearly blinding after the dark of the dungeon. It poured into her through her open wings. Even as it warmed her, she sensed Morgan as well, somewhere close, his pain so acute and so close she nearly wept. He could see her. Somehow, she knew he could see her.

She opened her eyes.

Her whole body ached, muscles she hadn’t known she owned burned. Every nerve seemed abraded, seared. Her cheek and mouth throbbed and breathing was difficult.

There were blessings. At least her arms were down, for all that they were chained to the tumbrel, her wings were free and that was wonderful, however much they ached. The sun soothed her sore muscles. Only her wrists actively hurt where the cold iron encircled them, burning.

A dozen guards surrounded her. Above her were archers.

There would be no rescue that way.

It was a scene was all too familiar from the day of Philip’s potential execution. So much so she instinctively looked up to make sure that there wasn’t a gallows and noose hanging above her head.

Not yet.

The sense of Morgan’s eyes on her was heartening, although she dared not turn her head to look for where he might be, knowing they might be watching her for some such sign.

Still, she couldn’t lay there looking as she did, sensing his pain, although she’d to be careful not to let Haerold and his Queen see how much stronger she really was. They had made a mistake, bringing her out into the sunlight, although they didn’t know it.

For Morgan’s sake, though, she had to give him something.

Still, it was nearly as agonizing as her morning. They’d sent the wizards to her again…

With the iron on her she could do no magic, but the sunlight poured into her through her wings, restoring the strength they’d taken from her.

A little off-balance from the shackles on her wrists, Kyri struggled to her feet, swaying slightly. Automatically, her wings extended to help her maintain her balance and the crowd below her sighed with wonder as light sparkled brilliantly on them, casting rainbow shimmers around her and then she flipped them neatly closed against her back. That, too, was a relief, to be able to fold them.

Everything ached, although the warmth baking on her shoulders helped ease that a little. It did nothing for the sharp pain in her ribs, but she couldn’t have everything. She raised her face to the sun, half closing her eyes, letting out a sigh of relief, turning her head from side to side as if to ease the ache.

It was only a quick glimpse, but for her it was enough.

There in the shadows, his fair skin and hair a slightly lighter shadow against the darkness.

Morgan.

Crystal tears pattered even as she tilted her head back and smiled, letting out a breath.

The sluices opened, catching Morgan’s attention. When he looked back, Kyri was standing, her lovely face tipped back to the warmth of the sun, her golden hair streaming and rippling down her back, her wings extended and then they folded, fluttering a little as they always did to settle the feathers – an automatic gesture he’d always found oddly endearing and amusing.

What he didn’t find amusing were the marks on her, clearly visible on her pale skin.

There was bruising, a dark splash of blood on her temple, more on her swollen lip and the way she stood told him something pained her.

If he found the man who’d laid hands on her, he would kill him.

She was still beautiful, so beautiful. And alive.

I see you
, he thought, loudly, remembering her admonitions not to shout.
I see you and I’m coming
.

Tears fell even as she smiled, to know he was so close. She bowed her head so that those who watched couldn’t see the little sparkles of crystalline tears.

Her head lowered a little more so her golden hair was a curtain swinging to hide the far side of her face from watchers but Morgan thought he saw her smile a little and nod.

I know.

They brought Kyri in out of the sun, but they’d given her no water and now her thirst was raging. That was tolerable, but Haerold and his Queen followed, with Patterson at their heels. Kyri fought back her fear at the thought Elissa might discover what the hours in the sunlight had brought her besides thirst.

Patterson wasn’t unexpected, either. They wanted answers and they were determined to get them, one way or the other. She remembered what Morgan had said after they rescued him and the damage his jailors had done to him.

Her stomach quivered a little as they fastened the chains to her shackles, cranked it to pull her arms and legs up and out, until she was suspended.

Smiling, Haerold’s Queen ran a finger over Kyri’s cheek

Haerold gestured.

The pain was shockingly sudden, light pouring out of her in a torrent instead of a stream and Kyri arched, agony shooting through her. Haerold and his Queen basked in it, wallowing in it. Kyri wasn’t even aware she’d screamed until she heard the echoes as she was released.

At Elisa’s signal, men closed in from each side, taking hold of Kyri’s wings, carefully, as she bowed from the pain, drawing them outward to secure them to the walls. As hard as she tried not to, she cried out.

Haerold supervised the remainder of the shackling, ordering Patterson to pull her up an extra inch or so, so she would have to stand on her toes to take the pressure off her wrists, shoulders and wings. With her injured and broken ribs it made it even more difficult for her to breathe.

Nodding with satisfaction at seeing her suspended, Haerold smiled.

A man crouched before her, fastening weights around her ankles.

Haerold waved the guards away.

“Does that hurt?” he asked smiling, looking up into the Fairy Queen’s face. “In an hour, it will. In two, it will be agony and it will be increasingly hard to breathe. In three… Well, perhaps by then, you’ll be more amenable to talking.”

Morgan.

How had he survived this for so long?

They left her then, taking the torches with them, leaving her in the darkness as the strain grew and the pain with it until it was burning agony.

It was hard work, but Morgan himself and one of his men had the sledgehammers and the stones shattered beneath his determination, desperation and fury. They had to work fast, for even though they were in the bowels of the castle, there was a chance that someone would notice the noise, even with blankets to muffle the harsher sounds of steel against stone. Still, it was taking time.

“That’s it!” Hart whispered, gleefully, as the last stone fell away.

It was almost a shock.

They were through.

Morgan pulled his shirt back on, sweat drenching him and tucked it back into his trews. He looked at the others.

Caleb nodded.

Hart, with his memorized map of the castle in his mind, led the way up through the depths to the chamber with its great cogged wheels where the sluice gates were raised and then across to the corridor that led to the dungeons.

Somewhere high above a cry of agonal torment rang out, thin, echoing… raising the hairs on the backs of all their necks…

Morgan closed his eyes and prayed it wasn’t Kyri who had made that terrible sound.

It was a dark and awful place, if not as haunted or as utterly desolate and hopeless as Caernarvon had been, it was still bleak and grim. Even the rats hurried out of sight. There were no windows, only smoky torches for light.

They came to a long corridor with an even longer line of iron doors, it seemed, each with a small barred window in it and a slot at the bottom.

Morgan froze for a moment. He knew this place, he’d been here. Not for long, but he’d been here, if not on this level, then on one of them.

Hart started to speak and Morgan quickly clapped a hand over his mouth.

“The guard first,” he whispered. “Stay here.”

With a glance a Caleb, leaving Hart with the other men, Morgan slipped nearly silently down the corridor, keeping close to the side opposite the distant torch.

The guard was there, a ring of keys on his hip, standing with his eyes half-closed, fighting sleep. Creeping up behind him, Morgan wrapped an arm around the man’s neck, holding it there, holding until the man’s struggles ceased.

Caleb snatched up the keys, opening cell after cell.

There was no sign of Kyri in any of them, but plenty of up yet, as Morgan remembered dimly from his brief stint here.

Running from cell to cell, Hart called softly, “Richard, Richard.”

Gesturing to his people, Morgan said, “Open the cells, get as many of them as can walk moving down.”

They nodded.

“Morgan?” a voice, scratchy from disuse, said.

He turned.

The figure in the doorway of the cell was thin, his hair matted and filthy, barely recognizable. In that moment Morgan had an idea of how he’d looked to Kyri on the day she’d freed him. He understood now the grief, sorrow and guilt he’d seen in her eyes.

So long as she’d searched though, it was enough.

“Finn?”

With an attempt at a sharp nod, Finn said, “Myself, sir.”

“We’re going to get you out of here,” Morgan said. “Have you seen a prisoner, a Fairy…?”

Shuddering, Finn looked at him with pity in his eyes. “There was screaming, in the early hours of this morning and again this evening. It fair to broke even my heart after all the time in this place. You can hear them sometimes, above.”

He looked up, his eyes full of grief and sorrow.

Kyri. Had it been her?

Screaming. The thought wrenched at him. What had it cost her then to stand? Fury burned in him.

With a gesture, he gathered the others.