Breath of Angel (31 page)

“Harps first then,” said Jarrod. “But neither Livia nor I can get to the harp.”

“Paullus could go with one of us,” offered Livia.

Jarrod shook his head. “Paullus distracts malevolents. He doesn’t blind them. The northeast tower is on the far side of the palace from us. If we’re discovered, we compromise the entire mission.”

“I’ll go,” said Melaia. “I’ll meet you in the catacombs with the harp. Livia, can you find Hanni?”

“I was able to send word to her.” Livia checked the dagger beneath her cloak. “By now she’ll be seated beside Lord Rejius in the great hall. The girls too, if I’m not mistaken.”

Melaia nodded, but her throat tightened. Would she truly have to leave Hanni and the girls behind? She hoped Cilla could get them out somehow, but it was a thin hope. “Can we have the wagons waiting for us outside the catacombs?” she asked.

“I’ll see to it,” said Pym.

“Well and good,” said Livia, “but I don’t want Melaia going alone to the tower.”

“I’ll go.” Trevin looked at Melaia. “My vow was to see the harp returned.”

“But Dwin …,” said Melaia.

“No doubt Dwin is in the great hall supporting Lord Rejius at the moment,”
said Trevin. “I’ll help you get the harps and see you to the temple. But I’ll not ride away with you. Perhaps Dwin and I can join you later.”

Melaia took a deep breath and nodded, wondering if she would ever see Trevin again. But as Cilla had said, there was no time to wallow. “One more thing.” She glanced at each of them. “Don’t tell the king I’m his daughter.”

“Why?” asked Livia.

“Because it will change everything.” She blushed as her eyes met Trevin’s. She quickly looked away. “I can’t see myself on a throne.”

“No promises,” said Jarrod. “We don’t even know if the king is still alive.”

Melaia scowled at him, then turned to Trevin. “Show me to the tower.”

As they slipped into the corridor, Livia pulled Melaia close. “If you can’t reach the harp, come straight to the temple. We’ll decide what to do from there.”

Livia, Jarrod, and Pym stole away in one direction, and Melaia followed Trevin in the other. They slipped downstairs to the storerooms, crossed under the great hall, climbed back up to the main floor, and entered a narrow corridor. Halfway down on the left stood an arched doorway. “Through that arch and up the stairway,” said Trevin. “We’re almost there.”

They picked up their pace and were nearing the doorway when a young guard with dark, curly hair strode out of a passageway beyond. He paused for only a moment before he drew his sword and cried, “Halt!”

“Dwin!” Trevin linked his arm in Melaia’s and strode forward. Under his breath he said, “When we get to the stairs, go up. I’ll divert Dwin.”

“I said halt!” commanded Dwin, heading toward them.

“Lucky I found you,” Trevin called, picking up his pace. Melaia matched his stride, her heart racing.

“No one is to be in this hallway,” snarled Dwin. “Not even you. Don’t force my hand.”

The archway was only a few steps ahead. Trevin broke into a trot and gently shoved Melaia through the door as he passed.

Melaia entered a blanket of thick darkness and total quiet. She froze, straining her senses for something, anything. She couldn’t even hear Trevin
and Dwin, only a few feet behind her, to know whether they were talking or fighting. All she heard was her own heartbeat thudding in her ears. It was if she had been swallowed into nothingness. She choked back a frantic cry.

For a fleeting moment she thought of turning back, but a needle-sharp fear pricked her. What if Trevin had closed the door behind her? Was Dwin even now congratulating him for trapping the chantress? She shook off the thought. Told herself to calm down. Breathe deep.

Then she noticed a warm, woodsy scent drifting around her, like the smell of Wodehall. And though she could see nothing, her foot met the first stair. She began to climb. One step, two, she felt her way up. Tentatively she reached out to touch the wall. Smooth, polished, but not marble. Wood. She stroked it. The stone stairwell had been paneled. In kyparis wood?

On the fifth step a stinging stench filled her nose and made her eyes water. With one hand she covered her lips against the bitterness that welled in her mouth. She pressed her other hand against the wall for balance, stepping up where she thought a step must be. So palpable was the darkness, she felt as if she were slogging through odorous sap, ascending the inside of a tree, its walls closing in on her the higher she climbed. She wondered if she should turn around.

Shhhould shhhee? Shhhould shhhee?
came the echo.

Then she felt sap oozing around her ankles, rising rapidly from below, blocking her retreat. It engulfed her feet like quicksand, and panic choked her. She ran up the stairs. But there were no stairs. The ooze seeped over her ankles, lapped at her calves. She lunged for the wall but found nothing. The sap bore her higher even as it sucked her in up to her waist. She fought at the void as it swirled around her shoulders and crept up, up, and over her head. She gulped for air.

“You can’t have me,” she yelled. Her words dissolved in a cacophony of sounds throbbing around her. The screams of the Erielyon in the temple yard, the cries of Peron, the rasping breath of the gash-drunk, the screech of draks, the cough of Zastra, the shattering of her Eye, the sough of the trees.
Shameful. Shameful. Stupid. Save usssssss!

“Stop!” Melaia yelled, covering her ears. But the sounds were inside her head, memories pulsing louder and louder, and above it all came Trevin’s voice, hissing,
You’re wise not to trust me
. Melaia fought and ran, and ran and fought, faster and faster through a thick nothing that pressed closer and closer in an ever-narrowing tunnel. Up and up and up.

And then, in a breath, it was gone.

The muck beneath her became stone, rising step by step. Melaia stood for a moment, panting, sweating, her hand on the kyparis wall.
Shhhh
, it said.
Shhhh
.

The darkness had lightened. At the top of the stairs, through an open door she saw a large cage that held a harp.

Melaia flew up the stairs and into the room, knelt beside the cage, and read the familiar runes.
Dedroumakei
. “Awaken!” She ran her hand along the bars, searching for a latch. Then, out of the corner of her eye, she saw a movement. She turned and gasped.

Across the room, in a guard’s tunic, sword at his side, stood Yareth, the moon-pale son of Navia’s overlord. He had gained some muscle, but his eyes still held the same sly menace.

Melaia rose slowly, feeling as if she had been knifed in the gut. Trevin had betrayed her after all. Had led her to the trap and sent her up alone.

In his uneven gait Yareth strutted across the aerie, past empty cages, until he blocked the doorway.

“You.” Melaia tried to gather her wits. “Your father sent you to Lord Rejius after all. And this is the high position you were promised? Guarding a tower?”

“For
King
Rejius,” said Yareth. “I’m sure to be promoted soon. You see, I’ve trapped a thief. Interesting that it’s you.” He eased toward Melaia, and she stepped back. “As it turns out,” he said, “King Rejius has been waiting for you.”

Melaia backed up to the cage, and Yareth pressed close, his hot breath seething over her face as he reached around her and flicked the latch open. Then he ran his hand up her back and clutched her braid at the nape of her neck. She shoved at his chest, but he was immovable.

“Too bad,” he breathed into her ear. “Too bad I have to throw you to the hawk.”

A sharp pain wrenched Melaia’s neck as Yareth twisted her down and pushed her into the cage. He snapped the latch closed.

She rubbed the back of her neck. At least she had the harp, she thought bitterly. And the book was still in her waist pouch. Dreia’s harp. Dreia’s book. Dreia’s daughter.

Dreia’s fate?

She hugged the harp and felt it pulsing in time with her own rapid heartbeat.

Yareth leaned out a wide window and shouted to someone below. The cage began to rise and sway on a rope that held it to a long wooden arm. Melaia scrambled to balance herself and the harp as Yareth pushed the wooden arm and the cage swung to the window. One more push, and it cleared the ledge.

Melaia gasped. The cage hung high above the courtyard where only the day before she had stood looking up. Her stomach felt as if it were in her throat. Yareth smacked the wooden arm and the cage lurched wildly. Melaia let go of the harp and clutched the bars. Below, two guards let their end of the rope play out. The cage lowered toward the ground.

Melaia looked to the horizon. A small drak circled just beyond the city wall. She felt helpless, shriveled inside. She had risked, and she had lost, and she was no good to anyone now. She only hoped her friends could get away, but even that seemed an impossibility. If Trevin had trapped her, he had trapped them as well.

When the cage thudded to the ground, the guards thrust poles through the top and carried it like a low-slung litter across the yard. Melaia wondered if Trevin was watching, and a tingle of defiance ran through her.

She would not let him get the best of her. She would not shrivel. She would not cower. She was a priestess and Dreia’s daughter, and her last breath would not be a whimper but a shout.

M
elaia was hauled up the front steps of the palace and past two expressionless guards. Servants blinked with surprise, then quickly looked away as her handlers took her cage straight to the door of the great hall, where the two talonmasters stood. They, too, eyed the cage but promptly turned their attention back to the grand gathering inside. Melaia supposed they were intent on quelling opposition and knew it would not come from a caged harper.

But there was no opposition. The only movement in the great hall came from Lord Rejius, who strutted across the room, reading aloud from a scroll. Even the colorful pennants, which should have been fluttering gaily in a sea breeze, hung motionless from the lower edge of the gallery.

Melaia sat in her cage outside the door, flanked by the talonmasters and her guards, scanning what she could see of the hall. Hanni, finely dressed but unsmiling, sat at the head table. Iona and Nuri sat stiffly to her left. Cilla stood against the wall behind Hanni. The guard behind the girls was the malevolent Melaia had seen guarding their stairway. She tried to discern the presence of other malevolents, but her spirit was far from still and would not focus.

From the serving door, Dwin drifted in, eying the room through his rakish curls. Melaia expected to see Trevin follow. When he didn’t, her hands balled into fists. He was no doubt rounding up Livia, Jarrod, and Pym. She vowed that if she survived, she would never look at another apricot again.

Lord Rejius smugly strode to the center of the hall, a sheer scarlet train flowing from his shoulders. Around his neck hung a gold chain inset with rubies, regally displayed against the layered black feathers of his sleek sleeveless tunic. Jeweled rings adorned his bony fingers.

He held the scroll high, and his voice rang out. “You have heard the reading of the document. Lord Beker, trusted advisor, oversees Redcliff in our absence. He encouraged me to assume the kingship in these dark days. To that end he has witnessed this declaration, which appoints me monarch of Camrithia upon the death of King Laetham. So be it.”

As sporadic applause echoed through the hall, Caepio began a lofty melody on his lute, and his players joined him with reed pipe, sistrum, and timbrel. Lord Rejius made his way to the lords and ladies seated at tables along the north wall. Each of them rose in turn, kissed his hand, and bowed. Paullus was first and made no protest. Melaia’s heart sank. Cilla would follow his lead.

Caepio bobbed to his music. When he looked toward the doorway where Melaia sat caged, his puffy eyes widened. She glanced away. She dared not act as if she knew him for fear of drawing him and his players into trouble. Nothing had gone as planned, and it was her fault. All she could do now was avoid feeding anyone else to the hawkman.

As Caepio drew his song to a close, he called out, “I now introduce to you the finest harper in the land: chantress of Navia!” He swept his arm toward the entrance.

Melaia stared at him, her eyebrows raised in a question. Surely he could see that the plan had melted. He didn’t know Livia, Jarrod, and Pym were probably in a cell by now, with Trevin holding the keys, but he could certainly see her plight. What was he trying to do?

Lord Rejius turned to her, his mouth twisted into an amused smirk. He motioned to the guards, who carried her barred litter to the center of the great hall to the fanfare of reed pipe and lute. Melaia tensed like a cornered rabbit.

Lord Rejius strode toward the cage and unlatched it. “The little chantress, is it?” he murmured. “I’m pleased you took my bait and came for the harp. Did you enjoy the enchantments of the kyparis stairway? Designed just for Dreia’s child. No one else could have survived it.”

A chill snaked through Melaia, and she held tight to the harp. Rejius’s fingers curled around her wrist, and though she cringed at his touch, he drew
her out of the cage. Maybe this was what Caepio intended, wagering that his announcement would set her free from the cage. She’d felt safer with bars separating her from the hawkman.

“Ah, but you are a pleasant surprise,” Lord Rejius crooned in her ear. “I expected Dreia’s son.” He held her at arm’s length and eyed her. “Shall we see how enchanted the chantress is?” He turned to his guests, and the cage was removed and set near the hall’s entrance.

“It’s well-known that I have two mage-harps,” Rejius said. “I’ve had my harper bring one of them for this occasion.” He strutted around Melaia. “A powerful prize for a powerful ruler who will build a powerful kingdom and reward his followers well! Entertain us now, Chantress.”

“Not until you release the priestesses.” Melaia set her jaw and hugged the harp, glaring into his unblinking gold eyes. Her stomach knotted. She felt as if she were back in Navia, defying him at the temple. But this time they had an audience, and she doubted he would want to begin his reign by strangling a chantress in public. Or would he? She braced herself.