Flamecaster (22 page)

“It's not plague,” Karn snapped. “It's a sixteen-year-old girl with a stab wound.” He rolled up the map and slid it into its case.

“We need someone who can keep whatever he sees to himself,” the king said. “Can you do that, Freeman?”

“Of course, Your Majesty,” Ash said. “Thank you for your confidence in me.”

“We would be . . . most distressed,” Karn said, “if word were to leak out about this, do you understand?” The lieutenant's hand crept to the knife at his belt, making the implied threat explicit.

“I understand, Lieutenant Karn.” Ash's curiosity burned hotter. Who was this patient? Why was it such a secret? Had he been chosen for this task because he was considered expendable?

That's when he put the pieces together. This patient—a sixteen-year-old girl—had come from the north in a closed carriage. It was a big secret he needed to keep to himself.

Lyss.

His heart stuttered, and then began to pound. It was like he couldn't get his breath.

Maybe she'd been wounded, taken prisoner, and brought here.

Ash breathed in, breathed out, struggling to still himself. After the attack at Oden's Ford, he knew Montaigne was targeting his family. He knew, and yet he'd whiled away his time in a stable. He should have acted sooner. He should have found a way to stop the king before this happened.

If it
is
Lyss, he thought, I will find a way to save her.
Unbidden, Taliesin's words came back to him.
The time will come when you will wish that you were a better healer.

“Healer?” Karn tilted his head, frowning. “Is there a problem?”

“No, lieutenant,” Ash said, his gut churning. “No problem at all.”

They left the king's apartments with two blackbirds in tow, using the first available staircase to descend to the cellar level. Karn led the way, with Ash in the middle, and the guards behind. They wound their way into the heart of the castle until they came to a stout wooden door sunken into the wall, blackbirds to either side. Behind the door, another staircase descended to a level beneath the cellar.

Ash couldn't help recalling his last visit to the cellars with the bloodsucking Darian priest. “You keep your patients in the cellar?” he said, unable to keep the edge from his voice.

Karn gave him a long, measuring look. “This patient we do,” he said, pointing down the staircase. “This way.”

At the foot of the stairs, there was another door, a metal one this time, and two more guards before it. The guards saluted the lieutenant, eyed Ash, and ushered them through. The door clanged shut behind them, and when Ash heard the bar being thrown, his suspicions were confirmed. They were in the king of Arden's dungeons.

Claustrophobia settled over him like a shroud. If it
was
Lyss, how could he possibly get her out of here, especially if she was injured? And if these southerners ever became aware of who he was, he would be killed or clapped into the cell next to her. Imprisoned and tortured, most likely. The son and daughter of the queen of the Fells would be worth more alive than dead.

Ash slid a finger under his collar, touched the bottle hidden there. He knew how to get dead if he needed to.

They walked through a dark stone corridor, just wide enough for two to pass abreast, poorly illuminated by torches stuck into niches in the wall. The floor was uneven underfoot, carelessly excavated in some remote age. The air was dank and stale, as if it had been rebreathed so many times that there was nothing nourishing in it.

There were doors to either side of the corridor, with high, barred windows, none large enough to get a man's shoulders through. He heard sounds from some of them, wounded sounds and weeping, the repetitive wailing of the insane. Ash quickly turned away. You can't save everyone, sul'Han, he thought.

The floor sloped downward, and they passed through two more checkpoints with guards. They took several turns until they were in an area where the doors were farther apart, suggesting the cells were larger. Although they were farther underground, the air seemed better there, too. He noticed ventilation shafts driven through at intervals. Most of the cells in this area seemed to be empty.

At the end of the corridor was a large, circular room with a high ceiling and three doors set in the stone around the perimeter. At the far end of the room was a crumbling stone wall, stained and damaged by the wet, layered with fungus. Water trickled off it and pooled on the floor. Ash guessed that meant they were close to the river.

There were two large stone slabs in the central room, leather straps attached with iron rings, stained dark from long use and indifferent cleaning. Wrought metal chains and pulleys and leg irons dangled from the walls. Ash didn't recognize the tools he saw there, but many of them bore an uncanny resemblance to medical instruments. The room stank of old blood, intentional pain, and terror. He took a deep breath, released it in a long shudder.

“Nervous, healer?” Karn gave him a sideways look.

“Feeling the damp is all,” Ash said, his mouth ashy with fear. There were two guards stationed outside one of the doors in the far wall, a door with no window. This must be their destination.

If it was Lyss, would she recognize him? He'd changed
a lot in four years, and his hair was dyed brown, and yet—they had been so close, the connection between them so strong that she might.

What if she did, and called him by name?

What if he saw what had been done to her and gave himself away? He could not allow that to happen.

The guards unlocked the door and stepped aside so they could enter.

“Stay outside,” Karn ordered the blackbirds. He lifted two torches from sconces on either side of the door and led the way in.

The room was dimly lit by lamps set into niches in the walls. Their light didn't make it all the way into the corners. The cell was roughly twenty feet square, hollowed out of stone, and empty of furniture. The ceiling was higher than in the upper part of the dungeon.

On the far side of the room, a low bed had been set up against the wall. There on the bed, under a pile of blankets, someone was dying. That understanding slammed into Ash like a runaway horse, all but forcing the air from his lungs.

Karn mounted the torches in sconces on the wall at either end of the bed. “Hello, Jenna,” he said softly. “We've brought another healer for you.”

Jenna. Not Lyss. And when he looked at the girl huddled in the bed, he realized that she was a stranger.

Ash all but crumpled to the floor, his relief mingled
with confusion. If it wasn't Lyss, then who was she?

“Healer?” Karn was eyeing him again like he didn't know what to make of this wobble-kneed mage.

The prisoner watched them warily as they approached, like an animal in a trap. It was a girl, perhaps a little younger than Ash, a rough gray blanket pulled up to her chin. Her hair was tangled and appeared to be streaked with color. It was hard to tell, it was so badly in need of washing.

Her clothes were filthy, too—though they'd once been fine. She wore what looked like boy's breeches and a torn linen shirt stained with blood and only the gods knew what else. A velvet coat lay crumpled up on the floor next to the bed.

Her hands were manacled together, attached to a bolt in the wall by a short chain. The skin at her wrists was scabbed and discolored, as if she'd struggled to get free. Ash's fingers found the collar around his own neck and his stomach clenched with sympathy.

Her eyes, though—they were a striking gold color, clear and piercing, set into a planed face with a rather prominent nose. Raptor's eyes that missed nothing. Undefeated in a place intended to extinguish hope.

She wasn't the kind who could survive long in captivity, even if she hadn't sustained a mortal wound. His heart broke a little.

“The first healer said I'd be fine.” Her voice was weak and thready, but there was an element of steel in it. “I
thought he was the best you had.”

“Merrill said you wouldn't let him come anywhere near you,” Karn said.

Smart girl, Ash thought.

The girl shifted on the bed, bunching the blanket in her fists. “Is that what he said? He's a liar then.”

“Jenna,” Karn muttered, as if frustrated.

“Anyway. He said he didn't need to touch me. He could diagnose me by my aura.”

“Blood of the martyrs!” Karn said through gritted teeth. “I'm trying to save your life.” He gestured toward Ash. “This one is gifted.”

Jenna looked Ash up and down, and something like fear flickered in her eyes. “No,” she said, licking her cracked lips. “He's too tall. I don't want a tall healer. Bring me someone else.”

She doesn't want a gifted healer, Ash thought. Is she worried that I might actually succeed in healing her? Or is she afraid that I'll ferret out secrets that she wants to keep hidden?

Ash squatted in front of her, setting his kit down beside him, so he could take a closer, appraising look.

Her eyes were overbright, her breathing quick and shallow. Likely her pulse was rapid, too. He could feel a blaze of white-hot magic, centered in her midsection. That must be where the injury was. The girl was not a wizard—she had no telltale glow. Her arms were well muscled, like she
worked hard for a living. She'd eaten well, too, at least until recently. Her skin had an unusual reflective quality—it shimmered in the light from the torches as if there were flames under her skin.

“I'm Adam Freeman,” he said. “How do you feel?”

Jenna gazed into his face for a long moment. “You are a wolf,” she said, her lip curling. She looked up at Karn. “Why did you bring a wolf into the palace?”

That was like a punch to the gut. Once again, Ash tasted fear, like metal in his mouth. Why had she said that? How could she possibly know? The last thing he needed was to be tied to the Gray Wolf line.

“What do you mean, Jenna?” Karn demanded, looking from the girl on the bed to Ash. “What do you mean, he's a wolf?”

“The lieutenant doesn't know, does he?” Jenna said, smirking like a cat with a bird in its mouth. She breathed in sharply, like she was tasting his scent. “Now I have made you sweat, Wolf.” She brought both hands up, put her finger to her lips. “Shhh,” she said, then slumped back onto her pillows and rolled onto her side, facing the wall, so Ash was staring at her back.

It seemed that his patient had been doing an assessment of her own.

“Well?” Karn shifted impatiently. “Are you going to get to work or not?”

Ash rose to his feet and broadened his stance. “She
needs to be moved upstairs. She needs fresh air and light.”

Karn folded his arms and shook his head. “That's not going to happen, healer. You'll have to do the best you can right here.”

“At least unchain her, so I can examine her properly. And you need to leave.”

“I'm not going anywhere.”

“If she can speak to me in confidence, maybe she'll be more cooperative.”

“I don't want to speak to you at all,” Jenna said to the wall. “Both of you, go away.”

Karn looked from Ash to Jenna and back again, as if he were debating whose side he was on. “Why should I trust you, alone with her?” he said finally. “I don't know anything about you.”

“The king's word isn't enough?” Ash raised an eyebrow.

Karn just looked at him for a long moment, then said, “Step outside. I need a word with you.” He jerked his head toward the door.

As soon as they stepped out into the interrogation chamber, Karn turned, quick as thought, and pinned Ash against the wall, his knife pressed into the hollow of Ash's throat, just below the collar. Ash saw it coming, but he let it happen, because he knew by then that the lieutenant needed Jenna healed and he would not kill Ash to make a point.

“Why did she call you a wolf?” the lieutenant demanded.
“What did she mean by that?”

Ash should have known that Karn hadn't forgotten. He thought of claiming that Jenna was confused, but he had a feeling that Karn wouldn't buy. The lieutenant knew something about his prisoner that made him take her words seriously.

“I'm not going to talk with a knife to my throat,” Ash said, meeting Karn's gaze. “It won't make any difference, anyway.”

Karn stared at him for a long moment, then lowered the knife and took a step back.

“I think it means she's smart,” Ash said. “She wants to die, and she's afraid I might succeed in healing her where Merrill failed. If she can plant enough suspicion to make you pull me off the case, she'll get what she wants.”

“She does want to die,” Karn said grudgingly. “She stabbed herself. That's why she's so uncooperative. We need to keep her alive at least until—we need to keep her alive.”

If she wants to die, Ash thought, then maybe I should let her. But he guessed it wouldn't be wise to say that aloud.

“If you want to keep her alive, then I'll need some answers from you.”

Karn frowned, as if he were surprised to hear a healer snapping out orders. “Such as?”

“Do you have the weapon?”

For a few heartbeats, Karn seemed to be debating.
Then, fumbling in his carry bag, he pulled out a dagger in a sheath and extended it, hilt first, toward Ash.

Ash pulled the blade from its covering and looked it over. It was magicked, but the spells used were unfamiliar to him, like a fragment of song from a faraway place. It was still smudged with blood.

“Is this her blood?”

“Hers and . . . and someone else's.” Karn cleared his throat.

“Yours?”

“No. One of the guardsmen in Delphi. He's dead. She killed him the night she was—we found her.”

“Is that why she's here—because she murdered a guardsman?”

“That's not your concern.”

“Where did the dagger came from?”

Karn shook his head. “She had it on her person.” He looked like he was going to add something else, then changed his mind.

“How long ago was she wounded?”

“Five days.”

“How was it treated?”

“I cleaned it, packed it, and applied a dressing.”

Ash nodded. “Good. Did it bleed much?”

“To start with, it did,” Karn said, “but it closed up quickly. It's swollen. I think it might be infected. Or something.”

Or something. “Has she been eating and drinking?”

Karn shook his head. “Not much.”

“All right.” Ash handed the dagger back to Karn, who weighed it in his hand.

“Well? Can you heal her?”

“I'm not Merrill,” Ash said. “I can't tell without examining her. But I'm not familiar with the magic in the blade. If I had to guess, I'd say it was from outside the Seven Realms.”

A muscle twitched in Karn's jaw, but he said nothing.

“Given that, and given the delay in treatment, I'm not optimistic.”

“Listen to me.” Karn leaned in close. “You say you're a healer, but I know you're a mage, from somewhere to the north of us. Maybe you're working for the king, and maybe you're working for the witch in the north, and maybe you're working for somebody else entirely. Maybe you're a miraculous healer, and maybe this girl is as good as dead. But what you need to understand is that if she dies, it doesn't matter whether the king recommended you or not, it will be our fault, and we will both pay the price.”

“I never expected anything less from His Majesty,” Ash said. “I'm one of only two people in the empire who might possibly save her life. I'll do my best, whether you're watching me or not, but I might get some helpful information if you stay out here. It's up to you, but I'm going to need all the help I can get.”