Chapter 7
Lacy was miserable. Her hand was healing wrong, leaving it useless and a source of constant pain. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept through the night. Every time she moved, the pain would wake her and it would be an hour before she could drift back into welcome oblivion. And then there were her dreams. For weeks she’d had visions of her father beseeching her to go to Ithilian, warning her that she was going the wrong way. But nobody would listen to her when she asked to go to Ithilian. Drogan and Commander Arnd had both told her repeatedly that such a voyage was far too dangerous. They assured her that she would be safe on Karth under the protection of Prince Phane and the Regency.
She wasn’t so sure. The Regency sailors and now the Regency soldiers had a way of looking at her that made her feel uncomfortable, not the way young men look at young women, but the way the soldiers outside the walls had looked at her the day they’d come to her home and destroyed her quiet little life. At least these soldiers all looked away when Drogan caught them leering at her, but that didn’t change what was in their hearts.
The ship had docked at a city on the southwest tip of Karth. Commander Arnd said they would be safer traveling from there to the Regency headquarters fortress. Lacy wanted to ask “Safer from what?” But she knew she wouldn’t get an answer, so she held her tongue and waited.
From the looks of the place, the little sea town had recently been converted into a shipyard. The people were busy building more than a dozen warships, and the Regency soldiers seemed intent on pushing the workers to the breaking point. Seeing the working conditions, Lacy began to wonder anew if she was making a terrible mistake by coming here. But then, when she tried to imagine the course she might have taken, she couldn’t pick a point in her journey where she would have chosen differently. It was just that so many of her decisions had been made for her, all of them bringing her one step closer to where she stood this very moment.
The journey from the port town took nearly a week. A hundred soldiers rode escort and her covered carriage was armored and well manned. Drogan spent most of the journey with her but he wasn’t interested in conversation-not that Drogan was much of a talker in the first place. Lacy passed the time looking out the window at the staggering variety of foliage in the lush jungle.
When they neared their destination, she couldn’t see the fortress wall because the carriage didn’t offer a forward view, but she did see the heavy stone gates and the array of defensive apertures cut into the hundred-foot tunnel leading through the wall. When the carriage slipped back into the light of day, it turned sharply before coming to a stop. A moment later, a soldier opened the door to the sound of trumpets in the distance.
The soldier offered his hand with a smile and a deferential bow. Unlike the other soldiers, he was wearing a clean and well-pressed uniform with a number of medals prominently displayed on his chest, and was armed with only a bejeweled short sword dangling from his hip.
She took his hand and stepped onto a carpet leading from her carriage to a small white gazebo that was terribly out of place in the austere stone square. Over a dozen high-ranking soldiers awaited her, each accompanied by a woman wearing expensive-looking dresses and jewels. Standing in the center of them all was a very handsome man wearing a dark brown robe that matched the color of his wavy, shoulder-length hair.
“I am Captain Erato,” the soldier said, offering her his arm once she’d stepped from the carriage. “Welcome to the Regency headquarters fortress. Please, come with me.” He spoke with charm, elegance, and practiced ease. His confidence in such a suddenly formal setting only served to undermine Lacy’s.
He walked her to the gazebo, stopping directly in front of the man in the robe. “Prince Phane, Generals and Ladies, it is my honor and privilege to present Princess Lacy Fellenden.” With that, Erato stepped back, bowing low and taking a place just outside the gazebo as if standing a ceremonial guard post.
The man in the robe smiled with such pure, innocent joy that Lacy felt a little flutter in her stomach. “I am Phane Reishi. Welcome, Princess Lacy. You are safe. Zuhl and his brutes can’t hurt you anymore.”
Lacy looked around, a bit bewildered. “Thank you, Prince Phane …”
“Ah, please call me Phane. It would be so refreshing to dispose of titles and formalities. May I call you Lacy?”
She blinked, looking around at the formality of her welcome and feeling even more unsure of herself. “Of course. I’m grateful for your hospitality, but I’ve been entrusted with a task by my father and this journey has brought me very far off course.”
“Lacy, please,” Phane interrupted, “there will be plenty of time to discuss such matters. Let’s get you settled in first.”
“But,” she started to say, emphasizing her frustration with both hands and wincing in pain before she could finish her protest.
“Oh, Lacy, what’s happened to your hand? You must be in such agony.”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Lacy said. “There’s something very dark pursuing me. You and your people aren’t safe with me here.”
Phane smiled like the sunrise, extending his open hand to the wall behind her. “I assure you, there are few who could breach these walls. We are all quite safe here.”
Lacy turned and saw the wall for the first time, a hundred feet tall and as sheer as a cliff. From the light at the other end of the tunnel, she could only guess that it was a hundred feet thick as well. She turned completely away from the greeting committee and stared in wonder at the massive fortification. Phane silently stepped up beside her, smiling in feigned wonder.
“How?”
“In truth, I don’t really know,” Phane said. “These walls were built long ago, though I suspect magic played a role.”
“If we’d had walls like these, my people would have survived Zuhl’s barbarity.”
“Lacy, let me take a look at your hand.”
She frowned, hesitating for only a moment before holding up her broken hand for him to examine.
He was gentle, cringing when his probing caused her the slightest twinge of pain. After a moment, he nodded to himself, waving his hand at the open air beside them. A door opened with a soft pop.
Lacy gasped in surprise. She’d seen magic since her ordeal had begun but nothing like this. Phane smiled, stepping into his Wizard’s Den and motioning for her to wait where she was. After a few moments of rummaging around, he returned, the door vanishing a moment later.
“Drink this,” he said, holding out a vial of pale liquid. “It will numb the pain so I can heal your hand.”
She looked at her broken, deformed hand, then back at him, hope shining in her eyes. “You can do that?”
“I can indeed, but it will be a very unpleasant experience without this,” Phane said, holding out the vial.
Lacy nodded, drinking the contents quickly, then turning her nose up at the bitter taste.
“I know it tastes bad, but I assure you it will ease the pain. Come, sit with me,” he said, motioning to the steps of the gazebo. When they were comfortably seated, he held up a white bandage and started to unwind it. “This is a very special bandage,” he said. “It will straighten the broken bones in your hand and then mend them correctly. By tomorrow morning, your hand should be fully healed.”
“Really?” Lacy asked, feeling a slight dizziness come over her.
“Indeed. Now, give me your hand.”
The rest of Lacy’s day was a blur. After Phane wrapped the bandage around her broken hand, he guided her back to the carriage before bidding her goodbye and entrusting her to Captain Erato. Drogan was gone, but his absence seemed like more of a curiosity than anything else.