The minutes seemed to drag on interminably until Lacy couldn’t stand it any longer. It had only been half an hour, but it seemed like days.
“What’s taking so long?” she asked no one in particular.
“They’ll take their shot when they have it,” a Ranger answered.
She wanted to say more, but thought better of it. An hour passed, then another. By this time, the Rangers were starting to look worried as well. A sound from the jungle brought a surge of relief. Lacy stood quickly, taking a few steps toward the sound just in time to see a man appear out of thin air, wisps of black smoke wreathing his form for just a moment. He smiled at her wickedly and then vanished again. A scream of pain was cut short by a gurgling noise somewhere behind her.
Another wraithkin appeared behind a Ranger, stabbing him through the heart, then vanishing. Pandemonium erupted among the Rangers as they scrambled to pair off, back to back, but their efforts were in vain. One by one, the wraithkin picked them off. Lacy watched in horror while the men around her died.
One Ranger got lucky and drove his sword into the mouth of one of the wraithkin, killing him almost instantly, but then died almost as quickly when another appeared behind him and cut his throat. The very one-sided battle seemed to last only seconds. The sudden quiet was filled with the soft noises of men breathing their last. Lacy and Wren stood in the center of a ring of carnage, bodies spilling their blood into the dirt-yet more names for Wyatt to remember.
Two wraithkin stood before them, smiling menacingly, fresh blood slowly dripping off the points of their long, black knives.
“Hello, Princess,” one said.
“Hello, child,” the other said.
“Prince Phane isn’t finished with you.”
“Yes, it was very rude of you to leave without saying goodbye.”
They both laughed.
“You will come with us.”
“There is no escaping.”
Lacy pondered the totality of her defeat while she walked toward Stobi. A kind of detachment settled over her, keeping her despair at bay and giving her a few moments of clarity. The question her mind kept coming back to was: Why did Phane still want her alive? With the box on its way to Torin, she was of no use to him and yet she was still alive.
The wraithkin took them to the docks, where they met a platoon of soldiers led by Drogan. He was talking with the captain of the city guard. Lacy realized in that moment that Drogan had been Phane’s chief agent of deception. He had guided her to this place and she’d trusted him because she’d needed his assistance so desperately. Another lesson learned the hard way-and much too late.
“We killed three Ruathan Rangers,” the captain said, gesturing to three corpses lined up on the docks, “but we think a few more got away.”
Lacy strained to see if one of the men was Wyatt, breathing a sigh of relief when she didn’t see him, then feeling a pang of guilt a moment later. Three more lives gone.
“As long as the witch got through to her ship, Prince Phane will be happy,” Drogan said.
“She did,” the captain said, pointing out to sea. “Her vessel has almost reached the horizon.”
“Very happy indeed,” Drogan said, noticing Lacy for the first time. “Hello, Princess. It seems that we’ll be traveling together again.”
Lacy strode up to him and spit right in his face. He smiled humorlessly, very deliberately wiping away the spittle while a soldier grabbed her from behind and pulled her several steps backward. She struggled for a moment until the soldier wrenched her arm, eliciting a scream.
“Stop!” Drogan said. “The princess and the girl are not to be harmed.”
Before Lacy could respond, the ocean lit up so brilliantly that everybody ducked instinctively, shielding their eyes. It was as if a second sun had materialized not a league out to sea. Moments later, a deafening crack washed over them, sending everybody to their knees, covering their ears as best they could. The light dimmed and the noise died away, leaving the world in awe and terror. Birds and animals fell silent-even the breeze through the trees seemed to still.
Everyone slowly stood, facing the water and searching for the ship that had been at the edge of the world, but it was gone, leaving nothing but a roiling ocean where it had been floating only moments before. Lacy had never seen such power, and from the looks of it, neither had any of the men surrounding her.
More importantly, she had no idea what had just happened, and not just to the witch and the ship, but to the box. Was it sinking to bottom of the ocean? If so, would that be enough to keep Phane from retrieving it? Somehow, she doubted that mere water would prove to be a sufficient barrier to his ambitions. But what if the box itself had been destroyed? And the keystone with it? Surely such a devastating release of energy could destroy it.
“Huh,” Drogan said, shrugging to himself indifferently. “Secure the prisoners in the carriage. We’ll be leaving at once.”
Chapter 23
Alexander woke with a start, sitting up quickly, his all around sight coming into sharp focus almost instantly. The sudden movement made the pain in his head spike. He clenched his blind eyes shut and took a slow deep breath while surveying his surroundings.
He was locked in a bare cell, five feet on a side with a stone wall to the back and bars for the other three walls. There was a chill in the air and little light to see by. More curiously, there were a number of the same points of light floating around him that he’d seen in his bunkroom at Titus Grant’s estate. He sat up with his back to the wall, pondering their significance, the slave collar chafing his neck with every movement.
The initial assessment of his situation wasn’t encouraging, but he still hurt too much to worry about anything else at the moment, so he just kept breathing, tenderly feeling the lump on the back of his head where he’d been hit.
“Chloe?” he said in his mind.
“Oh, thank the Maker you’re awake. I was so worried.”
“How long have I been out?”
“Over a day, My Love. I thought I might have lost you … again.”
“You’ll never lose me, Little One. What happened to Anja?”
“She escaped into the sky. Last I saw she was flying west.”
Alexander took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “At least that part of the plan worked.”
“I can free you. I know the way out of the dungeons and there are only two guards on duty.”
Alexander tried to get up, then quickly sat back down. “Maybe I’ll just rest here for a few minutes. I don’t think I’m in any shape to move right now, let alone fight.”
A man two cells over sat up and looked at him-Titus Grant.
“Are you still alive, Pretender?”
Alexander started laughing softly in spite of the pain it caused.
“What’s so funny?” Grant demanded.
“Just that your plan worked out about as well as mine did.”
“It’s not funny,” Grant said. “They’re going to sell my wife as a slave and execute me for treason unless we work together to get out of here.”
Alexander started laughing again, each chuckle sending ripples of pain through his head. “Oh, it’s kind of funny, especially the part about you being executed for treason.”
“Maybe you don’t realize how serious this is,” Grant said. “Face it, I’m the only friend you’ve got right now.”
This time Alexander tipped his head back and forced a mocking laugh, ignoring the pain.
“You’d rather die in here than help me?”
“Oh, they’re not going to kill me,” Alexander said, “at least not right away.”
“Wouldn’t you rather they didn’t kill you at all?”
“You’d stab me in the back the moment you got the chance, and we both know it.”
“That’s just not true. I have nothing to gain by your death.”
Alexander found himself wishing that he could see this man’s colors, but even blind to Grant’s aura, Alexander knew better than to trust him. Still, he might stand a better chance of escaping if he had some help.