“Tell them who you are?”
“Of course not.”
“Of course not.”
She scowled. “Ask him. No one was with me.”
The prince looked up. Tapping the flat of the blade against the tops of his fingers. “Well?”
“That's true enough,” the mercenary said. “We watched her in the village. Two others were after her, when she was at the inn. She fought them, ran into the forest. From there it was easy to track her. Found her in a cave along the cliffs. No one with her.”
“So you don't think she's lying.”
“I never said that.”
“No.”
“All I know is she was alone when I found her. We didn't see anyone with her in the village.”
“What about the night before?”
He shook his head. “Didn't hear anything then. A runner came when she was spotted near the town and I went.”
She scowled. Wondering who had seen her, who had called it in to him. How long he'd been watching her while she wasted her time with the others and then stumbled headlong into the wilderness, with no plan and no direction. All that work climbing out and digging those steps and just days later she was back where she had begun as if nothing had changed.
He looked back at her. “You see? I have eyes everywhere. We will find out who you talked to.”
“There's nothing to find out.”
“Then who killed the guards at the Trappers' Gate?”
A piece turning. The stones of some mosaic that devoured the world. Now comprising the world itself and all of them bent to its will. These unknowing pieces. She felt that it all must have danced on her face and she closed her eyes and when she opened them again there was a darkness at the corners.
He stood slowly, put the knife back on his belt. The soft sound of the metal whispering against the leather. Then he walked over to her, turned his head away. So close she could smell him, could hear his breathing. He motioned to the guard near the door, beckoning him over, then turned his head with his hair hanging in his face, his twisted lips almost against her cheek.
“Don't lie to me,” he said. “You aren't any good at it.”
The guards took her into the house, the old wooden doors groaning as they pushed them open. Inside everything cast in shadow and dust. White cloths hanging over the abandoned furniture. A long dining room with a table and chairs, all covered, leading out to a sitting room with a massive stone fireplace on her right. The stone chimney she'd seen outside rising up and through the roof. On the far wall the doors into the kitchen. Shelves along that wall with cups and plates covered in cobwebs, a candelabra standing with the wax candles half melted and drooping.
He led the way and they went left, through a door into a smaller sitting room. All around on the walls a stained painting on paper, a scene of a knight fighting a red dragon. Standing with the dragon towering over him, a lance in its side, the knight's horse lying behind him and only a sword in his hand. Behind him the city was on fire and people fled, but he alone stayed. She looked to see the crest on his shield to find out which legend it was, but could not make it out in the shadows before they were through the room and another door.
A dark and twisting staircase beyond. His footsteps hollow in the shadows. The wooden stairs against cold stone walls, circling around her. Going slowly up the tower on the western side of the house, with light falling in from the old slot windows. The kind designed for archers, though she was sure this house had never been held against a siege. The torch sconces on the wall, also covered in spiderwebs and unused for a long time.
The stairs went around twice and then opened into the room at the top of the tower. Perhaps ten feet in every direction, perfectly circular. The ceiling overhead of wood with exposed beams running up to the peak. The windows here much larger but the shutters closed and light just filtering in through the cracks.
There was nothing else in the room. More of the neglected torch sconces, the dirt and grime of the years, but nothing more. No chairs, beds, dressers. She thought at one time there must have been, for this felt like a lord's home and this was not a defensive tower. Just another bedroom, perhaps a status symbol. But it was empty now and she did not know if the people who had lived here were dead or had simply left, but no one had slept in the room for years, perhaps generations.
He opened his arms, spun in a slow circle. Smiling but not kindly. Then he walked over to a window and slammed one of the shutters open, striking it hard with the flat of his hand. It cracked loudly against the stone outside and the light fell into the room. She felt a clutching in her stomach as she saw that there were bars on the windows. He pulled his hand back in through them, grabbed one and turned to her, putting a show into tugging on it.
“Stronger here,” he said. “Don't think I didn't check.”
“Please,” she said.
“What? You don't like it? This was a beautiful house once.” Then he laughed and let go of the bar, walking toward her and stopping with his arms folded over his chest. “But don't worry, you won't be here long. They're coming to pick you up. I just need to make sure they know where you are. Can't have you running around the forest again.”
The feeling in her chest tightened even more. Every time she blinked she could see her husband's bones, molding in the damp next to her where she sat chained to the wall. Her eyes burning.
“Just one thing,” he said. Stepping closer. Something in his look that was real, that was not just a game. She hated that she could read that in him, but she could.
“Please,” she said again.
“What did you use to do it? When you got out?”
It was so dry in the room. That heavy smell of disuse. The wind ripped through the tops of the trees outside and she thought she felt the tower sway with them. She stumbled, but he didn't.
“Tell me,” he said.
She thought of the man in the dark. On the other side of the pit, emerging from that darkness to smile and help her climb. Have you heard, he said.
“A spoon,” she said. “I used a spoon.”
He looked at her a long moment. Not even blinking.
The mountains fall, he said. They always fall.
“A spoon.”
“Yes.”
They always fall.
He stepped back quietly, walked over to the shutter he'd opened. Reached carefully through the bars and pulled it closed again. A slight tapping as it met the stone.
“It was just me,” she said. “It was all just me.”
“You and a spoon.”
“Yes.”
He sighed. “It doesn't matter if you lie anymore. You're here now and that's the end of it. You can tell me what happened or you can lie and you're going to the same end either way.” He walked to the door, the guard stepping out before him. Turned back with his hand on the frame to look at her.
The world was cracking, she thought. Seeing the servant girl screaming in the flames. It consumed her, that white dress blowing in the wind and smoke. For all she thought she was doing to save them, to stop the madness and the looming war, maybe she was just killing them. Just as surely, but doing it one at a time. Killing them all and not getting any closer to saving this land her father had built.
“He didn't know,” she choked out at last. The tower swaying with every gust now. She felt she was going to fall and sat down on the stone floor. It was cold and hard and she could still feel it moving but at least she wouldn't fall as far. That dress billowing in the fire. “Just tell me you won't hurt him. Do whatever you want with me, but tell me you won't hurt him.”