The Crystal Heart (3 page)

That morning I'd woken reluctantly, emerging from a wonderful dream. I'd had a few of those recently. In the dream I was flying high above the earth. Everything looked so beautiful – the pattern of field and forest, town and river, the sparkle of the sea, the tall peaks of mountains, the folds of hill and valley. I was dressed all in white like an angel, only I wasn't an angel – I was just me.

But I wasn't alone in the dream. Someone flew with me – a young man. I couldn't see him properly. I only had the merest sense of him, just a flash of colour: hair black as coal, skin pale as snow, lips red as blood. He didn't speak, and I didn't know who he was. Yet I knew, like you do in dreams, that he was important to me. I had no idea why, and it didn't seem to matter. We swooped and flew, swooped and flew, and all the while joy filled me. I was free –
we
were free. And I knew I'd never be alone again.

The dream always ended there. I would wake, filled with hope, and find myself once again in this place.
Yet, somehow, the power of the dream lingered, giving me renewed strength. This time the dream had been different. It hadn't ended on us swooping and flying. This time I'd heard a voice singing.
His
voice. I knew it was his voice, though I'd never heard it before. A voice deep and soft. And I'd heard the words of his song so clearly that I was able to write it down word for word:

There was so much sadness in his voice. In the dream I had wanted to speak, to say,
No, no, don't be like that. There is so much hope. We are free, don't you see? We can go where we like, do what we want
…

And then I awoke. To those walls and the knowledge that had sat like a stone in my heart ever since they told me what would happen when this day had ended. No, I would not waste the day thinking about it. I had to remember who I was. But what a hollow thing to say! Memory weakens in this place that hollows you out, though it is hard to forget completely. I could remember the halls of my people. The black ships and the grim-faced warriors. My hand closing over the crystal heart …

It lay in my palm, the crystal cool against my skin. Once it had belonged to my mother. It was the only thing
I had that belonged to her. So many times I'd look into its flashing depths and see what I'd want to see: escape, hope, home.
Love.
In the dream it was there, too, resting against my skin, under the white dress. Remembering this, I looked into the crystal. I saw nothing but my face, reflected in miniature a dozen times. There was no hope. No escape.

I heard his voice again. Their voices. So calm, despite their words. To them I was a prize, a pawn. And more than that now, it seemed.

Slipping the crystal heart back on its silver chain around my neck, I studied the room that had been my prison for ten long years. My eyes swept across the bed, the desk, the chair, the carpet, the small closet that was my washroom. I knew every bit of that place – every thread of the carpet, every scratch in the steel wall, every crack in the stone floor. I had memorised each brushstroke of the four pictures on the wall – scenes of spring, summer, autumn, winter. Every book on that shelf I'd read several times over, I knew every word in the notebooks I'd kept for so long, and every inch of the small portion of landscape I could see through the darkened window. How it distorted the life outside, the houses, the people far below scurrying like ants, and yet how beautiful it looked to me right then! For a moment it seemed like the best place on earth. Only a moment.

I was not resigned. I'd tried to be but I couldn't. Everything was taken from me, everything I cared about, everything I knew. At first I was angry, frightened. I tried to think of ways to escape. Nothing worked, and I grew desperate, numb. It was like that all the time, passing from
hope to fear to anger to numbness, then back to hope. Since I'd started having the dream, hope had returned, and these last couple of years, whenever I got a visit from one of
them
, I'd try my best to make them see that I was of no threat to them. I promised to persuade my father to bring lasting peace between our people. And for a while, I'd imagined it was working. That they were beginning to see they could one day let me go.

What a fool I was. They never intended on letting me go. There was nothing I could do. Nothing I …

What was that? The elevator already? No, it couldn't be – they said it wouldn't be till the night began its march to morning. The wolf-hour – the darkest time of night – and that's hours away yet.

But why should I have believed anything they said? They have lied to me over and over and over again, especially the one they call the Commander. He had never been unkind to me. Lately, he'd even said things were looking different – that treaties could be renegotiated and arrangements could be made. I had been co-operative – that would be taken into account. It was he who told me in the end what was to happen to me.

I heard the rattle of the platform coming to a stop. And all at once I felt as if a great burden had slid off my shoulders. I no longer had to fight. It was over. I stood there, straight and tall, ready to meet my fate with all the honour and grace my people would expect. But it wasn't the elevator that slid open. It was the small door of the shaft next to it, which housed the machine that brought up my meals. As I stared in numb perplexity, the door was pushed back and someone half-crawled, half-stumbled out,
scrambling almost immediately to his feet, revealing himself to be a tall young man with dishevelled black hair, dressed in the uniform of the Tower Guard, a ragged blindfold covering his eyes.

Why had they sent their assassin this way? ‘Is it part of their plan that I should be brought down by a man who can't even look at me before he takes me to my death?' I growled. ‘Is there no honour in your people at all?'

The man gasped and pulled off his blindfold, revealing a pair of long-lashed dark-brown eyes. He'd gone so pale I thought he was going to faint. A spot of blood had appeared on his lip where he'd bitten down on it. He stared at me and whispered, ‘It's
you
.'

I stared back at him. ‘Of course it's me. Who else were you expecting?'

‘You … You are a witch – the immortal witch of the Tower. So how can you also be …
her
?'

Against the whiteness of his skin, his hair was starkly black and his bloodied lips were scarlet. A shudder rippled through me as I remembered my dream. ‘What do you mean?' I said quietly.

Something flickered in his eyes. ‘You haven't turned me to stone.'

‘What?' My wonder was ebbing and I was beginning to think he was touched.

‘They said you would turn any who laid eyes on you to stone.' He shook his head. ‘I don't understand any of it. All I know is that you're just –' he swallowed – ‘you're just a girl.'

I couldn't help a bitter smile. ‘Is that what I am now? And who are
you
?'

‘Me? I'm – I'm Kasper. Kasper Bator.' Seeing my baffled expression, he added, ‘Nobody important.' He looked miserable. ‘I don't understand. Are you a witch?'

‘A witch?' I echoed. Inside me a little seed of hope was growing. Why he had come I had no idea, but I knew that I must not let this chance slip away. ‘Of course I'm not a witch. Though I've wished I was often enough. Is that what you've been told?'

‘Yes,' he breathed, staring at me. ‘An immortal
feya
witch who helped the Prince of Night.'

I gave a bitter laugh. ‘The Prince of Night has his own power. Why should he need a witch to help him?'

He flinched at this. ‘I don't know. It is what we have been told.'

‘And now?' I ask. ‘What do you think now?'

‘All I know is that I heard you …'

‘Please,' I urged him, ‘you heard me where?'

‘This afternoon – I heard the Commander speaking to you.'

‘What?'

‘I heard him say you were to die on the morning of your eighteenth birthday. And I heard
you
.' He looked at me wildly. ‘I heard you ask why you had to die …'

‘How can that be?' I asked. ‘The Commander told me that weeks ago.' I backed away from him. ‘Is this some kind of cruel hoax your people have devised?'

‘What?' The young man paled. ‘No. I swear by the Angels that I heard it today. When I was …' He passed a hand over his forehead, where beads of sweat had appeared. ‘I don't understand,' he said in a hollow voice.

‘Neither do I.'

‘Then it's true? They want to …'

I reached for the comfort of the crystal heart and tried not to tremble as I spoke. ‘Tomorrow, I am to die.'

‘Angels preserve us,' he burst out. ‘How can this be? If you are not the witch – then who are you? Why are you here?'

I looked at him, searching his face to see if he truly did not know. But all I saw was confusion and bewilderment.

Drawing myself up, I said, ‘I am Izolda, the only child of the Prince of Night, and I have been kept as a hostage in this Tower since my capture on my eighth birthday.'

‘No,' he breathed. ‘The Prince of Night had a child, yes, but she died when she was only …'

‘When she was only eight.'

‘Why has your father not –'

‘Why didn't he move heaven and earth to find me? Why didn't he let it be trumpeted everywhere that humans had stolen his only child?' I bit off the words. ‘He did not because he could not.'

‘Why?' he whispered.

‘My father knew that if he said one thing about it to anyone, or if he stirred one finger outside our country, the Supreme Council would kill me. That was the price they made him pay for the war he waged on your people. Those were the terms. My capture defeated him. My imprisonment has made him keep the peace – and the silence. He cannot ask for anyone's help. Not ever.'

The young man gave a heavy sigh. ‘Why do they want to kill you now after all this time?'

‘Some prophecy, I was told.'

‘What prophecy?'

‘I don't know. Oh, please, Guard Bator, whatever you were told about me, this is the truth – the absolute truth,' I cried. ‘Look into my eyes and tell me what you see.'

Our eyes met for a long moment. He gave a low groan and put his head in his hands. ‘In the Angels' name, what have we done?'

‘You have done nothing,' I said, recovering from that long glance which had goose-pimpled my skin. And the tremble started in me again, because whatever small respite this encounter had brought me, my fate had not changed. It was midnight, and in three and a half hours, I would be eighteen. And that would be the last morning I would ever see. The thought was so bitter that I could not stop a small cry escaping.

‘Princess, what is the matter?'

All of a sudden I was so angry that I wanted to scream, to hit him, to shake him till his teeth rattled in his head. Was he such a fool? Did he not understand? I managed to control myself enough to say, ‘In just a few hours I will be eighteen and I will die.'

‘No,' he said, absolutely calm. ‘Not while I can do something about it.'

I looked at him, my heart pounding with a hope I dared not express. ‘Why?'

‘Why what?'

‘Why would you help me?'

He looked straight at me, his gaze steady as rock, his voice quiet and clear. ‘Because I love my country, Princess. I love it too much to want to stain it with innocent blood.'

And that's when I knew without a doubt that magic is real, even in this place, and that it had come to my rescue at last.

But fear dies hard. ‘I've been shut up here for ten years. Escape is impossible.'

‘I know where all the guards are,' he said, smiling, and gestured to the dumb waiter. ‘We'll have to leave the way I came. I'm afraid the space is a bit tight, but there's no other way. And we have to leave now.'

I looked at him. He was so determined, so certain of himself, and it scared me. What if he was leading me into a trap? What if he was just giving me false hope?

He must have understood the expression in my eyes, because he said, ‘I swear by all that is holy to both you and me that I will get you to safety. But we do not have much time. Please, gather what you need and let us go.'

I nodded and hurriedly went to my drawers. ‘Where are we going?' I asked. ‘I don't know what to take.'

‘Take only the strictest necessaries, Princess.' He flashed a little smile. ‘A change of clothes – a cloak, some boots,
if you have them. The slippers you're wearing won't last two minutes out there.'

‘I don't have any boots.'

‘Never mind.' He smiled more broadly. ‘We'll find you some in the scullery. Er, nothing too fine or fancy, Princess,' he added as I lifted out a silk dress.

‘Oh.' Feeling like a fool, I quickly put the dress aside and selected some underclothes, a clean shirt, a nightdress and a thick skirt. As I fetched my cloak I thought,
How can he smile
?
Does he have no sense of the danger we face?

‘Here, take this,' he said, giving me his blindfold. Seeing my confused expression, he explained. ‘Wear it like a mask around the bottom of your face so only your eyes are showing. Pull up the hood of your cloak, hold it tight around you, carry that bundle as though it were laundry. There you are – you could pass for one of the Magus's servants at a quick glance.'

I did as I was told. Reckless he might be, but slow-thinking he was not. He proved that even more in the next few seconds. He crossed to my dressing table and picked up my hairbrush. ‘You permit, Princess?' he said as he extracted three hairs from it.

I nodded dazedly.

Going to the diamond-paned window, he pulled off one boot and brought the steel-capped toe down hard on one of the glass panes. He had to do it twice before it smashed in a jagged pattern.

‘What are you doing?'

‘We don't want them to think we escaped via the dumb waiter,' he said. ‘We want them to think you escaped a different way.'

‘But that hole isn't big enough to let a mouse through! And there's a sheer drop below. They won't be fooled for an instant.'

He smiled again. ‘Wait and see.' He rummaged in his pocket and brought out a small dark-coloured shell. Placing it on the windowsill, he arranged the strands of my hair in a crisscross pattern above the shell, two vertical, one horizontal. The redness of the hair shone bright against the dark shell. He looked at me. ‘They keep telling us about the black ships.'

My scalp tingled. The hairs represented masts. The shell was the hull of a boat. It would look like a spell. ‘But they know I'm not really a witch. And even if I could use magic, it does not work here.'

‘You are of the blood of Night,' he said with a shrug. ‘How can they be sure?'

He was right. It would at least give them pause. For the first time, I felt my own smile awakening in response to his.

As Kasper stepped into the dumb waiter and beckoned for me to follow, I took a last look over my shoulder at the room that had been my home for so long. Oh, there were no regrets. How could there be? Was I anxious? Yes. Afraid? Yes. But I was also hopeful. Exhilarated. And I even felt a strange kind of peace. For even if I were to die that night, I would not be alone. Not anymore. And so, with a lift of the heart and a catch in my throat, I turned back to Kasper and said, ‘What are we waiting for, then? Let's go.'

The platform was, as he'd said, a tight fit, and we were unavoidably crammed up against each other, our limbs touching, our hearts beating close together. But I didn't
have time to think about it because the heavily laden platform plunged so swiftly that it was all I could do not to cry out. We landed almost instantly, with a bone-jarring jolt, and emerged into a stone cellar that suddenly brought back a half-forgotten smell to me – the smell of rock …

Cautious not to linger, we hurried through the cellar and into a cool pantry. No one was about. He stopped briefly to grab some items off the shelves, and we were about to hurry on when a large dog trotted in, obviously intent on raiding the pantry too. My heart skipped a beat, for dogs can smell even the slightest trace of
feyin
blood, and I have more than a trace from my father's side, though my mother was human. Its hackles rose, it stared at us with wild yellow eyes and would have no doubt raised the alarm if Kasper hadn't grabbed a ham hanging from the ceiling and thrown it across the room. The dog snatched the ham and raced off to devour it in peace.

Breathing a sigh of relief, we slipped out into a scullery, where we snatched up a pair of shabby boots that were a little big but not enough to be a real problem. Then we passed through a doorway into a back courtyard, and from there to a kitchen garden, through a gate and onto a path that wound down to a large wooden building. ‘That's the main boatshed,' Kasper whispered. ‘There'll be someone on guard there, but I'll find a way. Stay here, behind this bush.'

I crouched there for what seemed like hours, my palms sweating, my heart beating so loud I was sure it could be heard. It was the first time I had been out in the open air for so long, and it was a shock. The night was dark. There was no moon – only stars, pricking the sky like tiny silver
arrows, and the world suddenly felt so very big and I so very small with no stone wall of tower or cave to protect me.

Protect
me? What was I thinking? Had my long years as a prisoner turned my insides to jelly and my mind to mush? I had escaped at last and here I was yearning for the prison again!

No, not the prison, my heart told me. I was yearning for a much older memory. Images of my father's underground halls came flooding back to me. The deep lake that lies at the border of my lands, the beauty of the salt crystal caves, sparkling like stars, the muted light that is made part of shadow, part of golden glow, the little waterfalls like rippling silver hair, the humming industry of the salt mines, the brightness of the underground city, with its salt stone spires and towers and glasshouses full of flourishing crops, my people dancing like fireflies, and my splendid father, on his crystal throne, smiling as I played around his feet. Even the memory of the unpleasant creatures that skulked the darkness beyond our city, such as the carnivorous cave goblins, couldn't blunt my longing.

I nearly screamed as a hand fell on my shoulder. ‘It's only me,' came Kasper's voice. ‘I've found us a boat. Come quick.'