The Golden Apple (17 page)

She smelled sawdust, and guessed she was facing a training area for Jasper’s knights. On the far side stood the castle tower she’d seen from the forest, at the center of the stronghold. She stood and ran, straight into the open, forcing herself to trust her spell would keep her unseen.

She heard the thunder of invisible boots on wood, saw the glow of torches being lit with invisible hands all along the guards’ walk. With every step she steeled herself for her own magic to fail, for someone to see her and raise the cry. To notice the soft sand and wood shavings she threw up as she sprinted.

At last she was in the deep shadows of the tower. It stank of smoke. Her fingers came away from its wall gritty with soot. The whole tower had been burned.

She remembered what Rane had told her. This was Soren’s handiwork.

A shout rang out, and men turned the corner, running back across the training ring. They spread out and slowed as they found nothing.

“Look for blood,” one called out. “There was a hit.”

Kayla clutched the apple more tightly, her pulse jumping at the sight of so many men intent on finding her. Intent on doing her harm.

She felt like a princess, suddenly, not a witch. Certainly not a hero.

But Soren De’Villier was already in harm’s way. And he had no one else until Rane had faced an even bigger threat than Jasper. And if Rane could take on Eric alone, she could handle this. She had to.

She stayed close to the tower wall and moved fast as she could away from them, following the tower’s circular base.

The entrance to the stronghold loomed ahead, huge gates secure. To her left, another large building rose up, and she guessed it was Jasper’s main residence. It had a more refined look than the rest of the stronghold, the double doors made of carved wood and some of the windows elegantly arched.

A cobbled drive led up to it.

“There is no one here!” The shout was almost in her ear, and Kayla dropped to the floor, her legs collapsing under her in shock.

A man shimmered into visibility, an elbow’s nudge away, his head turned over his shoulder.

Another man appeared a little way away and walked over to join him.

Biting back a whimper, Kayla saw it was Jasper himself, and she lifted up into a crouch.

“What do you think happened to him?” Jasper’s voice was edged with fear, and his hands clenched and unclenched on his belt.

The man who’d shouted said nothing, and a look passed between them.

Up on the guards’ walk, there were suddenly twenty men, but one made for the nearest ladder, his movements labored. “Did you find her?” His voice was hoarse, querulous.

“Her?” Jasper looked up, his body tense. “I thought it was De’Villier.” He spoke as if to a child.

“It was a woman.” There was a snap of temper in the statement. “I saw her for a brief moment before she was hit…” The man reached the top of the ladder and in the orange glow of the torchlight, Kayla could see more than half his face was burnt and twisted. His shoulder twitched in an uncontrolled spasm.

There was a silence between Jasper and his man.

“Did you see a woman?” Jasper asked eventually, his voice low.

His lieutenant shook his head. “I saw a shadow moving, I’ll give him that. Whether it was a man, a woman, or something strange from that god-forsaken forest, I don’t know. The two men who went to find Travis said they met a woman and a monster in the forest. It might be her.”

“Stop whispering. I’m injured, not stupid.” The man swung down onto the ladder, his body jerking with each painful step.

“Keep looking for someone, or something. No sleeping on duty tonight.” Jasper spoke fast, to get in everything before the man reached the ground. “I’ll take my brother inside. And if it
is
De’Villier, for heaven sake don’t kill him. We need him alive.”

His lieutenant lifted his hand in salute.

Jasper started forward, broke his stride and turned. “Check Soren. If it
was
De’Villier, that’s the first place he’ll head.”

The man nodded, and stepped back onto Kayla’s foot, then spun on his heel, grinding her toes into the ground. He frowned, looked down to see what he was standing on.

Kayla bit her hand to stop herself crying out, refusing to even breathe.

The man continued on, and Kayla hopped her first few steps after him until she got her fingers in her pocket for the apple to do its work.

She would have taken the crushed toes, apple or no, because at last, someone was leading her to what she’d come for.

It was time to stop being a princess.

Chapter Twenty-three

W
ater dripped from the green slime coating the ceiling and echoed strangely in the passage. It drowned out any noise Kayla made as she followed Jasper’s man ever downward and she was grateful for it.

He walked fast, forcing her to skip around puddles slippery with fungus and lengthen her stride to stay within sight of his torchlight.

Whatever damage the fire had done to the above-ground part of the tower, the tunnel under it was untouched. The walls were streaked bright green, orange and purple with lichen, and the air was heavy with the musty smell of stale water and spores.

The passage twisted in a wide spiral. Jasper’s man slowed at the turn ahead, and Kayla heard a sound, a creak of hinges and the squeak of metal rubbing metal.

He lifted the torch higher, and Kayla trailed after him, keeping close to the wall and as far back into the darkness as she could.

They came suddenly and without warning into a large room, rough enough to be a natural cave.

As she stepped into the chamber, Kayla felt a strange sense of being stripped, as if she’d lost something. Her hand went to the apple, but it was in her pocket, and still she could not shake the feeling that something had been taken from her.

There was another clink of metal, and Jasper’s man strode forward, torch high.

A man hung from chains by his arms on the far wall, only just reaching the ground with the balls of his bare feet. His face was drawn, hollow, the skin tight around his eyes. His unkempt beard highlighted the stark relief of his cheekbones.

Kayla realized Jasper had narrowed Soren’s life to a choice between excruciating pain in his arms and shoulders, or his feet.

“Finally remembered to feed me, did you?” His voice was hoarse, cracked, and he did not look up. His features were a knife stab to her gut. So like Rane, but so gaunt, so beaten down, she could barely look at him.

“No. Just checking up on you.”

“Haven’t gone anywhere.” He wracked out a cough, and Kayla realized he was trying to laugh.

“When last was someone down here?” Jasper’s man moved the torch closer to Soren, peering at him.

“Can’t remember.” It came out as a whisper.

The man cursed under his breath, jamming the torch into a stand in the center of the room. A bucket with a cup hooked to the rim stood next to it, and he scooped out some water, and walked over to Soren.

As the cup touched his lips, Soren lifted his head, his eyes dark in his pale face. He swallowed, his throat working as if he were trying to deal with a piece of steak rather than a few sips of water.

“Your friend is quiet,” he said, looking straight at Kayla.

She froze, her heart jumping in shock. How could he see her? She looked down, stared in horror at her hands. How could
she
see them? As she leapt for the safety of the shadows, her own shadow stretched, then shrank against the cave wall.

“Friend?” The man turned, looking towards the entrance, and Kayla kept very still. After a moment, he turned back to Soren. “What friend?”

“Thought I saw…” Soren shook his head as if to clear it, then moved forward eagerly for another sip of water.

He gulped it down, but when he lifted his eyes, he searched for her, his gaze moving from the wall where he’d seen her shadow to the corners of the room.

She recalled the sense of loss as she’d come into the room, wondered if Nuen had cast a spell across the entrance, blocking her ability to call magic.

That she’d felt it, felt naked without it, made her go still inside. The wild magic was already becoming part of her. Unconsciously, her fingers went to her wrist, stroked up her inner arm.

“I’ll send down some food. Jasper needs you alive.” The man hooked the cup back on the rim of the bucket. Lifted the torch.

Soren’s eyes glittered as the flames leapt, his gaze fixed on the light.

She realized he wanted to plead with the man to leave it behind. To not leave him in darkness. His mouth worked, but he would not allow the words out.

Jasper’s man walked towards the passageway, then hesitated. She felt a shiver of unease as he did a last survey of the room, his gaze sliding over her. He turned and walked out without another word. Without a backward glance. The light faded, then winked out.

Kayla waited while the sound of his footsteps became faint, then waited a few minutes more. She could take no chances. There had been something about the way his eyes skipped over the corner where she’d crouched that made her heart beat hard and quick.

“Are you going to kill me?” The whisper was hoarse, eerie, in the darkness. “Whoever you are?”

She stood. “I’m here to get you out, not harm you.” With total darkness pressing all around, even her whisper sounded loud. She lifted her hands, wished for a light. Then swore as none appeared.

She’d forgotten there was an enchantment on this cave.

“Are you a woman?” He sounded disbelieving.

“Kayla of Gaynor.” She took a tentative step forward, wondered how Soren was still sane being kept in utter darkness.

“Kayla of Gaynor.” He spoke her name as if in a dream. “I have gone mad.” He rattled his chains and let out a cry of anguish. “I have fought it, but it has finally won.”

Kayla stumbled across to him, hands in front of her, and touched his shoulder. Curled her fingers around his upper arm.

He went still, his whole body tense.

“I am not here to harm you, I swear.” Kayla fumbled in her pocket for the apple, wondered if Nuen’s enchantment would affect it. It seemed to her intrinsically magical, older than the sky, and the earth and the wild magic Ylana had told her about.

She lifted it up. “Rane—”

“What do you know of Rane?” Soren’s voice echoed harsh and over-loud in the chamber. Under her fingers, his muscles were hard as iron.

“I know…” Kayla trailed off. Anything she said about Rane would give her away. She had no wish to expose herself, in the dark, in this strangely intimate position, to a stranger.

A stranger who knew Rane far better than she.

She blocked out her first thought of him, face above hers in the firelight, the warm flame-glow tricking her into thinking the heat in his eyes meant they were one. A team.

Her anger rose up, hot as it had been this morning, at his leaving her. She pushed it aside, remembered how he’d looked the moment he’d run at the troll, blue blade gleaming.

“He is as true as his blade.”

Under her hand, Soren relaxed a little.

“I have something here. A golden apple. I’m going to press it against you. It may heal you, if the spell Nuen cast in this chamber hasn’t stripped it of its power.”

“Spell?” As he asked the question, she pressed the apple against his skin.

As its cool, hard surface touched him, he gasped in reaction, and she remembered how she felt at the foot of the glass mountain, as the apple had healed the broken bones in her feet and legs.

She heard the faintest scuffle of sound behind her, such as men would make running in the dark, and suddenly blue light flooded the chamber, blinding her.

She cried out, pushing the apple even harder against Soren, her other arm coming up to shield her eyes.

Then she used her body to block Soren from anyone watching from the entrance to the massive room, felt for Soren’s ragged pants, and slipped the apple into his pocket.

“Who are you?” His voice was quiet.

“Well spoken.” A voice came from the entrance, and slowly, blessedly, the intensity of the light dimmed. “I am interested to know the answer to that question, too.”

Chapter Twenty-four

T
he leaping blue flame shrunk to the size of a man’s head and hovered in the center of the room. It cast an eerie glow over the chamber.

Nuen stood just within the entrance, long staff in hand. He was flanked by Jasper and the man Kayla had followed earlier.

Kayla saw Nuen was panting, his face slick with sweat. She wondered if it was from his run down the passage or the strain of manipulating the blue light.

A chain clinked beside her, and she turned her head, looked straight into Soren’s eyes.

He was staring at her, but although he was still limp in his chains, a vitality radiated from him that hadn’t been there before she’d touched him with the apple.

“Well, who are you?” Jasper spoke, harsh and impatient.