She shook her head. “He had so much old magic. He’d worked for the old king, and the old king had gifted him some of those hoarded spells. He denied it, but I’m sure.”
“Why did the Olds destroy all those magic books? What did Henrick tell you about when I was tortured?” Did she betray my birth parents? Every time I remembered a wisp of the memory of running through those tunnels, my chest tightened with fear all over again.
Alis had been the source of so much cruelty in my life. It wouldn’t have surprised me to know she’d turned that first terrible page.
Alis let out a laugh, as cold and dismissive as ever even if we were both sitting in the straw in a rotting cage. “So many questions. Your father was so greedy with his secrets and I don’t think I owe you any more generosity.”
“You keep trying to convince me that you have all the answers and that you can give them to me if I’m willing to pay your price. But I’m not convinced.”
She shrugged. “Fine. I simply don’t think you’re going to have time to teach me once we leave the dungeons. Without the ability to change my face, Pend will find me again; I can’t imagine you and I will last long before we part ways, hm?”
“For some reason, I don’t trust you,” I said crisply.
“Honor, I’m your mother. Imperfect though I may have been. You don’t want to see me strung up, do you?”
“You’re not really my mother. You never loved me.” And you can hang.
“People seem to think that mothers always love their children. That’s just not true. You were always a useful item to me, Honor. A treasure, in a way. I would have felt that way about any other child I carried.”
“Did you just carry me or are you my mother biologically?”
“That would be telling. And we already established that I’m going to need something from you. Tell me.”
“Fine,” I said. I wasn’t sure I could trust anything she said, but I hoped I could piece together the truth from her lies. “You tell me about life and my mother. My first one. And I’ll teach you the spell.”
“Spell first.”
“I don’t trust you. You kidnapped me, tortured me. And before that, you told me burnt orange was my color. You can tell me first, then I’ll show you.”
She waved her hand airily. “Parenting is hard. Nobody does it perfectly. But fine, I suppose I do owe you… a little… and we’ll see if you live up to that name your father gave you.”
“I’ll give you the spell if you tell me the truth for once,” I said.
“I am your mother,” she said. “As much as I know you wish it weren’t true.”
“What’s my real name?”
Then she said, “Your father didn’t want to tell me what he was going to call you. He didn’t trust me, you see—not with his most precious little treasure, even though he needed me. But he did in the end.”
“What is it?”
“Your name was Elora.”
Elora. It didn’t feel like my name, like any name I’d ever heard before. This entire conversation felt surreal. For all I knew, she was making all of this up.
“He didn’t want anyone to know about this child, this heir. You see, there had been attempts to kill him and his wife. He wanted to hide an heir that no one had the chance to harm.”
“So he had other children?” I asked sharply. He could have been King Pend himself or one of the lords or one of the dragon knights that served beneath them.
She gave me that sly smile again. “I can’t tell you too much, greedy little girl. I can’t give it away until I’m free. But at any rate, his wife understood the necessity.”
“Am I Pend’s daughter, then?” The thought that I could be Jaik’s sister made me want to retch.
Could I be the daughter of the first king, the one who had been killed by the Scourge so many years ago? But when I remembered those flashes I’d seen of the hallway, of the fight… it hadn’t been Scourge who were chasing us.
It had been soldiers. Knights. Assassins.
She let out a sharp laugh. “I’ll tell you the whole story, my dear, when the two of us get out of here safely.”
I was very tempted to murder her and bury her body in the straw. But I refrained. I thought I was being a very nice person and also, I still hoped for more information. She’d asked if I could really stand to see her hung when she was my mother; I thought I could manage. But I needed her for a little while longer.
I taught her to do the spell, and inspiration struck me along the way.
“Show me my father’s face, or his wife’s,” I said. When I tried to remember them, to pull their faces out of my dreams, they seemed strangely faceless. Besides, I’d been so small; in my dreams, I’d glimpsed my parents’ mid-sections better than their faces: the white of my mother’s gown and the gold belt that held it together with her long forest-green sweater, my father’s hand resting on the ornate hilt of a dagger, twisted with jewels. I couldn’t remember the color of those gems in that dark hallway.
The rest of that night, I slipped in and out of dreams, in and out of memory. I remembered our failed escape through the labyrinth, and my parents fighting to the death to protect me. But that didn’t make any sense. Were those people just fighters that Pend or another lord had left me with? I couldn’t piece together the broken pieces of the puzzle, which seemed to jut into my sleep then recede.
And I remembered the torture in the dungeon. I remembered the knight who loomed so frightening in my other nightmares. I remembered how much agony I’d been in before he pressed fingers into my artery, and the darkness claimed me. Sometimes the voices of the other men rose sharply as if they were angry.
Then I remembered him waking me. I’d pulled away from him, terrified. The look on his face had been wounded, shamed. “I’m here to help you,” he’d promised.
“Where are my parents?” But I’d known. I’d seen them fall and I knew that they were dead.
“You have to get out of here. I’m going to help you. I’m loyal to your father.” He’d reached out and offered me his hand. I was terrified, but I figured he was my one chance to get out of there So I’d fled with him.
He’d taken me to a passageway that led out of the dungeon. When we walked out, I’d blinked, stunned to be in a room soaked with harsh, bright light. Outside the windows were white-cloaked hills.
I hadn’t understood then. But now I did.
This was Teris’s private dungeon, the one where he’d kept Lynx, far away from his other prisoners. My mind whirled, trying to make sense of it all.
Alis tried to say something to me, but I tried to let myself fall back into my vision. I wanted all the answers, wanted to understand my dreams.
The knight had sent me on alone. I’d fled down long passages alone, repeating his words over and over again in my head.
He told me to go to the end of the passage, to enter the water, to swim to safety through the conduits that carried the water through the city. He told me that there were tunnels so narrow that I’d have to hold my breath to swim through underwater. He cautioned me to keep my left hand on the wall so I could find my way back up again. I had been so terrified.