The Drowned Woods (31)
“I will?” said Fane with mild surprise.
“The boar is magic,” said Renfrew. “You are magic.”
“I have magic,” said Fane. “There’s a difference.”
“Is that how you made coin as a fighter?” asked Gryf, interested.
Fane let out a heavy breath. “It was supposed to be, until these two found me.”
“And how are we to return once we’re done?” asked Mer. “Are we going back through the caves?”
Renfrew gave her an opaque smile. “Don’t I always have two ways out?”
“Treacherous sea caves,” she said. “Potential magical traps. And the chief of all boars guarding the Well.” She folded her hands beneath her chin, leaning on them indolently. “And here I thought this might prove difficult.”
CHAPTER 9
THE FIRST TIME Mer saw Prince Garanhir execute a traitor, she had been only ten.
After two years living at the castell, she knew how to move through it unseen and unnoticed. She was even better at it than Renfrew was—mostly because no one gave a child dressed in servant’s livery a second glance. She could go where she wanted, when she wanted. With one exception.
The dungeons were barred to all but the guards and the prince’s personal servants. But Renfrew could come and go as he pleased; there was a ring of keys on his belt that would let him walk through any door. Mer thought it rather unfair, as he was training her, that he would keep such keys to himself. After all, if he wanted her to be his student, then surely she should go where he went.
So one day, she stole those keys.
Renfrew had been schooling her on the history of the cantrefs when a fire broke out in the stables. Forehead creasing with irritation, Renfrew went to the window and peered downward. Their lessons were always in the west-facing tower, where Renfrew kept his books and his papers. His desk was always fastidiously neat, save for the letters that the servants dropped off. Those were balanced precariously on the edge, wax seals bright red in the sunlight. As Renfrew walked around the desk, his sleeve caught those letters and a few fluttered to the ground. With a sigh, he knelt to retrieve them.
As Renfrew reached for one letter fallen beneath his desk, something glittered at his belt. Mer’s eyes fell on the circle of keys, greedy as a magpie. Her small fingers reached out and unhooked the keys, tucking them inside her shirt while Renfrew wasn’t looking.
She half expected Renfrew to see the theft, to gently chide her. But he merely patted her head with one large hand, told her to continue her reading, then strode from the room.
Leaving Mer alone—with all the keys to the castell.
She could go anywhere, do anything, if only for a few hours. She would put the keys back under Renfrew’s desk, of course. Hopefully he would think he had merely dropped them.
The door that led down to the dungeons was on the western edge of the fortress. It took a few minutes to find the right key—she kept listening for anyone happening by, and her heart was a hammer inside her chest. Finally, the latch turned and she heaved the door open.
The descent made her dizzy; the stairs were circular, winding down and down into the depths of the fortress. Finally, she came around the last bend in the stairs and found herself in a shadowy corridor. A single torch flickered along the wall. Mer remained still, ears straining. She’d heard tales of the criminals brought to the dungeons. Children often delighted in stories that would make the adults shudder and tell them to hush. Part of Mer wanted to see if they were true.
She heard the voices while creeping around a corner. They echoed, hollow and watery, off the damp walls. Fingers knotted in her own shirt, Mer walked on the balls of her feet like Renfrew had shown her—quiet, ready to run if needed.
“—cannot tell me.”
That was the prince. She had only ever spoken to Garanhir a handful of times, but of course she knew his voice. He would say a few words at feasts, at holidays, and talk with Renfrew in the corridors. He had a voice better meant for bards than royalty—it was soft, almost musical in its intonations. She had always wondered why he didn’t shout commands like princes in tales—but now, listening to the melodic cadence of his words, she felt rooted in place.
“I have told you!” A second man’s voice. This one Mer also knew, if only in passing. He was Renfrew’s spy, sent to the eastern border wars. He was one of the few people who’d always greet Mer instead of ignoring the child lurking in Renfrew’s shadow. A few times, he had brought her a sweet or a flower. “Gwynedd will not go to war with Annwvyn. The royal family won’t risk it—not for any alliance.”
There was a dull sound, like flesh hitting flesh. It took Mer a moment to understand that the prince must have struck the spy. She edged forward, her body pressed against the wall, until she peered around the corner.
The spy was strung up by his wrists, spattered with sweat and—blood? Yes, Mer thought. It was indeed blood. Her first time seeing so much of it.
Prince Garanhir had dark, sleek hair and broad shoulders. From the back, the little she could see of his face looked pale and cold. “That is why I told you to take other measures,” he said quietly.
The spy spat on the floor. “No. I’ll not do that, not for you, not for Gwaelod—”
Garanhir moved so quickly that Mer almost didn’t catch the strike. One moment, the prince stood before his prisoner—and then he lunged forward and buried a knife to the hilt through the spy’s left eye.