Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 49

My stomach is a tight knot of nerves, and despite the cool, mouldy air in my cage, I am sweating. I sit on the wooden pallet, my damaged foot raised awkwardly to lift the weight off it, but it is hard to stay still.

Picking at the thread of the bandage on my hand, I wonder what kind of dangerous plan Tug is concocting to get me out of here. He has never trusted the Prince, and after what happened in the throne room, I can't say I'm sorry for it. But he is taking an enormous risk just staying in the Ruby Palace. His presence here fills me equally with relief and dread.

And what about the Prince? What was that performance in the throne room, if it was a performance? All my previous fears about the Prince's memories coming back and transforming his personality wrestle inside me. Either way, Jakut is a long way from controlling the situation.

I force myself to stop fidgeting, breathe deeply and focus through the pain and anxiety. Eyes closed, I glide through the mind-world, move up the palace levels headed for the Prince's chambers. I want to discover if he's still fighting for us, and against Strik. The only way to be sure is to root around his recent memories.

It is some minutes before I come across the mind shaped like a great wall of some ancient myth. A wall built to keep out demons; a myth told to scare children. Even exhausted, bones aching, pain constant, moving through the mind-world is a hundred times easier than it was when I first left Blackfoot Forest. It is like a muscle that has grown strong from weeks of practice.

I slip inside the Prince's mind without effort, skim across his recent memories until I find one where he and Calmi are alone.

Calmi stands by the door of a lavish suite with enormous wood carvings, purple pillows strewn across six low ottomans, blue hand-painted patterns on the walls. The Prince is twisting an ornament in his hands, a golden filigree egg. He watches Calmi and she stares back.

"If you want to pass Grandfather's test," she says, "Mirra must hang."

"It's not an option."

"Then he will know his voice wields no power over you. He will not hesitate to get rid of you. The Queen and the heir she carries will take your place. And Caruca will be under his rule."

"You are asking me to make an impossible choice."

"There is no choice. Your emotions are getting in your way."

"Sacrifice one to save many?" Jakut says, scornfully.

"As you did with your father."

"This is different. My father was not innocent."

"It is not different. The only difference is the way you feel about her. Grandfather is suspicious—because of your spiritual cleansing after you massacred his men, and now the missing Duke, and the escaped prisoner. Unless she hangs with the others, you will never get close enough to kill him."

"I cannot do it."

"But you must."

A shout from somewhere near my cage yanks my attention out of the Prince's mind. I blink at the murky darkness, noting the smell of burning that lingers on the air.

The torch on the wall outside my cage has been snuffed out. There comes another gruff shout, then a sound of a fist hitting flesh. A sword clangs against stone, followed by a crack. I crawl off the wooden pallet, and wriggle across the cage floor on my stomach. More grunts, gurgles, sounds of punching, kicking. I pull myself up to the bars and squint at the faint edges of shadow.