Shadow Weaver (Back on Wattpad 2020!)

Chapter 50

I scratch up dirt from between the stones in the floor and rub the damp grain between my finger and thumb. Then I add the tiny ball to the fragments lined up on the end plank of the cage pallet. Eight pieces of stone dust and dirt. I'm uncertain how much time has passed, but for every approximate hour, I've added another piece.

What I do know is time is running out. The all-night sun may only be a couple of weeks away, but the days do not yet stretch so long that they can elude night altogether.

Soon after Sixe left, one of the guards roused and staggered off for help. The soldier with the rumpled ear-skin who wanted me to crawl to the throne room arrived. While his unit carried the unconscious guard to the army infirmary, rumpled-skin rattled the bars, spitting and cursing and promising me he would be standing in the front row at the hanging, applauding my death. Curled on the pallet with my back to him, I was thankful this time that Strik was the only one with a key to my cage.

Since then, the last few hours have been uneventful. If waiting to die could ever be considered a non-event. The cold, the pain, the hunger and exhaustion of my body are excruciating. But the real nightmare is agonising over how I will never have said goodbye to Ma and Pa. I will never have thanked them for everything they gave up to keep me safe. I will never be able to explain to Kel why I didn't make it back with Tug.

Because Tug will make it back to Lyndonia. Neither he nor the Prince are going to get themselves killed trying to save me. When the guards come, I will take Calmi's potion. Oh, she has been clever, giving me a choice when she knows it is no choice at all.

There is every possibility the potion is Blue Death or a poison she made to kill her grandfather. But by telling me I have a chance of waking from the coma she avoids serving me the ultimate test of self-sacrifice. A test she is not convinced I would pass?

As dusk grows closer, I find myself on my knees praying to Jakut's Gods, or any Gods who will listen. Praying that by some miracle the Prince will find a way to rid Caruca of Lord Strik before the hanging. Praying I will wake from Calmi's coma. Praying Kel has grown strong in the days we have been apart. Strong enough to keep it together when he sees Beast-face coming for him, instead of me.

I should have given Tug a message, like Calmi spoke through Sixe to me. Explained that Tug is no longer our captor, but our friend. At least then Kel would have believed I had sent Tug to take him home.

I'm lying on my pallet muttering to myself and shivering when a dark cloud of energy sweeps through the mind-world. I strain to pull myself up to a seated position. Is it dusk already? Has Strik come to fetch me in person?

Pain shoots through my foot when it touches the ground. My fingers fumble over the tiny clumps of dirt. Ten. There should be at least fourteen. The sun had only just risen when I was taken to the throne room. Surely it's not time yet. It can't be.

The guards become aware of our approaching company a few seconds after I do. They stand to attention, muscles taut, backs straight.

The passage grows light. Two boys carrying torches emerge from the gloom, followed by a girl with a bowl and funnel, Strik's assassins, and Lord Strik himself, tall, dignified, changed from this morning's attire into a black tunic with dark, supple trousers.

My heart feels erratic, as though I might be having a seizure even without Calmi's poison mix. I fumble with the miniature crystal bottle, only now remembering I am holding it, and I was supposed to take it before I was collected for the hanging. Too late. With a shaky hand, I hide it in the bandage next to my wrist.

Strik steps through his entourage and opens the cage door. It swings back clanging against the wall. He is the first to enter, followed by the boys who attach metal wires to the bars to hold the torches. Then the assassins kick aside damp straw in the murky corners, pull me off the pallet, check under the boards, run their hands over my waist and down my legs for weapons.