“What? Who?” Kae muttered. She reached up and took the vial, slipping it into the pocket of her trousers.
“Seraphis.” Elysia said with a small smile. “My Seraphis told me to give it to you, she says it is the antidote to basilisk.” The slave girl wrung her hands. “She cannot meet you, she is wounded. She bid me to tell you to leave.”
“Leave?”
Elysia nodded gravely. She spoke with a heavy accent that implied she had a different mother tongue, one spoken freely in the Eastern Shores. The words tumbled from her mouth awkwardly, but her tone was serious. “The queen is dead. Sagna is dead. These are her words.” The slave girl glanced behind her, as if expecting someone to come. “Please, leave. While it is safe. My Seraphis gives you thanks.”
“But what about you? What will happen to you, now that Haedria…” Kae trailed off. Her eyes fell to a charred body on the floor. Its skin was blackened and bubbled, with wisps of blood red hair still smoldering. The Witch of Fire was finally burned.
Elysia followed Kae’s gaze then hastily looked away. The slave girl shut her eyes tight. “My Seraphis is with me. This is all I know, and it is all I need. But your woman, she is hurt.” Elysia knelt before Kae and the princess in her arms, folding her hands on her lap graciously.
“Will she wake?” Kae’s voice was a choked whisper. “Please, do you know if she will?”
“I do not know of magic. Of fire and swords, I know plenty; the queen made sure I knew. Heavy hands and burning whips.” Elysia said. She lay her hand against Loren’s brow. “I trained with the healer in my village, but there is much I do not know. I see no wounds on this princess’s body, but I know wounds can be inside.”
“Inside? Like broken bones?”
Elysia paused, thinking. “Yes, and no. The healer once spoke of wounds in the soul, and in the mind. I have seen it in the warriors who have defended our village from raiders. They return with scars from battle on their skin, but their eyes are hollow. They walk like dead men through the streets, they stare at their own hands as if they see blood. So the healer has said that their wounds are not ones that are seen. There are ways to heal these wounds, but I do not know. I was taken to the Red Sisters, and my village was burned.”
Kae hung her head. She remembered Hamilcar, the large bandit king who captured them in the first place. There was dried blood on the blade of his axe. Kae wondered how many of Elysia’s people contributed to that stain. “I’m sorry about your village.”
“Nothing can be done now.” Elysia said patiently. “We look to the future. My Seraphis gives me hope for this; she used to whisper of what she would do if she were queen, how Sagna could be free and prosper.” The slave girl sighed wistfully, her mind full of thoughts of Seraphis. She stroked Loren’s face almost lovingly, with unfocused eyes and a dazed smile. Kae’s brow furrowed in concern as she watched, but the slave girl’s intentions were good and harmless. Still, the huntress held Loren a fraction closer to her.
All around them, soldiers marched and limped. The loud boom of Warmaster Sairus’s voice ran out over the din, telling the soldiers to hurry. The panther Beastman drew closer to where Kae and Loren were, and what the huntress saw made her heart hammer. The short, dark fur around Sairus’s neck was standing and bristled. His ears twisted this way and that, struggling to catch all the sounds in the area. After a few seconds, Warmaster Sairus looked back towards the direction of the throne room. He stood ramrod straight, his pupils wide, his ears forward. The Beastman’s every muscle was tense.
To Kae, they were signs of an animal sensing danger.
“Elysia?” Kae said slowly, not taking her eyes off of the Warmaster. “What is beyond the throne room?”
“Beyond the throne room is the queen’s garden, library, quarters, armory and treasury…” Elysia rattled off.
“And beyond that?”
“There is nothing beyond that. The castle ends, it is all mountain.”
“Are you sure? It’s all just rock from there?”
“Ah.” Elysia paused. “There are firestone mines, I think, and tunnels into the mountain where blacksmiths can forge weapons for the castle. They call the mountain Mount Volknar, and harvest its flames in the form of firestone.”
“There are tunnels that lead down into the fires of the mountain.” Kae mused. Warmaster Sairus’s hackles only seemed to stand up straighter as she watched. Then Kae’s gaze went to Haedria’s body again.
Haedria was twitching.
A badly burned hand was moving back and forth with sudden, jerking movements. A charred finger rested on the stone of the Keep, drawing something in the ash. At first it looked like nothing, just random movements from someone struggling to cling to life. But there was a pattern to the movements. They were deliberate and careful, with a pause every so often before moving onto the next.
“Runes.” Kae breathed, her eyes going wide. “Warmaster!”
Sairus’s head whipped towards the huntress. His expression was tense and his eyes narrowed when he saw Loren in her arms, unconscious.
“Warmaster, the queen is not dead!” Kae called. “We
