Fearful that Svelrik had sensed her use of magic, glad she had at least temporarily incapacitated him and sorry for injuring the horse, she walked on, supporting her father as best she could, though they could manage little more than a slow walking pace. They crossed the precinct between the barracks and the stables.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to climb down that cliff, her father told her.
Kaetha looked across to that part of the clifftop. There are two guards there anyway.
Then where shall we go?
Don’t worry. I know a way.
Fortunately, the drawbridge over the inner moat had been lowered too as more men at arms were summoned from the keep. After a group crossed it, she led her father up and through the second gatehouse.
At least they won’t be expecting us to go this way, she told him.
They halted as servants scurried past, bewildered by what was going on. One came out of the great hall, leaving the door open behind him. She and Aedan snuck through it. A small entrance led to the old kitchen which she’d seen in her vision, the room which opened out onto the main part of the hall. There were no embers in the central hearth now though, only ash, and the place was empty. Most likely, everyone had rushed out to see what was going on at the hillside.
She took Aedan to the alcove and scanned the wall. Her fingertips felt out the edge of a stone that looked different from the others and, with some difficulty, she and Aedan prised it from the wall. They slipped away into the shadow of the hidden passageway, pulling the stone back again, as Morwena and Rhona had done before them.
THIRTY EIGHT
Through Earth and Water
Kaetha summoned a flame to hover before them but it sputtered feebly. Insects scurried across stone walls and then her flame went out.
“Is something wrong?” said Aedan.
“I don’t understand, I—” and then she realised. She was still clinging onto the Air stone’s magic and it was inhibiting her use of Fire. With no need for invisibility in the tunnel, she closed her eyes and concentrated on letting go of that magic. As she released a long breath, a current of air swirled around her and she felt immediate relief. She had not realised how much invisibility had been draining her energy.
“That’s better,” she said when her new flame glowed steadily. She kept it small, feeling only the barest hum of magic from it, hoping that Svelrik would not be able to sense it. She tried not to think about his burned face, his cold eyes staring as if he could see her.
Her train of thought was broken when she almost slipped on something thin and smooth that rolled under her foot.
“What’s that?” Aedan asked.
She picked it up, holding it to the light. It was a candle, speckled with dirt and rock dust. “It was the candle my mother brought with her into the tunnel when she escaped with Princess Rhona,” she said, recalling the vision. “It must have gone out. They wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.”
“How can you know that?” asked Aedan.
As they journeyed deeper into the earth down the dark, twisting tunnel, she told him all about her discovery of the elemental stones and of Svelrik being in possession of one himself. She spoke of what she had seen when she had touched all four stones at once, not that she had any idea why it had happened.
A deep shadow fell ahead of them, a steep staircase of narrow steps. She shuddered at the thought of her mother and Rhona approaching them in the dark.
“So that stone of his,” said Aedan, “that’s what Tam wanted you to steal, though he said Merard had it.”
“Meraud,” she corrected. “Aye, I thought she did.” She frowned as she took a careful step down the stairs. “I don’t know what she’s doing with Svelrik. What game she’s playing. At least Svelrik’s motives are straightforward enough, or seem so anyway.”
“Complicated. That’s women for you,” said Aedan with a grin.
“I’d jab you in the ribs for that if you hadn’t been tortured for days.”
Aedan laughed.
“I should have gone with Tam,” she said after a pause. “Tried to get the stone. Let you escape with Donnan instead of being captured again because you were with me.”
“And if you had?” he said. “You might have found Meraud, discovered she didn’t have the stone, then been stuck in a cell for your trouble. You don’t think she would have helped you?”
“Probably not. But I chose not to even try. What if it was my only chance? And now, as dangerous as Svelrik was, he’s surely going to be so much worse. He feels threatened and now he’s bound to lash out.”
“At least he didn’t seize the other stones. Just think how much worse things would be then.”
“He’d be unstoppable.”
They continued a long while in silence, steps crumbling away into a serpentine slope, the stagnant air getting colder and colder.
“She will outride the guards won’t she?” she said. “Mairi will get away?”
“She’s
