She cried out as a slash of pain split her back. Her flesh, taut as she hung there, pulled at the burning wound. She thought of Rorie and felt so alone. No one was here to pity her, let alone rush to her defence. Again the whip cut into her. Again. Again. Again. Each time harder than the last. She clenched her teeth, holding in her cries now but she couldn’t stop her tears from streaming down her cheeks.
“Your Grace?” There was a nervous note to Sir Jarl’s voice.
Another crack of the whip. Another. The pain reached a blaring pitch, then began to dull as the room faded around her into darkness.
When she woke, one side of her face was pressing against cold stone. Her wrists were sore but free, though her ankle was still trapped in its fetter. It hurt to move, so she kept still, watching a spider, in the centre of its web, begin its stealthy crawl towards a moth it had ensnared. One wing fluttered pitifully before becoming still. Something else stirred at the corner of her vision and she carefully turned her head. She began to cry when she saw Tam.
“Shh.” He stroked her head. “They could be back any time.”
She drew a long, jagged breath. “Then we must be quick,” she said, wincing as she pushed herself up to a sitting position.
“You freed me once. I’m sorry that I cannot do the same for you.”
“That’s not important any more. You have to get the other stones far away from here. They must not get into the king’s hands. I can’t seem to use them in this cell anyway, they’re no good to me. Turn into whatever form will best let you get out of here.” He shrank before her, a smaller cat than earlier, his eyes gleaming up at her. She tugged at the copper bands around her arm, expecting them to loosen but she couldn’t get the Earth stone to let her do it. She started to panic as a light appeared down the corridor, drawing closer but, finally, she managed to slip off the three copper bands holding their stones and pushed them over Tam’s head so that they circled his neck. “Now go – quick!” she whispered.
Someone was approaching. When she looked back, Tam was gone. She wished him luck, picturing him and Donnan getting safely back to Mairi. Go Tam. Get yourself out. She doubted that he could hear her thoughts but she sent them all the same. If you find Donnan and Mairi, tell them to hold onto hope. Her own store of it was swiftly diminishing.
The cold tapping of footsteps drew closer and Kaetha made herself take slow breaths. If they were going to take her to her death now, she wanted to face it bravely. However, it was not Svelrik, Sir Jarl or a guard who stood before her cell. It was Meraud.
“Come to crow?” said Kaetha, frowning at her.
Meraud looked even paler than usual. “I came to bring you refreshment,” she said, crouching by the hatch in the door of the cell and passing through a tray which held a dish and a cup.
“You don’t want to keep it for yourself? You might be glad of it, for I bet it won’t be long before you’re in my place.”
“I do not see that as my fate.”
“Did you see it as mine?” she said with a bitter laugh. Meraud was silent and Kaetha was puzzled by what seemed to be a twitch of uncertainty in her face, a chink of vulnerability. “I’m not getting out of this alive, am I?”
Meraud squinted at her. “Your back.”
“Aye.” Kaetha displayed her wounds for Meraud to see. “Your precious king did that himself.”
“Come closer.” Meraud held a hand out through the bars. “I can help speed the healing. Ease the pain.”
“I don’t want your help. Your on his side.”
“Am I?” whispered Meraud. “In my years at Neul Carraig, I performed magic which no others had achieved before me. As well as seeing visions in the water, I astonished the Order by casting my own. It was instinctive. I could speak the name of a person with Water magic and send images to them. Sometimes I could attach feelings, even ideas to these pictures but no one could send me visions back. Not until the day I sent a vision to the king.”
“You communicated like that with Svelrik?” said Kaetha.
“I didn’t even know he had magic. I don’t think anyone else knew either. It was an accident. After hearing that old King Alran had died and that Princess Rhona had disappeared, I wanted to know what had happened. I was idly reaching out to Ciadrath, naming the earls I believed to be there, sending out the image of a crown with the feeling of a question. I named lairds I knew of, I named the king’s mistress, Lyka and then her son, Svelrik. A vision came to me then of the Water stone on his wrist and I felt the triumph that filled his heart. I don’t think he’d intentionally sent that vision back to me but, from then, the connection between us was strong.”
“You were working together? So was it your idea or his to persecute people who had magic?” Kaetha came up to the bars and Meraud took a step back. “To set neighbours against one another and tear families apart?”
“You must believe I did not approve of what he did. Just like the others of the Order, I worked hard to protect innocent lives.”
“Yet you continued to be his ally as well?”
“I knew you were coming, Kaetha, long before we met. I believed you would be important. I couldn’t stop him from killing those people but, perhaps, I could protect you.”
“Protect me? That was why you
