“There are prisoners I need to interrogate,” Relam called back, frustrated that he had to shout his purpose to the whole city. Anybody could have been listening, including whoever had hired the assassins in the first place.
“Right, we’re coming down to let you in,” the guard said, shuffling out of sight. “Step back from the gate or we’ll fill you with arrows.”
Relam stepped back obligingly, as did his two guards. From this new perspective, he could see the guard ambling back towards the nearest stairwell, waving languidly for others to join him and help open the gate.
“Get a move on!” Relam roared.
The shout caused the guard to jump visibly, and he disappeared into the Citadel quickly. Relam, fuming inwardly, tapped his foot impatiently as he waited to be let in.
Finally, five agonizing minutes later, the gate of the Citadel began opening slowly. It paused when there was enough space for a man to step through, and several weapons bristled from the gap, along with an arm holding aloft a lantern.
“Advance and be recognized,” the guard from the wall ordered.
Relam snorted and stepped forward, throwing back his hood. “Do you believe me now?” he asked.
“Yes, your highness, sorry,” the guard said quickly as the menacing weapons withdrew. “Come on in. Welcome to the Citadel.”
Relam squeezed through the partially open doors, followed by his guards. As soon as the last man, Galen, was through, the Citadel guards hauled the gate shut again, sealing the entrance against any more visitors.
The prince looked around to get his bearings, then moved quickly to a door to the right, just inside the gate. There was a flickering glow filtering through the opening.
“Your highness, this is the guard room,” the sentry said anxiously, hovering behind him.
“I know,” Relam said, stepping inside. The room was empty, probably because its occupants had been recruited to help open the gate. But there was a fire in the fireplace, and it was wonderfully warm.
“We’ll stay here for a few moments,” Relam told the guard. “Then move on to our business.”
“Why-?”
“Because you left us out there in the cold for so long,” Relam grunted. “As you were, soldier.”
The guard retreated quickly, pulling the door shut behind him.
“Idiot,” Relam muttered under his breath, extending his bare hands towards the warm flames.
“I c-couldn’t agree more, sir,” Wil said, his words garbled by his numb mouth.
Galen looked back and forth between the two younger men, then snorted. “Amateurs,” he muttered, rolling his eyes.
Chapter 34
It took a full fifteen minutes for Relam to warm up sufficiently to feel ready to move on from the guard room and interrogate the assassins. Wil kept looking longingly back at the guard room as they crossed the entrance hall, and the prince couldn’t blame him. The Citadel was terribly cold, the floors, the walls, everything.
It didn’t get any better as they climbed the stairs to the guard tower, ascending ever higher into the sky. The guards they passed were huddled by the nearest torches for warmth and bundled in fur cloaks like Galen’s. When they transitioned to the Eyrie tower, the temperature dropped even further until they found themselves at the very top level, in the circular room that the cells branched off from. Two palace guards waited there, looking half-frozen themselves.
“Hey,” one of them said thickly, stirring. “Nobody is allowed to be up here.”
“It’s me,” Relam said pushing his hood back to reveal his face.
“Oh,” the guard muttered. “Sorry, your highness, didn’t recognize you.”
“No matter,” Relam replied. “You have the keys to the prisoners’ cells?”
“Here,” the other guard said, fumbling in a pocket. He tossed a ring of keys to Relam. They fell far short of their intended target, and Galen stooped to retrieve them, then passed them to Relam.
“Thanks,” the prince muttered, shivering slightly. “Let’s get this over with. “Which cells have our men in them?”
“These two,” one of the guards said pointing. “They’re asleep at the moment.”
“Then we’ll wake them up,” Relam said grimly.
The prince fumbled with the keys for a moment, then found the right one and opened the cell door. The smell of the unwashed occupant hit him first, a terrible wall that seemed to block out all else. Galen entered first, putting himself between the prince and the prisoner. Relam gagged at the smell, then mustered his resolve and stepped closer to the filthy figure, lying on his side in a corner of the cell.
“Get up,” Relam commanded.
The prisoner slept on.
“Wake up,” Relam growled.
Still no response. Relam sighed, then let out a tremendous roar that shook the cell. The prisoner seemed to levitate right off his filthy blankets, scrabbling around in the corner frantically, whimpering with fright.
“That’s better,” Ream muttered. “Look at me,” he said to the prisoner.
The assassin glared up at him through sunken eyes, matted hair hanging around his pallid, thin face. “Princeling,” he hissed. “Back again?”
“Again?”
“You came to visit once. A year ago was it? Promised us protection if we would betray Him.” The assassin laughed hollowly, dropping his eyes to the floor of his cell. “We knew better though, yes we did. We shuts our mouths and we stays here, safe from the one who hired us.”
“You were hired to kill us,” Relam said. “My family and I.”
“Yes. We told him that, yes we did.”
“Were there any plots going on at the same time?” Relam asked hopefully. “Any mention of the queen or poison or some sort of illness?”
“No,” the assassin whispered. “He had great faith we would succeed. And we should have. We would have, if not for . . . for the servant,” he growled. “With his secret exit. You were trapped, then gone.”
“Yes,”
