Lies of Murk by Eva Chase
26
Talia
The wall of the cage hits the ground with a faint clink. My eyes have already popped open at the shift in the air with the movement of the bars. I stare at the lowered wall and then at Madoc poised next to me on the edge of the dais, now visible without any barrier between us.
He’s letting me out. He really—
My first surge of relief snaps away with another flare of suspicion. This could still be some kind of trap. He’s trying to lure me into betraying Orion all over again to give Orion an excuse to torture me even more.
I never should have believed a single word that came out of his mouth.
He’s watching me expectantly. I turn away, leaning my head against the bars on the opposite side. “Go away. Whatever you’re trying to do, I’m not falling for it.”
“Talia.” There’s an edge of frustration in Madoc’s voice. Did he really think I’d fall for his conflicted supporter act that easily a second time?
He inhales roughly and releases the breath in a rush. “Fine. I understand that you don’t trust me. I can’t really blame you. But if you don’t come with me now, I don’t know if we’ll get another chance. Orion’s talking about making his move after the next full moon, which is in just a few days. I don’t—I don’t know what else he might do to you in the meantime. What could I possibly be leading you to that’d be worse than what he’s already planning?”
His words and the rawness in his voice sink in slowly through the numbness of my despair. It’s true that Orion couldn’t really hurt me worse than he’s already declared he’s going to. He’s said he’s going to break every part of my body and deaden my mind in front of all the fae of the seasons—what could be more awful than that?
If there’s even the slightest chance that Madoc really does mean to let me escape, that he isn’t as loyal as Orion thinks, wouldn’t it be better to take that chance than to throw it away when I don’t have any others? I know for sure no one else in this place is going to help me, and I’ve got no tools that’ll open this cage on my own.
The only advantage I have left is whatever difference the things I’ve said to Madoc might have made in the way he sees me and his king.
I look at him warily, taking in the urgency in his gray eyes, turned thundercloud-dark in the dimness of the room. The pallor of his face, still a little sickly. His hand, gripping the side of the cage so tightly the knuckles have whitened.
He’s giving every appearance of being desperate to get me out of here. But I just don’t know whether I should believe it.
Maybe it doesn’t matter whether I believe it or not, only whether I’m willing to let my uncertainty keep me here where I know my situation is hopeless or to take whatever tiny chance I might have with him.
But I can’t stop myself from asking, in a steadier voice than before, “Why would you help me escape? Aren’t you worried that I’ll bring the fae of the seasons down on the Refuge, destroy all those dreams you have about making a better life for the Murk?”
It might not be the wisest idea to remind him of just how badly this situation could go for him, but I need to hear his answer. I need to understand how he could see this betrayal of his king—and possibly his entire people—as a reasonable option.
Madoc’s throat bobs, but he holds my gaze. “No, I’m not,” he says. “The way into the Refuge isn’t that easy; we’ll be safe here regardless of what you tell your mates. Am I worried about how it’ll affect our chances of getting a better life in general? Of course. But—I think I know you well enough now to say that you aren’t going to go back to the Mists and tell them we should all be butchered. You’ll do whatever you can to avoid bloodshed on both sides. And maybe by getting you back to them, I’ll have shown enough proof for them to trust that there are at least a few of us who deserve better than the brutality they’ve aimed at us.”
A touch of emotion passes through my chest, like a feather brushing between my ribs. It takes me a moment to recognize it as a flicker of the hope I thought I’d lost.
I still don’t know what Madoc’s full intentions are, but he has been listening to me, and not just for strategic information he can pass on to his king. He understands what matters to me.
He maybe even believes I could pull off a miracle beyond any magic I’ve possessed so far.
“You’d want that?” I say. “You’d rather settle things with negotiations and treaties, if that’s even possible, than with a war where you’d get to rule over all of the Mists if you won?”
“If there’s a way to end the attacks on us and to give us a proper home in the Mists without even more of us dying, without us resorting to savaging people who don’t deserve it, then I’ll take it,” Madoc says. “I didn’t think it was possible. But from what I’ve seen while I watched you in the Mists and now here… I trust that if anyone can make it possible, it’s you.”
A strange note comes into his voice with those last words, one I can’t decipher but that sends a wobble through my pulse. I don’t trust him, but then, I never did, not completely. But he’s said enough that the chance I’m taking doesn’t feel quite as precarious. That’s enough.
I didn’t slit my throat the other day because I refused to give up. I’m not going to roll over and die on Orion’s whim now either.
I ease forward out of the cage, and Madoc pulls back to make room. His gaze darts around the throne room. He doesn’t look all that reassured by the fact that he’s convinced me, which reassures me that this isn’t some gambit just to trick me.
“The one other thing Orion said that’s true is that I’m good with illusions,” he murmurs. When I’ve crept free of the cage, he closes the side again. “I can make it look as if you’re still in there to anyone who doesn’t come too close. But as soon as Orion is up for the day, he’ll check on you. I’ll have to dispel the illusion before then, which means you’ll need to be well on your way at that point.”
I’llneed to be well on my way—which means Madoc isn’t coming all the way to the Mists with me. In spite of everything, my pulse stutters with concern. “Isn’t he going to know you helped me? What’s he going to do to you?”
Madoc smiles tightly. “I’ll be laying down more than one kind of illusion. I think I can cover my tracks well enough. He already knows you’ve been able to surpass his assumptions of what you’re capable of—and one benefit to his single-mindedness is that I don’t think it’d even occur to him that someone who’s worked as hard to earn his favor as I have would ever throw it away. Come on. We need to go to the maintenance room first.”
I follow him out of the throne room and through the tunnels, sticking close behind him, walking as quickly as my warped foot will allow. My legs and back ache with stiffness from being cramped in the cage all day, but stretching them in motion brings some relief along with the soreness.
Once, my toe hits a bit of gravel that rattles against the tracks, and I freeze. But no one comes running our way, and Madoc urges me onward. A little while later, a small furry body scurries past us on the opposite side of the tunnel, briefly lit by one of the few dimmed bits of illumination still on for the night. The rat-shifted Murk doesn’t pause or even glance toward us.
Madoc must have one of his illusions wrapped around us even now. At least I’ve got proof that he’s as good as he said.
When we reach the maintenance room, he peers around the walls and points to the vent. “That’s the one you were working on?”
I nod. He walks over and climbs onto the machine below much more easily than I ever did. With a few muttered words, he’s loosened all of the bolts and let them fall to the floor. He sets the vent cover on top of the machine. Then he beckons me closer.
Is he sending me out by that route after all? Now that I’ve spent nearly a full day in a cage, the thought of squeezing myself into the small opening makes my chest clench up.
But when I step over, Madoc just reaches to take a strand of my hair between his fingers. “I need to use this to make sure they believe you went this way. It’ll keep them off your trail for longer—hopefully long enough for your soul-twined mate to get to you once he can hear you again. All right?”
All he wants is to pull out a hair, for my own protection—and he’s asking my permission rather than simply taking it. Some part of me that was still a little afraid that he was leading me into a trap relaxes, and my heart thumps faster.
This is really happening. He’s getting me out of here. I will speak to Corwin again, soon.
“Go ahead,” I whisper.
There’s only a brief pinch in my scalp when he tugs out the hair. Madoc turns to the vent and holds the root of the hair in front of his mouth. He speaks a few magic-laced syllables and then blows into the tunnel.
I’m not sure exactly what effect he’s conjuring, but a moment later he snags the hair in the corner of the opening and hops back down. “That’s done. Now for our actual route.”
He leads me away from the maintenance room to the nearest station, and then to a doorway locked with magic in one corner. I’m not sure what illusion he draws with his murmured words, but the sentry stationed just a few feet away doesn’t so much as blink when Madoc opens the door and motions me through.
I find myself in an even darker, mildew-smelling space. I can barely make out the walls around me, which I find by stretching out my hands—the space is just wide enough that I can touch both with my arms completely extended. Madoc is little more than a blur in front of me.
“I can’t see,” I say.
The air shifts. I think he’s going to offer his hand and balk at the idea of taking it, but instead he simply steps a little closer. “Hold onto the back of my shirt. Try to adjust. This is the easiest part of this route.”
Wonderful. I grope through the darkness and curl my fingers into the fabric of his shirt. Something brushes my ankle and then jerks away—his tail, I realize.
He moves forward slowly enough for me to follow behind him, gradually picking up the pace when I show I can keep up. My boots tap against uneven bits on the floor, some of which slide at the contact, but I can’t tell what we’re walking over. I don’t even have a sense of how far this hallway stretches. Madoc stays silent, so I do too.
How many fae travel this way regularly? What are the chances we’ll run into some?
How far do we have to go before I can reach out to my mates?
Those questions whirl in my head as I tramp on, essentially blind. The darkness starts to close in on me, shortening my breaths. I drag air deep into my lungs to steady myself.
Madoc slows before he comes to a complete halt, so I don’t walk right into him. As I let go of his shirt, there’s a grating sound like something mechanical turning. He speaks a few more words of magic under his breath. Then, with a soft creak, a door swings open. A waft of cool, damp air washes over us.
There’s a little more light on the other side, a faint glow that seeps down from somewhere above. The passage ahead of us appears to slant upward and then veer to the side through solid rock, roughly carved into a narrow tunnel.
This isn’t part of the original station, clearly, but a route of the Murk’s own making.
The rocky floor gleams with a hint of moisture. A faint trickling sound reaches my ears. I hesitate, staring into the passage. “How much farther?”
“It’s a long route, and a little twisted,” Madoc says. “The shape of it is a spell in itself—to prevent discovery. I’ll lead you all the way to the surface.”
There really isn’t any way to go but forward, is there?
I square my shoulders. “Then let’s get going.”
