Page 69 of Storm to Victory
He collapsed onto it, biting back a groan at the stab of pain from the gash across his middle. Now that he was no longer in agony from his magic, the pain from the wound was more noticeable.
Dacha climbed into the driver’s seat with Aaruk taking the passenger’s seat, the truck rocking from their movements.
The engine roared to life, shaking through the whole vehicle in a way that the magically powered engines Fieran was used to didn’t.
He pressed a hand over his wound, closed his eyes, and tried to relax.
Wherever Pip was, he was coming. She just needed to hold on for a little while longer.
Chapter
Twenty
Pip caught just a glimpse of the elegant white spires of the castle perched on a cliff above the sea before a black hood was shoved over her head. With her hands now shackled behind her back, she lost all sense of balance as she was dragged from the train by two burly Mongavarian soldiers.
At least she could hear Prince Edmund’s stumbling footsteps behind her. He occasionally made some joking comment to his guards, reassuring her that they were still together.
After two days in the truck, they’d been transferred to a train for the rest of the journey to Landri. The train’s boxcar hadn’t been particularly comfortable, but they’d been left mostly alone.
The hood was stifling hot against her face, but the occasional ocean breeze cut through the fabric, giving her a refreshing breath filled with the scents of salt and sea.
The smell brought back memories of Dar Goranth and the storm-tossed northern oceans. How she missed the squadron. Her flyboys. Fieran. A soft bed beneath her instead of cold metal. The safety of an Alliance base instead of being constantly surrounded by enemies.
Each day that passed made it more and more tempting to escape. She could have done it at any point. But she’d stayed because Prince Edmund believed it was the best plan.
With a hood over her head and shackles on her hands, that no longer seemed like such a good option. She and Prince Edmund might very well find themselves hauled before a firing squad. That could even be where they were headed now.
The cold of stone surrounded her, the echoes of the footsteps telling her this was a tunnel of some sort. Perhaps beneath the outer wall of the castle?
After a few minutes, the stone arching over them vanished, although the stone cobbles below her boots remained. A courtyard of some sort.
Hinges creaked as a door was opened. Then Pip was dragged inside a building. She tried to keep track of the turns but lost count within a few minutes.
She could tell when they entered a more lavish section of the building because her footsteps became muffled by soft carpet.
More doors opened, and the echoes told her this was a large space.
She was hauled across the room before she was shoved onto her knees. At least the carpet here was thick and soft, sparing her from bruises.
The hood was yanked off her head, and she blinked at the rush of relatively cold air against her face and the lights beaming down on her.
Next to her, Prince Edmund had also been forced to his knees and the hood removed from his head. He swept a glance around the room before a slow smile broke across his face. “Empress Bella. It’s been a while.”
Pip faced forward and took in the room more fully. They were in some kind of lavish throne room with a blue carpet below herand walls so papered and gilded that it hurt to look at them in the shine of the electric lights overhead.
Ahead, a dais held a single throne where an old woman sat, bedecked in an extravagant blue dress and glittering jewelry. Three men, whose ages ranged from twenties to seventies, stood beside her, and all of them wore similar clothing and crowns.
The woman on the throne, Empress Bella, was tiny and somewhat hunched, but her long white hair was braided and coiled on her head, all the better to set off her crown. When she smiled, it was strangely sweet and soft. “Not long enough, Prince Edmund.”
If Pip had imagined what the elderly empress of Mongavaria would look like, it wasn’t this. This woman looked so grandmotherly that she appeared more apt to distribute hugs and cookies than start a war that had killed thousands.
“And who is this? One of your little spy minions who you hoped to plant within my empire?” Empress Bella waved a hand, rings glinting on her fingers.
Pip swallowed and kept her mouth shut. If she spoke, the empress was sure to hear the elvish accent in her Escarlish. As bad as it was to be considered a spy, it would be worse if anyone guessed that Pip had magic.
Prince Edmund shrugged, his smile still lazily nonchalant. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your family?”
He was neatly sidestepping her question about Pip. Pip would be more than happy if Prince Edmund kept the focus of the conversation on himself.
