Page 71 of Storm to Victory
Pip waited only another few seconds before she shoved her magic into the bars, yanked them apart wide enough for her to step through, and dashed across the passageway. At the far side, she shoved two of the metal bars aside as easily as she might a strand of yarn and slipped into Prince Edmund’s cell.
She crashed to her knees beside him. “Prince Edmund?”
He lay still, his body sprawled in a heap. His face was a bloody mask, rivulets of blood trickling across his skin and dripping onto the front of his shirt.
What should she do? Pip cast about, her heart squeezing.
Prince Edmund’s cell held the same cot, sink, and toilet that hers did, although his cell didn’t have a window.
She could try to get him on the cot, but she wasn’t sure she should move him.
Perhaps washing the blood from his face would be a start. Maybe the water would wake him up.
Jumping to her feet, she dashed to the metal sink. She nearly wet her sleeve before she realized that if she got blood on herself, the guards might notice and question how it got there.
Instead, she used her magic to slice through the end of her shirt. It was long enough that hopefully the guards wouldn’t notice that a piece of it had gone missing. Wetting the fabric in the sink, she returned to Prince Edmund’s side and dabbed at his face.
Prince Edmund groaned and stirred.
“Lie still. It looks like you took quite the beating.” Pip dabbed more blood from a cut across his cheekbone.
One of his eyes flickered open. The other was swollen shut. When he attempted something of a smile, his swollen jaw made the expression more a grimace. “I always wondered how I’d stand up to torture. That always seems to be Farrendel’s thing. The enemy takes one look at him and just has to torture him. It always made me wonder if I could take it if I had to.”
“If that’s an attempt at humor, it isn’t funny.” Getting tortured was no laughing matter. Pip dabbed at the blood streaming from his nose. “And you don’t have to take it. We should escape. I can get us out tonight.”
“No, not yet.” Prince Edmund pushed himself somewhat more upright, propped against the wall. “I learned a lot about what the Mongavarians know about the Escarlish spying efforts based on the questions they asked me. I’ll learn more next time.”
Really? He planned to use his torture sessions forspying? Pip shook her head as she stood, returned to the sink, and rinsed out the scrap of fabric. “You are even crazier than Fieran.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Prince Edmund wiggled another few inches more upright. But when she returned to his side, he gently grabbed her wrist, halting her ministrations. His one open eye searched her face, his expression returning to something far more somber. “But you’re right. It’s one thing to risk myself to gain information, but I won’t risk you. If it looks like the Mongavarians are going to hurt you in any way, then you need to escape. Don’t worry about me. Get yourself out of here. Find a place to hide in the city until help arrives.”
“I won’t leave you behind.” Pip shook her head, her chest going tight. As tantalizing as escape sounded, she wouldn’t abandon Fieran’s uncle. Nor could she imagine trying to hide in the city all by herself for a week. She’d never manage it.
“You might have to.” Prince Edmund held her gaze rather firmly for a man who could barely sit upright. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Pip nearly choked on the words.
It wouldn’t come to that. She’d make sure of it. After all, she had iron magic, and she had her shields. When she chose to escape, she’d just have to take Prince Edmund with her.
There came a rattle from the direction of the door at the top of the stairs.
Pip leapt to her feet, heart hammering. Dropping the rag beside Prince Edmund, she leapt through the bars, barely pausing to straighten them, and lunged across the passageway and through the gap in the bars of her own cell. She’d barely put the bars back the way they’d been before the door swung all the way open.
A maid in a black uniform with a crisp white apron and a white cap over her glossy, dark brown hair paused at the topof the stairs, saying something to one of guards about how she would be fine alone.
Yet at the sound of her voice, Prince Edmund straightened, his good eye widening. He began struggling to his feet, using both the wall and the cot to steady himself.
After a moment, the guard shrugged and closed the door after her, leaving the maid to walk down the stairs by herself. She carried a tray that appeared to hold only two cups and two plates with bread.
At the bottom of the stairs, she set the tray on the floor and rushed forward, her voice a hoarse whisper that wouldn’t carry. “Dacha!”
Prince Edmund took a step toward the barred door of his cell, that grimace-smile back on his face. “It is good to see you, sena.” He used the elven word fordaughterwith the same warm emphasis Prince Farrendel used forsason.
Pip remained frozen in place for a moment. This maid was Prince Edmund’s daughter? That made her Jayna, the cousin Fieran hadn’t seen in two years.
Well, this explained where she’d been all that time.
Jayna gripped the bars of Prince Edmund’s cell, as if she desperately wanted to pull the door open to hug her father.
