I'm standing at the edge of my cell, gripping the cage bar, dazed and weak and not quite sure where to go or how I will get anywhere, when I sense the Prince. Without thinking, I slip inside his mind, feel the metal of his sword hilt pressed into his palms, breathe the fetid, damp air whooshing in and out of his chest as he flies down the dim passage, feet barely touching the ground.
I try to shout his name, but my voice leaves my mouth as a broken whisper. My hand slips down the cage bar as I lower myself to the floor, unable to remain standing. Fear has kept me alert, but now the Prince is here weariness spans the breadth of me, as though my body is a piece of cloth without strings or padding to hold it in shape.
Jakut steps from the darkness, wearing a gray soldier's uniform and helmet, sword raised, ready to fight. In an instant, he takes in my open cage and the missing guards, sheathes his weapon, and drops down on his knees before me.
"Mirra," he says, pushing off his helmet, pulling me into his chest. "Mirra," his voice carries the weight of anxiety and guilt. He holds me to him, stroking a hand over my head. For a moment all I can do is lean in and soak up the comfort of his arms.
"Where are the guards?" he whispers.
"They took Lord Strik."
His body tenses. "Strik was here? What happened?" A patter of light footsteps rebounds through a distant passage. The Prince whips around, grasping for his sword.
"It's Calmi," I say, laying a hand over his to still him.
Torches still glimmer on the walls in and outside my cage. Enough light to note the overcast, threatening look that seeps into the Prince's eyes.
"Why was Lord Strik here?" he asks. "What happened?"
He must have heard Strik is dying or dead or he would not have come. But he doesn't know about Calmi's potion. Before I can answer, Calmi appears at the edge of light cast from the torches. She halts abruptly, Sixe remaining hidden behind her in the shadows. Surprise flashes in her eyes at the sight of us. It vanishes quickly, all expression leaving her beautiful face.
"What is happening?" she asks. The Prince rises, fist tightening around his sword.
"Your grandfather came to see Mirra," he snarls, "and now he's in the infirmary, poisoned, dying. No doubt, just as you planned."
Emotion smashes through her, not a fleeting change in her eyes this time, but a tremor shaking her whole body. When her features settle it's as though she's resurfaced from a violent ordeal, stepped from an ocean that tried to drown her. Sixe must have brought her here, but she was not aware of what has happened to her grandfather.
"I gave Mirra a potion to take before the hanging." Her voice quivers as she steps towards us. The Prince raises a hand to stop her.
"I told you I would not risk Mirra's life, and I meant it." He puts a protective arm around me, building a wall between himself and Lady Calmi, turning from her physically and mentally. "We must get you out of here," he murmurs. "Lord Strik has many supporters and when the shock is over and people start asking questions, those who are loyal to him will begin to piece together what has happened. You will be in danger."
"She cannot travel," Calmi objects. "Look at her. We must protect her until she's recovered."
"Can you walk?" the Prince asks.
"She cannot even stand!"
Sixe slips into the light. In the mind-world I see a memory of him carrying Calmi on his back when she was injured as a girl.
"Sixe will carry me," I say. "He knows all the hidden passages out of the palace. No one will wonder where I am until I'm safe in the city."
"The city is not safe," Calmi argues. "It is strewn with the mercenaries who were paid by my grandfather."
"You two must return to the court," I whisper to the Prince, "before you are missed. You must prepare yourself for the Queen, and the council, and how you will explain all this."
"I'm not leaving you." He is determined, but if he vanishes while Strik is dying, he will come under suspicion from Strik's supporters for having a hand in the poisoning.
And if he does not release the imprisoned Queen now, he will never win her confidence. She will always consider him a traitor. At once I see what Strik saw. For the Prince, my safety has taken precedence over his own life, his duty, his throne and his kingdom.
A ball twists in the pit of my stomach. I care for Jakut, I will miss him, but beyond that there has only ever been room for Kel. Beyond that, my heart is a mystery. The Prince is offering to risk everything for me. What I do know is I cannot say the same for myself. So instead, I say the one thing I know will change his mind.
"Tug is in the palace." Watching the transformation in the Prince's eyes is like squeezing a bruise in my chest. But I would be lying to both of us if I let him hope I could stay. And he would be lying to himself if he pretended he could walk out of here when he knows his duty must come first. After a silence I wish I could fill, but do not, he says,
"Sixe will hide you in the city. I will find Tug and he will take you to Lyndonia."
Calmi sways towards us. "You have no idea what you have managed to do," she says. "If Prince Jakut will not tell you, then I will. You have saved Caruca. All Carucans are indebted to you. You belong in the palace on the council, where the whole kingdom will know that the Uru Ana are respected and accepted in Caruca."
Her words bring back my dream when I stood beside the council in the throne room. Perhaps my people will need a voice so they are not forgotten as Caruca rebuilds herself, but I will be a voice among them, not apart.
"Mirra has done enough."
"We will need her help to smooth things with the Queen."
"No." Jakut rises to face Calmi, jaw clenched.
"Tell her how you feel and she will stay."
His mouth sets in a hard line. "She already knows."
He helps me up. Then he leans in and kisses the edge of my mouth. A kiss goodbye. A kiss that sends heat crawling across my cheeks. I stop him from pulling away, press my lips to his. The softness of his mouth wraps around mine. I close my eyes and forget everything else for an instant. Pure emotion seems to fire back and forth between us, like a fork of lightning moving between the clouds and the earth.
Then he steps away, bows low, the way Deadran taught us a Prince bows to a King or Queen. As he turns, the heat of his gaze goes with him.
"Your mother," I say, stopping him in his tracks. "Did not betray your father. She protected him. It was her power that kept Strik from the Red City all these years."
And perhaps she is the true reason he is dying now, or already dead. Perhaps her power did not fade when the King died, and as she suggested, the day Strik entered the Red City, he would pay the price with his life.
A memory shimmers in the mind-world. The Prince is three or four years old. His mother is reading him a story about ice palaces and kings and princesses. He snuggles in her arms, and when he turns to smile at her, through the haze of years long past, I see what he sees. The woman with the slim face is the woman from the sketches he carried in his binder. The woman I had assumed was Calmi, was his mother.
Jakut does not turn back to face me. But in the soft glow of the torches, I see the tension in his shoulders shift.
"Thank you, Mirra," he says. Then he walks away into the darkness, his strides lengthening, boot steps growing more determined.
Once he has gone, Calmi offers me another pendant. I recognize the cloudy-yellow Nocturne Melody, and shake my head. She shrugs and tucks it in her pocket.
"I sprinkled the pastries with your potion," I say.
She nods. "I will get rid of the evidence," she answers, as she helps me onto Sixe's back. "Good bye, Mirra."
Another world, another time, and Calmi and I would have been good friends.
"Your grandfather is dead," I say, sensing the shift of his passing in the mind-world.
She smiles, tears filling her eyes. "Yes, I can feel it. It is like being able to breathe again."