“Naturally they would seek to destroy it! It’s been moved to another abbey. I was not told which one. It is to be lost from memory.” He licked his lips. “I was to pretend it was still here. The works were done at night, in secret. You saw it yourself! The Leering is gone.”
“If you are lying to me . . .” Martin said, shaking his head in wrath.
“To what purpose!” the Aldermaston wailed. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the wall, a broken man.
“Everything is taken from me now.”
“Why?” Martin demanded. “You served the hetaera. You condoned the Dochte Mandar despite all the mastons they’ve murdered. Why would they forsake you now?”
The Aldermaston’s lip twitched. “Because I failed to keep . . .
because of who I let escape.”
Trynne’s insides began to burn with heat. She gazed at the cell, gazed at the chains the Aldermaston wore. Then she stepped forward and knelt before the Aldermaston.
“There was a prisoner here,” she said, her voice trembling.
The Aldermaston looked at her face. He nodded. “I never knew who it was. It may have been the Earl of Forshee, the man Hillel has been looking for so persistently. If I still had him here, she surely would have spared my life.”
This was the cell where her father had been kept. She’d never been more certain of anything. She rose, swaying slightly, and pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth. It was horrible to imagine her father in this dank confinement.
Martin nudged the man with his boot. “You know what Forshee looks like. How did you not know whether it was him?”
“He wore a mask,” the Aldermaston said with a sigh. “We kept him drunk on cider at first. But after a few months, he suddenly became more lucid. He played with the bits of stone over there. He’d stack them up and then knock them down.” Trynne and Fallon exchanged a look of recognition. Stacking tiles was one of the ways her father replenished his Fountain magic.
“He even carved a Leering into the wall, we discovered,” the Aldermaston continued. “It’s still there. It would have taken months of persistence. We had orders to kill him immediately if someone tried to rescue him. I thought it might be Forshee. A hostage to sway the queen. I wasn’t sure . . . I didn’t know what was the truth. Dieyre was born to speak falsely. But the man in the mask escaped. He got off the island. None of us could find him. Dieyre and the queen were so angry. So angry.” He shook his head.
“Where is Dieyre now?” Trynne asked coldly.
“Drawing all his forces into the mountains east of here. Surely the three kingdoms combined will not fail to defeat him.” He shook his head. “But he is relentless. He will fight them all. Surrender? Not Dieyre. I think he’d rather everyone died than admit failure. This will be a war unlike any other.”
The Aldermaston stared fixedly at the wall, his cheeks twitching as if in contemplation of the looming destruction.
The noise of marching boots heralded new visitors.
“The queen has come,” announced a guard who had hurried ahead.
The Aldermaston’s face blanched. “I am a dead man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The Cursed Shores
There was a sniveling tone to the Aldermaston’s voice as he pleaded for his life. Trynne watched the scene unfold before her eyes in the dark dungeon beneath the abbey.
“I beg you, spare me,” the Aldermaston whined as Martin held him up by the collar of his fancy arrayments.
“It is interesting that you speak now of mercy, Aldermaston,”
Queen Ellowyn said with loathing in her voice. “Where was your mercy when you sent innocents to die in the flames? Where was your mercy when you sent two kishion to murder me? How can you beg for mercy now yourself?”
The Aldermaston made a strangled sound. “I did not send—”
His voice choked off as Martin throttled him.
“We have the orders you sent,” the captain growled. “You’ve betrayed the name of Aldermaston in every possible way. Face your fate like a man!”
“I beg you,” the Aldermaston pleaded, the chains on his wrists rattling. “Spare my life! I may still be of use to you. Remember,” he said, staring up at the queen, “it was I who first trained you in your powers. I who lifted you up to become Comoros’s queen!”
She looked at him with revulsion. “Yes, I remember you very well. The fetes and parties. The Dochte Mandar whom you sent to teach me. To bind me to your allegiance. But as you can see, we are stronger than you. We are many now. I think it is fitting that you should die like those you condemned. The abbeys must burn, Aldermaston. All of them. Including this one.”