"What if there are more in hiding, just like the Halderians?"
"The Coracks won't let them live." I folded my hand around hers. "We can't go to all this trouble to destroy Endrick and then risk another Endrean rising to power."
I knew how cold my words must have sounded, but there were reasons for the order. Nothing in Antoran history suggested magic was anything but evil.
Kestra didn't seem convinced, but rather than argue, she said, "Endrick would've searched Risha's cell, but might not have considered her servant's. We need to start our search here."
I began at the end deepest into the cell while she was nearer the door. With so little light, we traced our fingers along the rock, feeling for any patterns or gaps. The rock creased and jutted and cut on its sharpest tips, but there was nothing unusual.
That is, until several minutes later when Kestra whispered, "This is writing, Simon, I'm sure of it!"
I scrambled over to her and ran my hands along the rock. She was right--the etchings I felt were carved into the wall, but it was too dark to read them.
Then her expression fell. "In seventeen years, we wouldn't be the first to see this. Whatever is written here has been seen a thousand times already."
"Soon, it will have been seen a thousand and one times. Move back." I grabbed the napkin that had wrapped the bread and twisted it tight. Then I withdrew a piece of fire steel from my satchel. The napkin would burn fast. We'd read faster. I scraped the metal against the rock wall until it sparked enough to light the napkin on fire. Once it did, I held it close to the carving. Kestra leaned in beside me to see what was written there.
We only had a few seconds, but it was enough to read.
One to Vanquish
One to Rule
One to Fall
But All to Fool
I ground out the last of the embers from the napkin and leaned against the rock wall. "One to Vanquish. That must be the Infidante, meant to kill Endrick."
Beside me, Kestra mumbled, "One to Rule. Because the Infidante will choose the next ruler of the Scarlet Throne."
"One to Fall," I continued. "That's Lord Endrick, I assume. What of the fourth line, But All to Fool?" I pushed my hair back with my fingers, out of frustration more than anything else. "It's irrelevant anyway. Nothing in the carving tells us where the dagger is hidden."
Kestra's attention seemed to have shifted in another direction. "The carving is too clean to have been done by hand. Anaya must've used magic. I'd always heard her powers were depleted when she came here. Maybe they weren't."
I sat up taller. "What if the fourth line, But All to Fool, is about Risha? We know she brought the Blade into the dungeons. But somewhere between her arrest and execution, it disappeared. Somehow, she fooled everyone."
Kestra nodded. "Wherever Risha hid the Blade, she would've made sure someone knew how to find it. Maybe Gerald?"
"Gerald?" My face scrunched up in confusion. "Is he--" When she nodded, I added, "Then he's proof that the Halderians don't know where the Blade is. If they did, they'd have had Gerald retrieve it by now."
"But someone knows." Kestra touched my arm. "Why did Thorne Halderian recognize Trina at the inn? Why was she chosen for this mission, above other girls with more experience, or frankly, more stability? Trina knows more than she's saying."
Suddenly, I groaned. "Trina brought Tenger new information about the Blade. That's the only reason he allowed her to join us." I stood and banged on the door until a guard came down the slope. "Lady Kestra must prepare to see her father again. Call for her handmaiden to bring her a clean dress." After the guard left, I turned back to her. "Then we'll find out everything."
Kestra nodded, but already seemed lost in another maze of thoughts, secrets she guarded well. Yet more and more, it felt as if we were on the same side. In time, I would find out all her secrets.
Or worse. She would find out mine.
It took another hour before Trina came, and she did so with an apology, explaining that every maid in Woodcourt who could work a needle had been ordered to make dresses for me, in preparation for my coming wedding.
"Is that really happening tomorrow night?" Trina settled into the cramped corner of our cell, making it seem smaller, though I tried to hide the panic on my face. "Everything can still work out though. If we get the Olden Blade by then, we can leave tomorrow, before the wedding."
When neither Simon nor I replied, she held out the dress she had brought with her, a light blue gown with a high collar of white lace, something that might've been perfect if I were nearing the age of eighty, and blind. "It's the best I could do in so little time. It's only one dress, Kestra. Why are you so quiet?"
"You didn't sew that dress," Simon said flatly. "You don't sew."
"I didn't, until I had to pretend to know how three hours ago!" Trina's face wrinkled. "What is the matter with you two?"