Warrior's Ransom (The First Argentines #2) - Jeff Wheeler Page 0,4

raged inside him, but every instinct battled the thought. Logic insisted it would kill him. And yet he’d promised himself he would listen if the call came, and so he obeyed the whisper and breathed in the water. Everything went dark.

Ransom awoke lying next to the well in the darkness, stars sparkling overhead. He wasn’t even wet. He quickly sat up, pressing his back against the stone wall, his heart hammering fearfully. The sensation of drowning hadn’t left him, but he didn’t cough. There was no water around him.

Something pressed against his side. He reached down and felt a scabbard there, the one he’d found at the bottom of the well. It was made of leather, wrapped around a wooden sheath, hand-stitched to a wide belt. The design around the hilt guard showed a raven’s head, like the one he’d seen in Brythonica, and the bottom featured a metal chape with a filigree design. A few strands of leather had been tied into decorative knots. It seemed incredibly old.

The scabbard was empty, as if it had been waiting all this time for his sword. He was admiring it, grateful to be breathing again, when he noticed the braided bracelet was missing from his arm.

A gift for a gift, came the whispered thought.

Life has inexplicable moments. A small thing can remind us of events in the past. Sometimes it’s a smell. Sometimes it’s the way the breeze tickles your neck. I had one such moment this morning as the queen and I took our morning walk in the cistern courtyard. That is the only time each day when the Elder King allows his wife a small taste of freedom. The walls are too high to see over, although the ivy growing on them gets a decent view. It was during our walk this morning that I found something that triggered such a memory.

The cistern beneath the palace of Kingfountain is meant to hold rainwater because the castle is situated on a hill. The sluices and gutters within the palace feed it, but the courtyard is the place where the largest drain sits. There’s a door, locked of course, that leads into the bowels of the watery place. At the edge of the cistern, I found a leather bracelet. It was very old, and many of the braided pieces had broken and been retied. The hook and clasp were made of silver that was so tarnished you almost couldn’t see the Gaultic design. It looked so like the one I gave to Ransom, the one he wore for years before leaving Ceredigion. When I picked it up, little bits of sand came out of it. So strange. Ransom is still on his pilgrimage to the East Kingdoms. I’ve heard nothing from or about him, but finding this bracelet felt like a message of hope from the Aos Sí. Or maybe it was their intent to torment me.

So I’ve spent the rest of the day thinking about Ransom. I haven’t seen or heard from him in over a year. Some people still titter about the gossip that he tried to seduce his master’s wife, but they’re the type who cling to anything sordid. I have good reason not to believe it, and my information comes from more reliable sources, not ignominious eejits. I wonder where Ransom is and if he will ever come back to the palace. I wonder if he still thinks of me as I do him.

The heart is a curious thing. Some days I just can’t make sense of mine.

—Claire de Murrow

Cistern Garden, Kingfountain

CHAPTER ONE

The Elder King

Ransom stood at the dock, watching the handlers bring Dappled from the hold. The roar of the falls made him feel like he’d come home, and in a sense he had. He’d grown up in Kingfountain, under the wardship of King Gervase, the man who’d ruled before Devon Argentine, and the falls had become a part of him. His gaze shifted to the palace, which looked like a sleeping giant atop its hill.

Their ship had been assailed by an Atabyrion pirate vessel two days before, and Ransom had killed six of the pirates before they fled back to their own boat. The captain of the ship had offered him two thousand livres a year to stay on, but Ransom didn’t enjoy being seasick, and he was only too grateful to return to land again. It took four handlers to get his destrier up the plank, blindfolded of course, but they finally managed it. Ransom