I think the poison affects my mind. It stops me from remembering. It’s making me mad. My thoughts are muddled and sluggish. I’ve asked for water, but the jailor only gives me the sickly sweet drink. How can I stop drinking the cup? I think on it again and again. If I can figure out a way to stop drinking it, perhaps I will get my memories back. It’s difficult to focus. There is no sense of time. Yet a strange idea came to me while I was stacking my little chips of broken stone today. Where did the chips come from? So I felt around the wall and discovered a broken section. Someone has chipped away at the stone. Did I do it?

As I felt the broken wall with my fingers, rough and jagged, I realized there’s a pattern to it. The pieces are at angles. I’m so thirsty. I’ve tried not to drink for two days, but I can’t die of thirst. It torments me. Water. I need water. I’m going mad. Because I hear water. Trapped inside the wall. It wants to come out so I can drink it. In my mind, I see a vision of a man with a crooked staff. A wild, ancient man. He hits a rock with the staff, and water gushes out. Water is in the stone. Water is in the stone.

CHAPTER FIVE Disciple

CHAPTER FIVE

Disciple

It was well into the night before all of Count Bastion’s minions had been arrested and brought to the castle in chains. Torches flickered in the night wind as Trynne walked with Captain Staeli down the corridor to the balcony overlooking the yard. The evening was cool but not cold.

Staeli had been assigned as her bodyguard following Dragan’s brutal attack on her, which had left half of her face paralyzed. A former soldier of Westmarch, he had been trained as an Espion because of his affinity for weapons and hand-to-hand fighting. Staeli was steady as stone and wholly committed to her and her family, and rarely uttered any nonsense. He had trained Trynne in secret before the Wizr Myrddin had made her swear the five oaths that had made her an Oath Maiden. Now, he was training the corps of Oath Maidens. He drilled them hard, sometimes to the point of vomiting, and felt that bruises earned in mock combat were badges of honor.

“Aye, lass, your hunters caught them assembling in the woods earlier this afternoon and kept watch on them. Mariette brought forty of the girls out to surround and capture them. I think they could have done it with twenty, the lads were so ill trained.” He snorted in derision and pushed open the door to the balcony.