Free The Twelve Kingdoms: The Mark of the Tala by Jeffe Kennedy Page A

prisoners,” she prompted at my blank response.
    “But there are prisons now.”
    “High King Uorsin will want to keep his prisoners of war close by, for questioning,” she countered.
    I imagined Rayfe in a cell, stuck back in one of these corners. All these cells, filled with the tortured, the ones unwilling to give up their secrets, the others too dangerous to release and yet not important enough to execute outright. Surely that would never come to pass.
    “I don’t think I could stop King Uorsin from reclaiming his dungeons. Perhaps you overestimate my influence.”
    “No, Princess, I feel sure you’re correct. But if you could put in a word for the library. Ask for space for us. We’ve never really had a champion at court. It’s a great deal to ask, I know, but perhaps now you see how important these stories are.”
    “Well, I haven’t seen yet, have I?”
    She flashed me an unexpected grin, a dimple gracing one cheek. “Leave your men here and I’ll have one of my girls provide them refreshments. Follow me.”
    The guards didn’t complain. Though it was a warren of rooms and cubbies, the former prison possessed only one way out. With grave bows and assurances of my honor staying safe in their hands, the men settled by the fire to wait. I followed the librarian.
    “Never before have so many been so interested in my honor,” I muttered to myself.
    Lady Mailloux cast me a look over her shoulder. “Your people love you and wish to protect you—would you throw that back in their faces?”
    Are you kidding me? The people barely know I exist. But I couldn’t say that. “I beg your pardon, Lady, I did not intend to sound ungrateful.” I had to duck under a low archway. Ursula would have had to bend almost double.
    “No, I beg your pardon, Princess. I was out of line. It is a failing of mine.”
    “Well, this particular failing makes you the ideal person to help me now.” She didn’t comment. I didn’t blame her. Before yesterday morning, I’d never thought about treason. Now it seemed to become an issue in every conversation. And here I was, making my way through a maze of rooms I’d never known to look for. “I won’t betray you. I feel like I should say that out loud. I appreciate the risk you’re taking here.”
    She stopped to pull a lantern from a cubbyhole and lit it. The waxing flame cast an odd shadow across her face. “My risk is also yours, Princess Andi. That evens out the obligation. Besides”—she gave a one-shouldered shrug—“you’re promising to help me save the library. Nothing is more important to me than that.”
    “Nothing?” It sounded good, but really? “Your own life? Family?”
    She laughed, sounding genuinely amused, and handed me the lantern. She shoved aside some dusty crates—now her dirty trousers seemed most practical and I regretted letting the ladies dress me up in their idea of innocent-victim-princess—and wedged open a creaking door.
    “There’s something unusual about you, Princess Andi,” she said, taking the lantern back. She preceded me into the room and hung the lantern on an overhead hook. “Princess Ursula would know that I am a ward of the King’s, since I lost all my land and my family in the wars, and Princess Amelia would have pretended to know and offered kind words. It’s far too damp in here, Moranu curse it.”
    “I’m sorry,” I offered, unable to think of kind words and feeling like a lame horse. “I didn’t know.”
    “Damp is our eternal enemy. But it’s hard to keep something both dried out and secret with these accommodations.”
    “I meant about your family. I’ve lost only a mother—I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose everyone, along with your home.”
    Lady Mailloux lit the little fire already laid in the woodstove. “There’s not much good ventilation in here, so you’ll have to be careful. I miss them, but over time you forget the details, which is a mercy, and very little looks the same. I