The Tale of Five Heirs

Chapter Twenty-Six, in which we visit the library

As Olwyn awoke she instinctively moved to pull her cloak tighter around her, but the cloak wasn't there. Right, she was in the dungeon. Her cloak, which prominently displayed the Everwinter coat of arms, had been confiscated with her boots and daggers. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. She had slept well. That fire-mage friend of Kelvin's had secured her one of the cells with a mattress in it. It wasn't the world's softest mattress, but Olwyn didn't mind. She had spent many a night sleeping on the ground on the way to the Dragon Tribes, after all.

It had been a surreal couple of months for Olwyn, starting with the weeks she spent stalking through the forest after Kelvin and his friends. At first she was just eager to finish the job and get back home to Everwinter, but after a while she started to enjoy watching the little team, listening to their conversations, and laughing at their strange antics. Tamara and Skeena seemed to be a bit cold and passive-aggressive with each other, and none of them trusted Yago Elldown, but somehow Olwyn had gotten the impression that deep down, they all cared about each other.

It was particularly strange spying on her old friend Kelvin. He was certainly not the model of a true Ironfist, or even just a true man of Everwinter, but he had a lot to say, and somehow, in spite of everything, Olwyn found herself interested in it.

Olwyn had always been fiercely loyal to Everwinter and the Ironfist (how else could she have risen from goatherd to spymaster?), but she had never paid close attention to politics. Kelvin and his friends seemed like reasonable people, so what was wrong with thinking that freeing Everwinter from the Aranthian Queendom and keeping these specific Aranthians from coming to harm were not mutually exclusive?

"I'll tell you what's wrong with it," she muttered to herself. She knew them, but they didn't know her—such was the nature of spying. Lady Gwenyth had told her to capture Kelvin, but she only followed through with it because she thought it would be cool for him to be around her in Everwinter. Then she had gone to help his friends escape—it was the honorable thing to do—but as soon as she showed them a little mercy they captured her and brought her here, to the Aranthian palace dungeons.

Olwyn wasn't suffering in the dungeons, exactly. The food was better than the berries and roots she had been eating while spying on Kelvin and his friends, and the cell was only as drab as the fog that usually hung over Everwinter. What really got to her was the boredom. She did push-ups sometimes, but that was the most entertaining it got.

"Hey, prisoner?" It was the dungeon guard. "There's someone here to see you."

"Really?" Olwyn climbed out of bed. The cell door made a clicking sound before swinging open to admit an elderly and well-dressed woman, who looked distinctly out of place in the dungeon.

"Olwyn is it?" she said.

"That's me," said Olwyn, "and who might you be?"

The woman extended a hand. "I'm Agatha. I understand you have been to the Dragon Tribes and seen my old friend Norray?"

Olwyn raised her eyebrows. "The one Kelvin used to yammer on about? I have."

Agatha grinned gratefully. "Professor Ironfist, indeed! We absolutely must talk, but not here. Follow me." After a disdainful glance around the cell she turned and walked out the door. Olwyn followed tentatively. Was this a trap? She was pretty sure Norray was Agatha's long lost lover who wrote him a bunch of letters or something, so maybe it wasn't.

With Olwyn in tow, Agatha walked out of the cell, and out of the dungeons, tossing coins to any guards who tried to object. "Wait a second, are you bribing the guards to get me out?" Olwyn asked.

"Yes, temporarily," said Agatha. "The members of the city watch have been particularly susceptible to bribes ever since they witnessed their superior officers sell out to Prince Nikolai, who's buying their loyalty against his aunt, Rosanna, the regent."