The Ivory Knight

Chapter 26

Adeleina could barely keep herself from jumping out of her seat.

There he was, gagged with white cloth and chains clinking by his sides. It was hard to tell under the ragged clothing, but Rowan had grown frighteningly gaunt in the four days since the queen had had him arrested. Nevertheless, it was clear that his demeanor hadn't changed at all. He still strutted, his scarred eyebrow cocked haughtily and his jaw tight with evident disdain. It gave Adeleina some small amount of relief that he, at least, hadn't been beaten down.

"Filthy, traitorous mercenaries," the fat, lavishly dressed nobleman sitting next to Adeleina muttered. "Worse than rats and fleas, they are. Don't know why we fill good prison space with them when we could execute them and be done with it. Eh?" The nobleman scratched one of his many chins irritably.

Adeleina bit her lip, fearful that if she so much as opened her mouth, something very nasty and undesirable would spill out. She certainly didn't want to end up on the execution platform right up with there with Rowan. 

She focused, instead, on Damien's plan. He hadn't told her much-- something Adeleina found incredibly frustrating-- but as far as she knew, she barely had a susbtantial role.

"Just stay out of the way and keep an eye on Rowan," he'd told her days before. "Trust me on this, alright? I know what I'm doing."

Adeleina didn't know when Damien had suddenly developed such competent organization skills, but she wasn't happy about it either way. Nevertheless, she wasn't about to completely ruin whatever Damien's plans were with some dolt-headed stubborn move; she wasn't that stupid. 

Adeleina casually rested her head on her cheek, halfheartedly listening to the jury pretend to give Rowan a fair trial. She'd never really understood why the executioner didn't simply do his job and avoid wasting everyone's time, because as far as she knew, the trials were never fair and almost always ended in a beheading either way. With any luck, this particular trial wouldn't end in a beheading. Though Adeleina wasn't particularly fond of Rowan's head in any way, she very well couldn't let him die in front of her very eyes. 

A judge began reading from a list all the heinous crimes Rowan had allegedly committed. 

"Assasination of the late Lord Duncan, the late Lord Calwell, and seveteen other Lords and Ladies. Petty theft. Possession of forbidden weaponry. The mass murder of..." The justice rattled on, reading off what Adeleina considered heinous sins in an unfittingly dry voice. Rowan truly hadn't been lying when he'd told Adeleina of all the terrible things he'd done. 

Fortunately, Adeleina didn't have to sit to hear the rest of Rowan's crimes, because a shriek abruptly interrupted the judge.

"Fire! I'm on fire!" The crowd rippled as heads snapped towards the scream. The people, however, could hardly pinpoint the exact source, because at that very moment six other voices began screaming.

There was chaos.

Adeleina couldn't help but marvel at Damien's genius as she sat up in her seat, pretending to be as panicked as everyone else. Apparently, he'd gotten his men to drop fires at various points in the crowd. The people were packed so tightly together in the courtyard that the result was a stampede. Men and women screamed and shouted, trampling eachother and colliding as they ran from the flames that had seemed to come from nowhere. Somehow, even one of the judge's robes had caught fire.

Adeleina caught the sound of Damien's voice roaring over the shrill screams. He would be alright, probably. She glanced briefly at Rowan-- and froze in horror. 

The raised wooden platform had caught the fire from the judge's robes. There were patches of flame flickering greedily on the boards, dancing dangerously close to the stake Rowan had been shackled to. All the guards and judges around him had wisely fled, leaving Rowan at the mercy of the fire. 

And where was Damien's alleged rescue cohort that was supposed to whisk Rowan to safety? From what Adeleina could tell, they were nowhere in sight.

There was nothing left to it. Adeleina had no choice but to go get the stupid bastard herself, or he'd end up dead in a manner far more painful that the axe.

Adeleina pushed through the surging crowd, doing her best not to inhale the sharp, black smoke that had begun to thicken in the air. She thanked the gods that the fashion in Dale was nothing at all like the fashion in Corandell; there were no large whalebone petticoats, no egregiously voluminous skirts. Though it made Adeleina cringe internally at the knowledge that her dress was whipping around her bare legs as she barreled past the wailing people, there was no time to worry about it.

She scurried up the stairs to the platform. It was a good thing everyone else was busy in their mad attempts to reach the gates, which Damien had somehow managed to lock, because no one paid her any attention as she dashed across the platform.

Rowan was screaming at her through her gag by the time she reached him, eyes watering and lungs burning. Adeleina reached for the knot behind his head and ripped his gag off.

"What in seven hells do you think you're doing?" he screamed at her the moment the gag was out of the way.

"Saving your sorry arse!" Adeleina screamed back. She bent down and frantically examined the chains bounding his wrists to the stake, ever aware that the flame were flickering closer by the minute. 

"My hero," Rowan muttered dryly from above her. Something thin and small dropped into Adeleina's hair. "Can't say I'm not glad to see you, really. Being burned alive isn't my idea of fun. Oy, use that. It'll go a lot faster."

Adeleina wrenched the object out of the tangles of her hair. 

"A toothpick?" she shrieked, brandishing it wildly. "What in seven hells am I supposed to do with this?"

"Pick the lock, you daft dimwit!" Rowan snapped. "What, your princess training didn't teach you the most basic skill in life?"

Adeleina ignored his jibe and stuck the toothpick in the lock. She wiggled it quickly, hoping that by some miracle the lock would click open. It held fast. The fire crept closer, and Adeleina was certain that she wasn't just sweating in fear. The air had grown unnaturally thick and hot. In a final, desperate attempt, Adeleina jammed the thin wood sliver angrily into the keyhole, shaking the lock furiously.

It fell open.

"It opened!" Adeleina said, dropping the toothpick.

"Yes, it only took you a few thousand years to do it," Rowan said snidely, untangling himself from the heavy chains. "Don't look so pleased about it."

He leapt clear off the platform and disappeared into the crowd, leaving Adeleina alone with the fire.

"That ungrateful bastard," Adeleina seethed as she droppped off the platform herself. Her feet hit the ground with an unpleasant jolt, but she took off running the moment she landed. Where was Damien? In the sea of people and through the thickening smoke, she could barely see five feet ahead of her, nevermind pinpoint Damien.

She turned and followed in the direction Rowan had gone in instead, fervently hoping that she'd somehow catch up. She didn't know where he was going or what the next part of Damien's plan was, but maybe, as long as she kept--

She stumbled over the body of the queen.