Francis raised a brow at her. “Young lady . . .”
“Do exactly as she says,” Magnus said with as much command in his voice as he could. This was not the time to waver, especially now that they’d found renewed hope. He’d made his choice, and he would see that decision through to the end, whatever it might be.
The guard nodded, and Magnus and Kara followed him down the right passageway, which led to a long hallway lined with iron doors. Magnus held his sleeve to his nose to block out the stench of bodily fluids, rotting meat, and death. He wished he could also block his ears to the wails and hopeless cries that reverberated from behind the doors.
“Do not react,” Magnus said quietly to Kara, now walking at his side. “Whatever you see, do not react in any way that might cause this guard alarm. We don’t want him bringing any of his friends into this, all right?”
She nodded with a single jerk of her head. “All right.”
Francis led them all the way to the end of the hall and then down a flight of stairs, deeper into the dungeon, to another hallway.
“Here.” He placed his hand on one of the iron doors.
“Open it,” Magnus said.
This time, Francis didn’t argue at all. He took a ring of keys from his belt, quickly choosing one and sliding it into the lock. With a grating sound, he turned the latch and opened the door.
Inside a cell that wasn’t much wider than four or five paces sat a man, his back against the wall, his dirty, scarred face covered with a long beard, his eyes vacant.
Kara moved toward him, but Magnus caught her arm to stop her. He kept his face blank, devoid of any emotion.
“He will leave with us,” Magnus said to the guard. “I’m officially pardoning him for his crimes.”
“Your grace, a pardon can only be made by the king himself.”
Only one guard in sight. Perhaps there were others, but Magnus hadn’t seen a single one. Only one witness.
But what was he going to do? Kill him? Magnus had never killed anything in his life. Kara hadn’t been wrong in her observation of his poor fighting skills, not that he would choose to kill this guard simply for standing in his way.
There were other ways for a royal prince to get what he wanted.
“Tell me, Francis. Can a good, honorable, loyal guard like you be bribed to release a prisoner that everyone, most certainly the king himself, has long since forgotten about?” Magnus asked slowly.
“Your highness?” Francis gave him a look of shock, but it was one that also held a sliver of interest.
It wasn’t very long after that Magnus and Kara departed the dungeon with Calum Stolo between them. He walked slowly, stiffly, and didn’t make a single sound. Didn’t say a single word. But he was still able to walk, which Magnus took as a reasonably good sign.
Magnus accompanied them to the village two miles away where he’d first met them ten years ago. He rarely came here, especially alone. This morning would be an exception.
Kara observed her father cautiously, stroking the gray hair off his forehead. “Papa, can you hear me?”
Magnus didn’t want to just walk away, not yet. After all that he’d learned in such a short time about Kara and her father, he needed to know if this had all been for naught. If the man was no better than a vegetable, his guilt over that stormy night would continue. And the nightmares . . . as infrequent as they’d become over the years, he wanted them to stop.
He peered at the man’s face in the shadow of the village. A bakery had just opened for the day, and the scent of freshly baked bread battled with the stench of Kara’s father, so long a prisoner.
“Are you in there, Calum?” Magnus asked quietly. “I’m very sorry for how that night turned out. I truly mean it.”
Calum blinked once. Then again.
And then his hand shot out and clutched Magnus’s throat as tight as a hangman’s noose.
“You . . .” Calum managed, his lips peeling back from rotting teeth, grime coating his scarred face. “You left me there, all those years . . .”
“I . . . didn’t . . . know . . .” Magnus couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. For a man who’d been in a dungeon cell for a decade, he had the strength of ten horses.
“Papa!” Kara cried. “Papa, he didn’t! He didn’t know you were there! He thought you were dead. He’s the reason I was able to free you. You’re free. Papa, you’re free!”
Calum froze at the sound of her voice; his grip on Magnus’s throat loosened. He turned to look at his daughter, and his eyes widened as if seeing her for the first time. “Kara . . .”
He let go of Magnus and all but collapsed into a tight embrace in his daughter’s arms. It took several moments before he turned from her to look at Magnus again.
“You didn’t know,” he said, doubt still coating his words.
Magnus shook his head. “No. But I know you want me to pay for all the suffering you’ve endured since. I deserve punishment for what I’ve done, what I did. I accept it.”
Calum let out a dry, wheezing sound, either a cough or a laugh. “You were just a boy.”