Soaring Roots | Lysander & Valery
Round and round the spiral wound. Lysander's feet trickled over the damp stone steps like a rivulet, carrying him further and further into the darkness of the earth. The Queen, he felt sure, must not have been informed that amongst these vile pirates was a child (whose goodness and kindness had extracted Lysander from certain doom). That did not surprise him, as no one seemed to have made an account of everyone jailed in the dark cells and, as a result, Lysander had decided to go see for himself before bringing the matter before the Queen, herself.Â
It struck him as strange that a hero like Cassius Montagu would not have been more careful about whom he imprisoned, but Lysander reasoned that perhaps the logistics - dragon vs ship - had made that too ungainly a prospect to consider, meaning Cassius had assumed that gaolers would check and they, no doubt, believed Montagu had done the deed. It was the only logical explanation for the blunder, thought the poet.
It was dim down here, under the earth, and Lysander wondered if this must be how the kings, buried in sculpted sarcophagi in the deepest castle crypts must feel. Bearing his torch up before him, Lysander squinted into the darkness as he reached the bottom of the steps. His eyes took a long moment to adjust and, carefully, he placed his torch in a holder before stalking towards the prison bars.
They were mostly men. Old men, young men, men somewhere between; tall men, short men; blond men, brunette men...Many made foul remarks at having been so rudely awakened by his light, but Lysander ignored them and continued to scrutinize the faces. Finally, he spotted the familiar face of the pirate captain he had once encountered and, walking a little further, a particular little girl.
"Valery!" he exclaimed, reaching with one hand to grasp her prison bars. "There you are! I was beginning to think you might have gotten away..."
