“The princess, handsome one,” a dark-haired girl with some of the biggest tassels I’d ever seen said. And smacked a kiss on his outraged cheek. “She thought you might be lonely, all the way down here.”
Several of the men sniggered, but the officer didn’t seem amused. “I wasn’t informed. And what is that?” he demanded, focusing on the two large pitchers a dark-skinned beauty in yellow fringe was carrying in.
“Relax, lover,” Xanthippe said. “We know the rules. It’s just wine.”
“Wine! Do you have any idea what he can do with wine?” He gestured savagely back at Pritkin. “Get it out!”
“But what are they supposed to drink?” the dark-skinned girl asked. “The men look thirsty.” She looked around. “Aren’t you thirsty?”
There was a general murmur of agreement, which didn’t seem to make the officer any happier. “I said no,” he told the girl, pushing her toward the door. “Get out!”
“Watch the shoes,” she said, which were cork-heeled wedges at least five inches high.
But he didn’t listen. And the next thing I knew, a big earthenware pot of wine was smashing onto the stones, fey were cursing, girls were yelling, and the other pot was pouring all over the officer, when the dancer wobbled and fell into him. And then . . .
And then . . .
I stared around, mouth full of roll, as the room suddenly got darker. And farther away, although that wasn’t possible—was it? But it kind of seemed like it was. Maybe because the stones Pritkin and I had been sitting against were moving, opening up like they were swallowing us whole, pulling us back into our own little tunnel, one that hadn’t been there a second ago. And then abruptly closing behind us.
The yells, shrieks, and girlish laughter abruptly cut off, leaving us entombed in a womb of stone. One that was moving a whole lot slower than it had been a moment ago. And then barely moving at all, stones that had been almost liquid suddenly solidifying again, gritting against each other, groaning in my ears. And pressing against me to the point that I could . . . barely . . . breathe—
Pritkin, I thought, because I didn’t have enough air in my lungs to scream.
And then we were out, popping like a cork out of a champagne bottle, hitting open air and falling what had to be six feet, onto a hard patch of dirt.
Chapter Fifty-two
I lay there, stunned and half-choked, because I had been trying to breathe through bread. But the fall seemed to have jarred it loose, and I spat it out, all the while staring at the wall above us. Which was still moving in a very unrocklike way, as if it couldn’t remember where all the stones went.
“Myrddin?” I said nervously, and didn’t get an answer. I looked over to find Pritkin on his back, appearing unconscious—or worse. “Myrddin!”
“I’m all right.” It was faint.
“Are you sure?” I scrambled over.
He opened his eyes to look at me, and they were almost completely red from popped blood vessels. “I . . . hate . . . earth magic.”
It didn’t look like it liked him too much, either.
But it obeyed.
“So,” I asked, after a moment, “what do they call someone with four?”
He huffed out what might have been a laugh, and shook his head at me.
And continued to shake it when the earth suddenly moved underneath us. Enough to blast a bunch of birds out of a nearby tree, like they’d been shot from a cannon. And to throw me on my butt when I tried to get up.
I looked at Pritkin. “Did you—”
“No.”
He rolled to his knees, staring at the lightning scribbling warnings across the sky. And illuminating blue-black clouds stacked high above skirts of rain. That wasn’t so weird; we’d been inside the castle for more than an hour. They’d had plenty of time to form up.
Except that they were everywhere, on all sides, at least the ones I could see. Just huge gray sheets rushing toward us, illuminated here and there by neon flashes. One of which hit a lone tree, far in the distance on a hill, exploding it into burning pieces that were almost immediately doused by the incoming tide.
And that was exactly what it looked like, I realized: a tide rolling over land, drowning everything in its wake.
Then another tremor hit, as if the earth itself was angry.