Heart of the Moors

Chapter 24

Maleficent woke to pain worse than the iron net had caused, worse than iron chains. Her body burned. Every breath scalded her lungs. There was a spasming tightness in her muscles, and her head pounded so loudly she had difficulty thinking past it. She was in a prison of iron: the floor, the walls, and the bars were all made of the stuff.

“Maleficent?” a voice said, familiar but unsteady. “Is that you moving?”

She realized that she would have been burned worse had someone not put a bundle of cloth under her cheek, had someone not placed her hands so that they were on her chest and not the floor.

On the other side of the cell sat Prince Phillip of Ulstead, pressed against a metal wall. He was awake, his eyes shining in the gloom. His hand was against his side, where she’d seen a blade sink into him. He must be hurt, but perhaps not as badly as she’d feared.

A horn scraped against the ground as Maleficent shifted into a sitting position. She tried to make sure the cloth of her gown was between her skin and the iron floor. Part of her wanted to stand, to declare herself ready for whatever came, but the dizziness she felt just being upright told her how unwise it would be to push herself further.

If only she had her magic…If she had her magic, she would make them all pay.

“Are you badly hurt?” she asked.

Phillip shook his head and then, appearing to think she might not be able to see him, said, “I don’t think so. I got lucky. One of the soldiers stuck a blade through my side, but it went cleanly in and out. I wrapped it with some of my shirt, and the bleeding seems to have stopped.” His tone had the calm, relentless cheerfulness she’d disliked in him, but right then, in the face of unknown dangers, it was a relief. “How about you?”

“The iron,” she said, not even bothering to pretend.

Phillip’s expression was sympathetic, his gaze focused past her shoulder. He couldn’t see her, Maleficent realized. Human eyes weren’t made for darkness.

“Do you have anything that could be a weapon?” he asked her.

“I suppose we could scrape one of your bones against the floor until it was sharp as a knife.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted them. It wasn’t an unreasonable question for him to have asked. She shouldn’t be threatening him just because it made her feel a little better.

Although it did make her feel a little better.

A sound came from the door—a scratching, then metal against metal, as though a key was turning in a lock. In the distance, she heard a cry, like that of a boy.

Then the door opened and light flooded the room.

Phillip flinched back, closing his eyes and throwing his arm up to shield them.

Maleficent’s eyes adjusted perfectly well, so she was able to see Lord Ortolan walk into the room with two prison guards holding torches.

She bared her fangs, a hiss crawling up her throat.

Aurora’s advisor had seemed harmless enough to Maleficent: a scurrying scribe, an old man who wished to return to the glories of King Stefan as uselessly and impossibly as he might wish to return to the glories of his own youth. He had seemed a nuisance, nothing more.

How annoying to be wrong.

“Your surprise gratifies me,” Lord Ortolan told her, “as so little does these days.”

“Just what do you think you are doing, locking me in a cage?” Maleficent asked. “Do you hope to keep Aurora from my wicked influence? She won’t thank you for it. In fact, I rather think she will make the little you have left of your life a misery—if I don’t manage it first.”

“Care to make a small wager?” Lord Ortolan said. “Because I’d put the odds on my having more time left to me than you or the prince.”

“Just what do you mean by that?” Phillip demanded.

“With both of you conveniently removed from the palace, little Aurora will marry Count Alain. And when he’s king, there will be no more ridiculousness. He will return to war with the Moors. His iron will once again be in high demand, and the world will go on as it ought.”

“Iron mines,” said Phillip. “That’s right. Alain has that land full of iron. No wonder he doesn’t want peace.”

“But what do you want, counselor? What will you be given for delivering us into his hands?” Maleficent asked.

Lord Ortolan snorted. “You are mistaken. This is my plan—and he, my pawn. It might have been any of the noble families who worked hand in glove with me in the time of King Stefan and Queen Leila. What I intend is to do as I have always done and have a hand in trade and taxes and tariffs. And when my time is done, I will pass down my role to a nephew whom I have groomed for the part. Gold is always more powerful than iron.”

“How dull,” Maleficent told him. “And how naive. I doubt that proud Alain will want anyone around him who knows what he really did to get the throne. It is not, after all, nearly as heroic a story as murdering a monster from the Moors.” She paused, contemplating. “And of course, that’s all assuming that Aurora will have him.”

“She was once a biddable enough girl,” Lord Ortolan said, although he didn’t sound certain. “And she will be again, following the tragedy ahead. Her dear prince Phillip abducted her godmother and murdered her. Terrible, no? But I’ve made sure the evidence will bear it out. Still, he might have convinced her of his innocence. Unfortunately, he will be slain by her royal guards before she can interrogate him.

“Once you’re gone, she will stop caring so much about the Moors. She’ll make a lovely wife, especially once she has children to distract her. She’s nothing like you.”

Maleficent gave him her most menacing smile, the one that showed off her fangs. “Oh, that’s true enough. She’s nothing like me. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s that it’s very foolish for the wicked not to be afraid of the good. I, for one, find goodness very alarming. And unlike you, Sir Ortolan—or me—Aurora is very, very good.”