Treason: Book Two of the Grimoire Saga (a Young Adult Fantasy series) (20 page)

He hid behind a tree and reached toward the ground beneath the Stelian. Tension pulled on his fingers. Dirt shifted beneath the guard at his command. Vines shot from the soil and wrapped around the man’s body before he had time to scream. Braeden tightened his fist, and the vines constricted around the guard’s neck, mouth, and arms. Something snapped. His eyes rolled back into his head, and his body slumped onto the dirt.

Glee coursed through Braeden at his kill, but he shuddered to suppress it. He released the tension in his hands, and the vines retracted into the ground once more. The guard slumped backward into the forest’s underbrush.

He listened. A bird tweeted. The wind rushed again through the trees, as if a storm brewed somewhere in the cold sky. No guards shouted. No alarms rang. He could continue.

The bushes beneath the castle bent in the wind as he neared them. One of the guards on the battlement passed by and glanced over into the courtyard. Braeden shrank deeper into the tree line, his fingers digging grooves into the tree bark again as he waited.

The guard on the battlement grimaced and continued his rounds. A second guard’s head appeared at the far end of the same battlement, his eyes scanning the forest a hundred feet away.

Now.

Braeden darted into the bushes, releasing the pooling tension building in his legs. Once underneath, he ran to where the bushes met the castle wall and paused only when he could touch dark stone. He waited for the sound of an alarm or yelling.

Nothing came.

He glanced up through a hole in the bushes’ leaves, but could only see the black stone wall towering in the sky above. No heads peeked over. Not even the shoulder of a guard leaning on the edge of a battlement for a quick break.

Braeden sighed with relief.

Leaves scraped the tip of his head as he glanced around for a door. Thin trunks dotted the row in a line to the castle wall, creating a tunnel with their branches. He walked down the lane, hidden beneath the thick canopy. Rare gaps in the leaves let in rays of sunlight.

An old oak door with a thick round pull handle inched into sight from behind a particularly large trunk. Rust coated the hinges, and Braeden wondered if he’d have to pull the door off before it would open. At this point, he would do it if he had to.

He set his left hand against the stone wall and braced himself with one foot in front of the other. He pulled on the handle with his free hand—gently, at first.

It didn’t budge.

His fingers tensed against the wall as he leaned into the door. He yanked on the handle again, this time with half his strength.

Creak!

Its hinges squealed. He stifled a curse and paused. A glance through the leaves confirmed his fears—a guard rushed to the edge and peered over, stretching his neck to get a better view. Braeden didn’t move or breathe. Finally, after a few minutes of silence, the guard shook his head and dipped back out of sight.

Braeden let out a shaky breath. This would take ages if he had to stop each time he made a little progress.

Stupid royals.

With each pull, the door groaned a little less. The guard even stopped looking over the edge after the fourth squeak. After ten solid minutes of pulling and waiting, Braeden managed to open the door enough that he could slip into the shadows of the next room.

Voices tumbled through the darkness. He walked through a wall of hanging shirts—probably uniforms—and into a small room. Mops and brooms covered one wall, while pails and a few boxes lined another. All in all, only a narrow walkway led through the closet to another door at the far end.

Three muffled voices floated through the door, one of them louder than the rest. Braeden sighed with relief—that voice had probably blocked the creaking hinges as he’d come in. He hadn’t thought he’d have an audience inside, too.

He twisted the door handle and inched it open just a crack. Light poured through and blinded him. After a moment of blinking away the spots in his vision, he saw the outlines of three guards. Two sat at a table with their backs to him, while a third paced nearby and waved his arms as he spoke. Three swords cluttered the table’s surface. They mumbled and laughed at each other, talking in slang Braeden barely understood. It took a few curses from the pacing one to figure out his wife had left him.

Braeden drew his sword. This time, he wouldn’t kill unless he had to. Heat pulsed through him. He turned the sword slowly, so as not to catch a light on it and give himself away, and scanned the room for any other soldiers.

The three guards were alone in a break room littered with tables and lined with a wall of ceiling-high cabinets. A wooden door in the far wall hung slightly ajar.

The pacing soldier turned away, so Braeden took his chance. He darted into the room and elbowed the closest sitting guard in the throat before any of them could react. The man fell to the floor and didn’t move.

With a jolt, the pacing soldier turned around. Braeden swung, twisting his sword to hit the guard with the flat part of the blade. Skin ripped on contact. The soldier crumpled to the ground, one hand over his neck. Black blood poured through his fingers. He relaxed after a few seconds and closed his eyes. His hand fell to the ground.

Braeden aimed a jab at the last guard. The man ducked and grabbed his sword off the table. He swung at Braeden’s neck and missed. The blade sliced open Braeden’s bicep instead. He cursed. Blood rippled down his arm, but the sting lasted only a moment as his skin stitched itself back together.

The soldier gaped at the now-healed wound. “You…you’re…”

Braeden grabbed the guard’s head and smacked it into the thick wooden table. The soldier groaned and tried to stand, but Braeden followed up with three punches to the guard’s face. The man fell to the floor and twitched only once before the room was still.

Braeden cracked his neck and grinned. Energy tore through him. He hadn’t even needed magic to subdue them. His instinct said to finish them, to slit their throats, but he suppressed the desire with a grimace.

He reached to grab the key ring around one guard’s belt and paused once he had it.

Daowa, the Lossian Prince, and Aurora probably hadn’t been at the Gala long enough to know what he was. They wouldn’t follow him out if he approached them as a Stelian. And even if he changed form for a moment to prove who he was, he doubted they would follow him. They wouldn’t trust any Stelians after the torture they must have already endured in the Cellar.

Braeden could use a Stelian disguise to find them, but not after. This rescue just kept getting more and more complicated.

He lifted the unconscious guards and hid them in various closets or cupboards around the room, hoping he would be long gone by the time they awoke. He didn’t want to kill, no matter how much he instinctively liked it.

After he set the third guard on a shelf in a linen closet, he opened the entry and looked down the empty hallways.

Think. Where would Carden take three of the most important prisoners he’s ever had?

At least Braeden knew where Carden would take them to be tortured—the same place he’d been forced to torment Aislynn when he was a boy. He knew exactly how to get there, too, but only from dozens of forced marches to do Carden’s bidding in that cold room.

If Carden had prisoners, he would likely keep them far enough apart that they couldn’t talk, but close enough that they were within a short walk to the torture room. Braeden would start there and duck into an empty cell if he heard anyone coming. The thought alone sent a shiver of fear through him, but he didn’t have a better option.

Braeden closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he began down the hall toward the torture chamber. He passed dozens of cells, each with stone doors and a bar-covered opening at the top. He peeked in and listened every time he came to a door, but every cell he passed was empty.

He thought back to the feihl, and an icy wave of fear washed over him. If Carden had fed any one of the royals to those monsters, Braeden didn’t know what he would do.

After about ten minutes of walking, he heard a woman sigh from behind a cell door. He peered in. The light streaming through the hallway behind him illuminated Daowa’s blue skin as she stared at the wall, her green eyes out of focus. Dirt smudged her temple. Rips in the skirts of her dress turned her once-elegant gown into nothing more than layers of rags.

She didn’t look up, so she likely hadn’t seen him yet. This was it. He backed away.

Heat radiated from her locked door. A silver light filled the keyhole, and the entire door buzzed. He groaned. He’d forgotten about the safety locking system.

The door would shock whoever touched it while it was locked. The curse surrounded the room, from the walls to the ceiling, and left only the floor to sleep on. But should someone break through the floor, the ceiling below would shock them as well. There was no escape from a locked Stelian prison room.

He glanced down the hallway, but not even a drop of water echoed down the hall. With a deep breath, he shifted back to his Hillsidian form. His body shrank, and his skin lightened at the same time his Stelian uniform constricted to fit his changing body.

Braeden smiled—though he would forever be Stelian,
this
was his natural form.

He pulled out the keys he’d taken from the guards and slipped each into the lock until one turned. Something clicked. The door cooled, and the humming faded.

Daowa turned and peered at the barred gap in the top of the entry from her place across the room, but he doubted she could see who it was with the light streaming in from behind him. Her lips pinched together, and her knees trembled even as she tightened her fists in what had to be a mask of bravery.

He opened the door, and Daowa sighed with relief. She jumped to her feet and wrapped him in a hug.

“I have never been so happy to see a Hillsidian,” she said.

Braeden froze, unable to process the Queen’s lack of formality at first. He had no idea what she’d endured, but he didn’t have time to find out. He gently grabbed her shoulders and inched her away.

“Queen Daowa, we have to hurry. Do you know where your son or Heir Aurora is?”

“My son is across the hall. He must have tried to break through the walls because he screamed earlier, and I recognized his voice.” Her eyes began to water at what could only be the helplessness of a mother unable to protect her child.

“We need to hurry,” Braeden repeated.

He peered into the hall and stepped out, with Daowa following right behind him.

“A—a Hillsidian? Stop!” someone yelled from the other end of the hallway.

A guard charged at them from around a bend in the stone walls. Braeden pushed the Queen against a nearby wall and drew his sword seconds before the guard attacked. He blocked the first blow and spun out of the way of a second. The guard swung wildly, as if he’d only just learned to hold a sword, and a third blow struck the wall. Sparks flew from the blade. The soldier leaned back, exposing his chest as he recovered, and Braeden speared him through the heart.

The guard crumpled to the ground with a gurgle, but Braeden didn’t hesitate. He dragged the Stelian by his feet into Daowa’s cell and locked the door. The safeguard hummed to life, and heat once more radiated from the door’s surface. At least now it would seem like the Queen was still locked away. That might delay suspicions.

“I’m sorry for pushing you, but we need to go,” Braeden said as he helped the Queen to her feet.

“Just find my son.”

They continued down the hall, more careful to check around corners this time.

“Here!” Daowa whispered after a while.

She pointed down a side hall Braeden hadn’t noticed. Its row of doors had no light, but he did hear the shuffling of someone pacing around in a cell.

He followed Daowa until she stopped at a prison and whispered through the bars to the prisoner.

“Are you all right? Can you hear me?” she asked.

“Mother?” a man asked from within, his stern voice barely a whisper.

“Blood Gavin’s brother is here. He’s come to help us escape.” She turned to Braeden. “Hurry!”

Braeden pulled out the keys and tried seven of them until one disarmed the prince’s cell. He opened the door to see the prince waiting just beyond, intense black eyes focused on him.

“How did you find us?” he asked as he walked out into the hall.

“Is that something you really want to discuss right now?” Braeden countered.

“Come, boys, we must leave,” Daowa said.

Braeden hesitated. “Prince, have you seen Aurora? Do you know where she is?”

The prince’s skin paled until it was the color of sea foam. “I heard her screaming earlier today. It was endless. I’m sorry, but no one can survive whatever would make someone scream like that.”

“Where did you hear her?”

“There’s no way she’s still alive,” the prince repeated.

Sweat trickled down Braeden’s neck. He couldn’t go back without one of the Heirs. His pardon depended on getting all three royals out of the Stele safely. All three.

“I have to try. Where did you hear her?”

“We should leave! I won’t risk my mother’s life while you search for a dead—”

“Tell me!” Braeden ordered.

His voice echoed down the dark hallway. He hoped no guards heard it, but he couldn’t leave Aurora behind.

“She was in the torture room last I heard her,” the Lossian prince finally said, apparently already familiar with the room himself.

Braeden let out a frustrated sigh. How useless. She wouldn’t be there unless Carden was still torturing her, and Braeden wouldn’t be going anywhere near his father—not even to save the Kirelm princess.

If Carden still had Aurora, she was on her own.

Braeden gestured to the main hallway. “Come on. I’ll take you to a safe spot for now and come back for you.”

He locked the prince’s cell door and led them down a string of hallways to the guard room by the hidden exit. The two Lossians slipped through the still-open door to wait in the bushes, but Braeden only remained long enough to make sure they were safe.