The Keep

by Bella Forrest

  Lintz and Demeter stood at attention outside Alex’s cell, and though they must have known he was in there, they didn’t as much as flash a glance in his direction. It made Alex all the more nervous. Hadn’t it been the plan all along to fight Caius?

  “King Julius, an unexpected pleasure,” said Demeter, his voice trembling as he bowed low.

  Alex’s heart rose into his throat as he realized why they were so afraid. It wasn’t Caius after all. It was far worse than that—it was his brother. Hadn’t Vincent said that Julius made the warden’s box of tricks look like a parcel of kittens? Alex shuddered, wondering how they had managed to summon the even crueler brother. He had the sinking feeling they had missed something in the mechanisms—an alarm of some sort, perhaps, that had somehow caught the attention of the king instead. It was likely the reason removing the shield hadn’t provoked the red fog.

  Alex held his breath as King Julius came into view. His harsh, regal features were framed by royal white hair. There was a cruelness around his mouth, the smile he gave Demeter and Lintz devoid of any pleasantry. His eyes were a piercing, pure gold that shone with amused malice, and his skin lacked any wrinkles, despite his age. Alex supposed the king sipped from the same youth serum as Alypia. Julius’s stride was tall and proud, and he wore a cream-colored suit that resembled military dress, with black epaulettes, a high collar, and several medals dangling from his chest.

  Julius cracked his fingers. His golden eyes rolled in annoyance, and Alex felt his entire body tense as he waited to see what Julius was about to do. The man behind Alex was still laughing hysterically, the sound cutting straight through Alex like a scythe. It was impossible to block out, and it seemed the king shared his irritation.

  “Open this cell,” Julius demanded, turning toward where Alex was staring out. Alex ducked into the corner of the room, pressing back against the wall.

  “Nothing in there but two petty thieves, Your Highness,” said Lintz quickly, stumbling over his words.

  Julius eyed Lintz sharply. “Open this cell, or you shall receive the punishment yourself.”

  Lintz glanced between the cell and the king, his mouth agape. Demeter hurried forward and made a show of opening the already broken lock, pulling the door toward him and gesturing for Julius to step inside.

  “After you, Your Highness.”

  “At least one of you has his wits about him,” Julius snarled.

  Alex pressed himself farther back into the corner of the cell as Julius entered, using the door as extra shelter. The king stepped toward the laughing man, who continued in his mania. Whatever had happened to the guy while he had been at Kingstone Keep, it had removed all of his senses. Any functioning person could see that Julius was incredibly dangerous, and incredibly unpredictable.

  “You! Shut your mouth. You are in the presence of a king,” Julius snapped, but it did nothing to shut the laughing man up. “You dare defy me, you vile wretch? You dare to laugh in my face?” Julius asked calmly. Then he smacked the poor man hard across the face. It silenced his laughter for a split second, but then the cackling sound rose from the prisoner’s throat once more, even more manic than before.

  This time, there was no reprieve. Gripping the laughing man by the neck, Julius pressed his hand against the man’s face and unleashed a wave of bright bronze magic that crackled through the air like a lightning storm. It poured down the man’s throat, crawled through his skin. The prisoner’s laughter turned to a heart-rending scream, and he clawed at his own flesh, trying to rake off the magic that oozed through him, burning everything up. Alex could see it slithering under the man’s skin, dissolving his insides.

  Alex wanted to turn away, but he was frozen to the spot.

  The screaming and clawing seemed to go on forever, but finally, the prisoner made a gurgling sound and collapsed in a heap, the life gone from his eyes. His skin sagged inward, leaving him in a ghastly puddle, as if there was nothing left within to hold up the fleshy outer husk.

  Julius turned sharply, a delighted look upon his cold face. His gold eyes connected with Alex’s, and Alex didn’t know whether to turn away or keep looking. The king stepped closer, until he and Alex were almost nose-to-nose.

  “And I don’t want to hear so much as a whimper from you,” the king whispered with a smirk. He turned and stepped out of the dank cell. Alex thought his lungs might explode, he had been holding his breath for so long. Pressing his ear to the grate, not daring to move back around, he listened to what Julius had to say to Lintz and Demeter.

  “That laugh! I couldn’t have borne it a moment longer. A waste of perfectly good essence—but you two should know by now, I don’t have patience for disobedience. Speaking of which, what has occurred here?” the king asked, threat dripping from his words.

  “Your Highness, I believe there has been a fault with the barrier,” explained Demeter, his voice surprisingly calm.

  “Well, clearly. That doesn’t take a genius to see. Have any prisoners escaped?”

  “Not to our knowledge, Your Highness. We have everything under control now,” Demeter replied.

  “Where’s that delinquent brother of mine?” Julius asked.

  “Not here, Your Highness.”

  Julius gave an irritated sigh. “Another observant remark, guard. Well done,” he mocked. “Have you seen him? Is he aware that his prison is in utter disarray? Is the old goat even still breathing?”

  An anxious silence stretched between Julius and the guards. Alex desperately wanted one of them to speak, in case they ended up like his cellmate.

  “Speak up! Or would you rather I make you speak?” Julius demanded coldly.

  Lintz was the one to respond. “I believe he has gone on some errands, and will shortly return. He is aware of the mishap, and… yes, I believe he is still breathing.”

  “That’s a shame.” Julius laughed spitefully. “I’m presuming this ‘mishap,’ as you call it, happened because he’s too incompetent to perform basic maintenance. Please inform my dear brother that, if this happens again, and if matters do not improve, I will return. And I will not be so forgiving next time. Show him my new friend Floppy if he needs some extra encouragement,” he sneered, giving a sharp, jarring snort. “I trust you’re capable of passing on a simple message, yes?”

  “Yes, Your Highness,” Demeter replied.

  “You might also mention that I need him to start shouldering his share of responsibility when it comes to essence. Too long these prisoners have gotten away with the bare minimum, and I won’t see it continue. Is that clear?” the king added icily.

  It made Alex furious to hear Julius alluding to more essence-extraction, especially after displaying such a blasé attitude toward the murder of the laughing prisoner. Alex could tell Julius was exactly the sort of person who would waste essence, only to insist upon someone else extracting more for him moments later. He didn’t seem to be the kind of king who worried much about the fate of his subjects, or troubled himself with the dirty work. With that in mind, Alex couldn’t help but wonder if the king’s request had something to do with the lack of magical children being born, increasing the royal need for essence. It certainly sounded like it.

  “Clear as crystal, Your Highness,” Lintz replied.

  “And one other thing,” he added sharply. “I’ve been hearing rumors I don’t much like the sound of. By all accounts, my dear daughter is having some sort of squabble with my brother, though she refuses to tell me what it’s about, and while I have very little interest in her petty feuds, I want to see it resolved… and quickly. They can kill one another if they so please, but it is tedious and inconvenient to find replacements to extract essence. You can tell Caius that he is to make peace with my daughter at the earliest possible opportunity. This has gone on long enough… It’s unseemly for royals to act this way. Do you understand what I say?”

  “Perfectly,” said Demeter. “Message received, and will be duly passed on, Your Highness.”

  Alex smiled wryly—it
seemed very few royals were fond of their brothers.

  “Excellent. Well, that was somewhat rejuvenating. I shall be returning now, but if I hear that you haven’t passed on my messages, or if I am forced to return, you shall receive the same punishment as my brother. I can’t abide slack staff,” Julius remarked. “I suppose you’ll be wanting me to put this barrier back up before I go?” the king sighed.

  At the unmistakable crackle of the king’s magic, Alex took his chances and peered around the cell door. Bronze light flowed wildly and effortlessly from the man’s deft hands as he pressed his palms against the wall. A spider web of luminescent power branched through the masonry, rushing into the nearest golden cylinder. With an almost imperceptible whir of clockwork, the module burst back into life. Alex wasn’t sure how Julius had done it, what with how the mechanisms had exploded so violently—yet the king had managed the impossible. Julius’s magic had pieced everything back together in moments, leaving the clockwork clunking louder than before, and Alex knew what that meant.

  “Well, I’d love to say it was a pleasure, but it wasn’t,” Julius sneered. “I hope we don’t meet again, more for your sakes than mine.”

  A moment later, Alex heard the steady beat of footsteps retreating, and the heavy exhale of Lintz and Demeter as the king disappeared from sight. They rushed into Alex’s cell.

  “Are you okay?” Demeter asked rapidly.

  “I’m fine,” he lied. He was far from fine, though it wasn’t a physical injury that wounded him. It was the knowledge that, after coming so close, and expending so much effort, they were back to square one again. They had no essence, no portal, the continued threat of Alypia, and the fresh threat of Julius.

  The barrier was back up, and with its rise their hopes had fallen down.

  Chapter 14

  Back in the tower room, the mood was despondent. Alex had returned the satchel of Stillwater essence and filled in the others on what had happened after the earthquake, though Natalie and Ellabell had heard much of it from their hiding spot. To his relief, nobody seemed harmed by the day’s events, having shared their hiding spots with more amenable criminals than Alex, but there was an air of utter physical and emotional exhaustion in the room.

  When the beetle beacons stacked on the table began to trill, Alex wanted to pick them all up and dash them against the wall. He didn’t need to be reminded of the predicament they were in.

  “I’ll go,” said Lintz solemnly, taking one of the beacons and silencing the rest. Alex watched him leave the tower room, hating Alypia for causing so much chaos. For a moment, he almost forgot his guilt for what he had done to her.

  “So… where do we go from here?” muttered Aamir, resting his head back against the wall. It was barely a question. There was no energy in his voice.

  “Well, we can’t risk luring Caius out again,” Alex said, recalling Julius’s threat. It wasn’t something he wanted to chance. “And going back to staking out parts of the keep he likes to visit seems more futile than ever. I… I’m fresh out of ideas.” He exhaled, closing his eyes.

  It wasn’t just their own problems playing on his mind, either. After hearing what Julius had said in the hallway, Alex was beginning to feel less and less comfortable about returning to the real world, while so many others suffered at the hands of royals. If Julius’s intent to extract more essence was put into action, it meant more death, more loss of innocent lives, more suffering, and Alex just wished he could do more to help those they would be leaving behind. He wished he could give them the same glimmer of hope that he felt within him… or that he had felt before Julius had come and snuffed it out.

  “We could try to… build the portal home without the Kingstone essence,” suggested Jari halfheartedly. Of course, that just wasn’t an option, given their timeframe. It was clear from the ever-increasing pile of clockwork bits and pieces that Lintz’s beetles were beginning to fail, and the scarab-like devices were running out of juice too. It was only a matter of time before the devices stopped working altogether, and they all found themselves in an even more dangerous situation than they were already in.

  Alex wondered if they were thinking about it all wrong, if they should try to come up with a way that they could kill two birds with one stone… seek their own freedom and give hope to the students who remained in the other havens. It seemed like a vast, impossible task, and yet Alex couldn’t shake the idea. He knew there had to be a way, but he just couldn’t quite see it. His mind was so full of fog and pain and grief and disappointment, and it clouded his judgment. It was hard to see anything clearly. He still hadn’t found the space in which to grieve for his dead father, because he knew that still had to wait until they had found their sanctuary.

  Overwhelmed and exhausted, Alex got to his feet and headed for the door.

  “I’m going to go for a short walk… clear my head, hopefully come up with a plan,” he said, briefly turning back to the others. They nodded, understanding the need.

  Natalie was already fast asleep, curled up against the wall, and Jari wasn’t far off. It was only Aamir and Ellabell who seemed to be battling sleep.

  Alex headed down the stairs, but he looked over his shoulder at the sound of feet pounding on the flagstones behind him.

  “I thought I’d come and see how you were. I hope you don’t mind,” said Ellabell shyly. It was all he could do not to wrap his arms around her there and then. Having her near, after so much trauma, was like the first sip of water given to a desperately thirsty man.

  “Ellabell,” he whispered as she neared.

  “It sounds like the dumbest question, but are you okay?” she asked, holding his face in her hands and tilting his chin down, making him look in her eyes. “You don’t seem okay.”

  He shook his head, lost for words.

  “Is it the barrier?” she asked softly.

  He shrugged. “Partly.”

  “Is it Alypia? Or the portal home?”

  He smiled bitterly. “It’s everything, and yet so much more.”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, stroking the side of his head.

  “It’s nothing. We’re all suffering. I shouldn’t have said anything… I’m fine,” he sighed, his throat tight with raw emotion.

  She took his hand in hers, squeezing it tightly. “You’re hurting, and you have as much right as anyone to talk about it. I’m here to listen,” she reassured him. “If something is troubling you, you can tell me.”

  “Sorry I haven’t been myself lately,” Alex replied quietly after a moment’s silence, unable to meet her gaze. He didn’t want her to see him like this, all over the place.

  “Did something happen, something you’re not telling us?” she pressed, her voice still laced with concern.

  He shook his head again, unable to put it into words.

  “Let’s just sit out here for a while,” Ellabell said, tugging at his wrist.

  He nodded, trying to force a smile upon his lips. “That sounds nice.”

  Gripping her hand, he followed her up to a narrow pew fastened to the far wall, just beneath the sill of a long, narrow window that looked like it might once have served as a hole for archers to fire their arrows from. Outside, the sky was invisible, smothered in the bronze fog that served as a reminder of just how trapped they were. He sighed, turning away from it.

  He could see that Ellabell was wracked with concern for him, her eyes scanning his face for signs of anything that might be useful in telling her what had happened to him. He would have told her himself, but, for the moment, words failed him. Fatigue sapped whatever was left of his strength, leaving him slumped and silent on the bench’s varnished surface, wishing he had something articulate to say to the pretty girl before him who was watching him with such compassion in her sparkling blue eyes. He wanted to reach out for her and pull her into a tight embrace, to let them both know that the world wasn’t crumbling away around them, that there was still hope within it. But he couldn’t raise his arms to the task. All he cou
ld do was sit and stare, a blank expression upon his face, his mind battered by the day’s onslaught of events. It was a lot to take in, and he wasn’t sure he’d ever absorb it all.

  “What happened?” she asked gently, after a lengthy spell of absolute silence. “Aside from the obvious.”

  For a brief moment, he thought about putting on a brave face and pretending he was okay, coming up with something about it just being the same thing everyone else was upset about, or saying he had just been affected by the barrier’s influence or the reparation of his soul. But looking at her, the girl who was gazing back with such trust in her eyes, he knew he had to come out with it instead of keeping it hidden within. Secrets only served to eat away at the hope inside him, and he wasn’t willing to suffer its rotting influence again. So, he let the truth flow.

  He told her what had happened with Elias, though it now seemed like a lifetime since he had experienced it—he shared every word, letting it all pour from his mouth until there was nothing left. Every detail, every moment, every pain, every face within the story he had to tell. He told her what Elias had done to his father, and how Siren Mave had come to defend the shadow-man’s actions, giving Alex a long-winded tale of guardians and accidents and good intentions. Lastly, he told her of the devastation his mother must have felt, never knowing what had happened, and the pain she had suffered in the years afterwards… the pain they had both suffered, not knowing.

  “It hurts, Ellabell… It hurts so much,” he said through gritted teeth, holding his chest as if his heart might shatter at any moment. “I never knew him, and I keep thinking about all the times I judged him so harshly for leaving her. I used to think about what I’d say to him if I ever saw him again, and it was never going to be anything nice. All that time wasted on anger, when he hadn’t done anything wrong. He died, loving my mother, loving me. I felt it, in his heart… He loved us so much,” he gasped, the grief overwhelming.