The Keep

by Bella Forrest

  He instantly regretted the question, as an expression of grief washed over the old man’s face, making him seem suddenly even more ancient, if such a thing was possible. Caius sighed heavily, running a hand through his flowing white locks. Deep down, Alex realized he already knew the answer, and he wanted to take the question back—but words, like arrows, could never be returned.

  “Like all the others, my Guinevere perished. My brother ensured that she didn’t live—another punishment for my so-called crimes. You see now, there isn’t much more he can do to hurt me,” Caius whispered miserably, staring into the licking flames of the fire. “I keep her close to my heart, though,” he said, turning back to Alex.

  From his shirt pocket, Caius retrieved a pocket watch. The silver oval glinted in the firelight, and Alex saw that it was engraved with tiny vines that swirled across the metal. When Caius pushed on a minuscule button, the pocket watch popped open, revealing a clock face on one side, ticking slowly, and a portrait on the other. The woman depicted in the image was beautiful, with large, almond-shaped eyes and flowing dark hair, though Alex couldn’t tell the color of anything from the sepia tone of the picture.

  “She’s lovely,” Alex said, though it didn’t really do the woman justice.

  “Smart too, the smartest woman I ever knew, and funny too. I never knew a sense of humor like hers,” Caius remarked wistfully, snapping the watch shut and returning it to his shirt pocket.

  That description reminded Alex of someone, though he refused to look at her in case Caius picked up on it. Instead, he asked another question, to sate his curiosity.

  “How come Julius didn’t follow through on his threat with Leander’s children? With Virgil?”

  “A few reasons,” Caius explained. “With the Great Evil released, Julius was convinced by his advisors to let the boy live, in case he proved useful in combatting it. Julius had no qualms about putting Virgil in harm’s way, but nobody could confirm whether or not a hybrid could carry out the necessary spell, designed to put an end to the Great Evil, and nobody has been able to confirm it since. In previous attempts, it looked as if Virgil wasn’t quite Spellbreaker enough to make it work, but who can say whether he was made to try hard enough—royals don’t punish royals, after all.”

  Alex frowned. “What do you mean ‘carry out the necessary spell?’”

  “Ah… I wasn’t sure we’d get around to this,” Caius said reluctantly, a flash of sorrow in his golden eyes.

  “Get around to what?”

  “Well, the Great Evil is currently being kept at bay with the life essence of mages, to feed the hungry entity Leander released,” Caius explained. “However, magic is fading from this world, and more and more noble families, not to mention regular magical families, are having children with no magical ability whatsoever. I would imagine that is why Julius decided to come down and demand further essence from my haven.”

  It was something Alex was already vaguely aware of, after hearing it mentioned by Alypia, but Caius seemed as if he was about to elaborate, and Alex was eager to hear what the old man had to say. So far, he had proven to be the greatest well of knowledge Alex had come across.

  “The only way to stop the threat of the Great Evil and the ongoing deaths of young mages—and, I suppose, my prisoners—once and for all, is to find a Spellbreaker and have him perform the counter-spell to the one Leander released that day,” he said grimly, giving Alex an apologetic look. “They thought they had found him, a while back, but it came to nothing.”

  Alex knew Caius was talking about his father, and the memory was a painful one, dragging back up all those feelings from the pit of his stomach. The image of his mother heading to the ice cream truck. The strange man across the lake, staring. The panicked heartbeat as his father ran. The swoop of a shadow, and the darkness as his father’s life evaporated on the wind.

  “Do you know what happened to him?” Alex asked, testing Caius.

  Caius nodded slowly. “A shadow creature, supposedly a royal-sent guardian, attempted to defend the Spellbreaker from an assailant who had been sent by an underground group of mages. They no doubt planned to use or dispose of him as they pleased, but the shadow creature wound up killing both assailant and Spellbreaker, his new powers too strong and too unpredictable,” he said, holding no secrets back. “Interestingly, I discovered later that the shadow guardian, or what have you, had once been a potential link in the magical chain, one who might have been able to take on the Great Evil due to his extraordinary strength. But something went awry somewhere along the line. The man disappeared, and the shadow emerged, not quite properly formed one way or the other. With him, two hopes were dashed. Three, I suppose,” he added, casting a sorrowful glance in Alex’s direction. For that acknowledgement of his loss, Alex was grateful.

  “And then there was me,” he muttered wryly.

  “Quite the surprise—nobody knew about you, not a soul, until you walked into the grounds of Spellshadow Manor, entirely by accident,” Caius chuckled, but there was remorse in the sound. A remorse Alex shared, though he knew, given the chance again, he probably wouldn’t have done anything differently.

  Well, perhaps I would have left a note, he thought sadly.

  Alex sighed. “How do you know so much?”

  “There are perks to being a royal—even an embarrassment to the family like me.” He grinned, flashing a hefty jeweled ring on his pinky finger that Alex hadn’t noticed before. The stone set in the center was a peculiar mix of black and red that reminded Alex somehow of the squat, toady woman who still made him seethe. Was Caius getting all of his information through Siren Mave? It seemed like the only viable answer, what with her ability to move easily between havens, gathering intel.

  A thought sprang to his mind as he realized the opportunity that stood before him. If he was the answer to solving the threat of the Great Evil, and granting freedom to all the students of Stillwater House and Spellshadow Manor, not to mention his friends, then he would accept his fate. There would be no more essence torn from unwilling victims, only liberation and a hopeful future for them all.

  “I’ll do it. I’ll do the counter-spell. You speak to whoever needs to be spoken to about getting this thing arranged, and I will do it,” he said enthusiastically, a smile spreading across his face. The solution was right there, in the palms of his hands.

  Caius smiled sadly, causing Alex’s to fade. “There is a proviso… The price of the counter-spell is the same as the one Leander paid.”

  Alex crumpled. “My life?” he whispered.

  “It is a rare, dark spell that requires a life to conjure. No half-measures, no alternatives, no ways around it,” Caius said wearily, evidently hating that he was the bearer of bad news.

  Alex’s blood ran cold as understanding dawned. The people who had warned him of others wanting to “use” him for their own purposes—that was what they meant. They meant others using his life to stop the Great Evil, not caring what it meant for him. As long as everyone else survived, what did he matter? The thought made him furious, but it also brought with it a grim realization. He remembered the words Helena had whispered to him as they parted ways before the portal to Kingstone: “Today the few, tomorrow the many.” That day, he had saved his friends, but the rest…

  Did Helena know? he wondered. Was it just expected of him that he would give his life for the lives of everyone else? If that was the case, he knew he might end up disappointing a lot of people. If he was being honest with himself, he knew he wasn’t ready for that kind of sacrifice.

  He was just a young man, not a martyr.

  A dozen thoughts raced at once, struggling to be heard in the cacophony of his overwrought mind. In the midst of it, he couldn’t help wondering whether the Head could do the spell but, as Caius suggested, had simply not been forced to try hard enough. If Virgil had never been pushed to actually give it his all, how could they know he wasn’t capable? It was an option Alex clung to, though he realized with a sinking feeling that
he needed to speak with Elias. He really didn’t want to, but he knew the shadow-man might be the only person who could shed more light on whether or not the Head was still a potential counter-spell candidate. Much to Alex’s annoyance, the shadowy guide had once again become the only glimmer of hope in a sea of overwhelming darkness. A way out.

  Alex looked up at Caius, swallowing. “If you were me, would you do it?”

  The old man shook his head. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Too many lives are being stolen far too soon. Although it is ultimately your choice, do not allow yourself to be swayed by the words and pleas of others. It is your life, and they have no right to ask,” he said firmly, his steady gaze reassuring.

  “What even is it?” Alex asked.

  “What?”

  “The Great Evil—everybody keeps talking about it, telling me how terrible it is, but I’ve got no idea what the damn thing even is, or how you’re keeping it from doing these terrible things it apparently does. You say you sate its hunger with essence, or whatever, but what is it? Is it a monster, a demon, or what?”

  Caius smiled oddly. “I promise I will show you, when we return to the keep.”

  “You will?” The offer took Alex by surprise.

  “I will. Now, I have talked for quite long enough. It’s your turn. First of all, what is it you’re planning to do with my dear niece?” he asked. “She seems insistent on coming through my walls to retrieve what I imagine she believes to be her stolen property.” He smirked, displeasure for the woman evident on his face.

  Alex scrutinized Caius closely, hoping his hope wouldn’t be crushed, as it had been so many times before. He believed Caius to be the most trustworthy royal he had come across so far, with perhaps the exception of Helena, and so, taking a deep breath, he told Caius of the plan to build a portal using the essence.

  “I suppose her persistence makes more sense now,” Alex quipped bitterly, gesturing toward himself. “Why be mad about stolen essence when the key to your survival has slipped through your fingers? It isn’t the essence she wants back—she wants me. She wants to tie that bow around me and hand-deliver me like a fruit basket.”

  “She has always been stubborn,” Caius mused. “Anyway, we have undoubtedly tarried too long. I’d better be getting the two of you back before your people start to worry. I’ll show you what the Great Evil is, too, once we’re back inside the keep.”

  The Great Evil is right there at Kingstone Keep? Alex thought with alarm, worrying for his friends while trying to imagine how that could be true. He wondered if this might be the time to ask Caius about the Kingstone essence, but he decided to wait until they were back in the keep itself, where he might have a better chance of getting the old man to lead him directly to its hiding place.

  Outside the windows of the study, rain pounded. Thunder rumbled overhead, then cracked loudly somewhere nearby, followed by the bright flash of lightning. The sound made Alex jump, reminding him of humid summer evenings when the sky would darken and the air would smell metallic, the atmosphere tense, in need of a thunderstorm’s sweet relief to quench the thirst of the baked earth below.

  Alex nodded. “I think that would be best, thank you.”

  “Very well—how are your travel skills? Do you think you can reach that far?” he asked.

  Alex shrugged. “I’ll try.”

  “Wonderful. I can take Ellabell with me,” Caius suggested.

  Alex paused anxiously, glancing down at the girl sleeping soundly beside the fire.

  Caius frowned. “You still don’t trust me?”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I’m just… a little protective of her, I guess. I’m worried that if I take my eyes off her for a second, she’ll disappear again.” The admission made his cheeks feel hot.

  “I understand that,” the old man said, his voice laced with a heartrending sadness. It made Alex wonder how he could be so insensitive, realizing Caius had probably done exactly that—taken his eyes off the woman he adored for a second and then never seen her again. “I will take good care of her. I will treat her as precious cargo, and deliver her safely to the tower,” Caius promised, a knowing smile upon his lips.

  With that, they parted company, making their separate ways back toward the stagnant fog of the keep.

  Chapter 21

  After dropping Ellabell safely on the bench outside the tower, Alex hurried after Caius as he limped toward the nearest tunnel, his cane echoing against the stone floor. Alex wondered where the Great Evil could possibly be kept within the prison. After all, they had mapped Kingstone almost in its entirety. Surely, they would have known if they had stumbled upon something as supposedly harrowing as the Great Evil. Amid all the strangeness Alex had witnessed in his time within the magical world, it remained the biggest mystery.

  Alex followed Caius through the familiar hallways, surprised by the lack of noise and movement from within the cells they passed. Where usually Alex would have expected insults thrown his way and the slam of bodies pounding against the door in protest, everything was still. Gradually, the surrounding sights became less and less recognizable, the damp, dripping hallways growing narrower the farther they traveled into the keep. Torches still flickered, but the shadows were more oppressive in the belly of the prison. Caius plucked one of the torches from a bracket, the flame bobbing as the old man limped down the hallway.

  Alex ducked as the ceiling dipped, stooping low, though the slick stone overhead still grazed his hair with decades of slime. The narrow halls and low roof didn’t seem to bother Caius, who just hurried on ahead, not slowing his pace for a moment. Even the bats Alex and the others had encountered in their previous explorations remained still and silent, dangling as harmlessly as seed pods as they passed through the subterranean level of empty cells, venturing farther into the keep than Alex and his friends had managed to reach.

  The floor below was identical to the one filled with bats, the cells still vacant. Caius turned suddenly to enter one of the empty cells. When Alex didn’t immediately follow, Caius stuck his hand out the door and gestured for him to come forward. Alex entered the cell to find the usual amenities—a broken toilet, a sink, and a dusty cot draped in rotten bedsheets. It looked the part, but it was clear this cell wasn’t intended for an occupant. Caius moved the bed, revealing a staircase leading down into the floor beneath. The warden stood patiently to one side, as if waiting for Alex to descend first, and so Alex did.

  It occurred to him, as he edged down the stairs, that even if he and his friends had continued mapping the keep, they never would have found this staircase.

  Glancing back at the entrance above him, swallowed up by the darkness, Alex realized he may have just made a colossal error in following Caius and leaving Ellabell behind. If Caius wanted to keep him as a bargaining chip, this would be the perfect ruse, luring him down into the dark, oppressive heart of the keep, where no one could hear him shout for help.

  If Alex thought the normal hallways were eerily quiet, it was nothing compared to the deathly silence that lingered down in the catacombs, interrupted only by the occasional click of Caius’s cane. The permeating stillness made Alex’s skin crawl. He began to feel sick as he descended farther and farther into the prison.

  At long last, they arrived at the end of the staircase. Caius moved past Alex, lighting torches to illuminate the way ahead. As the glow crept forward, Alex saw that he stood at the head of a long, cave-like passageway hewn into the rock foundations of the keep, with an imposing wooden door at the end. Other, smaller doors veered off from the passageway, but it was the large, looming door that drew Alex’s attention. They walked toward it, the thud of Caius’s cane echoing loudly around them.

  Caius opened it, the hinges straining, and led Alex into the unknown. Alex gasped, gazing around at the enormity of the vast, dimly lit room that met him. It only grew larger as Caius set his torch in a bracket, the light spreading out across the walls. The ceiling disappeared above him, too high to be seen by the naked ey
e. A great, gaping cavern covered the center of the enormous chamber, falling away into the earth, the pit seemingly bottomless. On a shelf of stone jutting above the abyss, a golden bird perched, beating gleaming metallic wings in a steady rhythm, its sharp beak poised toward the impossibly deep crater. The scent of fear and something distinctly sour stung Alex’s nostrils.

  Getting as close to the edge as he dared, Alex peered down into the maddening darkness. There was nothing to stop him from falling in, no fence or wall, and he could feel the magnetic draw of whatever lay in wait at the pit’s center. Beneath his feet, the ground trembled.

  “What is this place?” Alex asked, staring down into the shadows.

  “This is how the Great Evil is sated,” Caius replied calmly.

  Alex drew back from the edge. “What is it?”

  “Do you recall hearing about a silver mist?”

  Alex nodded. “The one that swallowed up the life magic of the mages, on that final day?” he replied, remembering the tale.

  “Well, that is the Great Evil,” Caius said matter-of-factly.

  Alex frowned. “A mist?” It didn’t seem all that frightening to him.

  “Much more than a mist, Alex—it is a ravenous, deadly plague that needs to be fed in order to keep it below the earth, away from where it could do great harm,” Caius replied, a haunted expression in his golden eyes.

  “I thought it would be a giant monster or something,” Alex said. “A mist” just didn’t have the same ring to it as “a giant monster.” He tried to picture a cloud with eyes and fangs coming toward him. No matter how he envisioned it, the image was a comical one.

  “If it were a monster, it could be fought off,” Caius said. “How, pray tell, do you fight a miasma that can move freely, shifting and flowing, getting in the smallest of gaps, undeterred by weapons and combat?”

  Understanding emerged in Alex’s mind. “I suppose you can’t.”