The Keep

by Bella Forrest

  “How will I find your son?” Alex pressed.

  Caius sighed. “It won’t be easy, but if your group is small, you may succeed. You must seek out a pagoda in the trees—the peak of it brushes the canopy of the forest, and there is a golden bird at the top that catches the sunlight twice a day, flashing at those times like a beacon. Find that beacon and follow it,” he said solemnly. “And move slowly. Many of the magical snares can be sensed before they go off, but you have to be listening intently for them—you have to know what you’re looking for. Be wary of any oddity you come across, be it a black leaf, or a tree trunk that seems oddly bent, or a glade where birds don’t sing.”

  Alex was glad he’d asked. “Thank you, Caius. This is a huge help. If I’d known the two of you were related, I’d have come to you sooner.”

  Caius smiled sadly. “If you manage to get to him, you will find him a pleasant sort of man, with plenty of time for bright young things like you. A genuinely good soul, my boy. Do pass on my well wishes to him, won’t you, if you make it to him?”

  Alex nodded. “Of course I will. It would be my pleasure. If he’s anything like you, I’m sure we’ll get along just fine.”

  “You are too kind,” said Caius. “Now, I fear I must go before I do something I regret,” he added, casting a sour glance in Alypia’s direction. “Do not linger too long—you should go to your friends as quickly as you can.”

  “I will. I just want a quick word,” Alex promised.

  With a hum of displeasure, Caius rose from his seat, snatching his cane from where it stood against the wall. Leaning heavily on the silver falcon’s head, the warden hobbled toward the open door, casting a savage look back at his niece before disappearing out into the hallway, leaving the two of them alone. Alypia knelt on the floor, her back to him, her face hidden from view.

  He had wanted his chance to speak with Alypia, and here it was.

  Be careful what you wish for, he thought anxiously as the white-haired woman slowly began to turn her head in his direction.

  “I suppose you think I owe you something now,” Alypia said, glowering.

  Alex drew closer to her. “I want to know about Julius and the counter-spell you all apparently want me for.”

  She smirked. “Well, help a lady up first. I’m not going to say a word while I’m stuck here on the floor, in this particularly degrading state.”

  Wondering if it was a trap of some sort, Alex hung back for a moment.

  “Oh, come on, I’m not going to bite you or anything!” she snapped.

  Her shrill voice sent a shiver up Alex’s spine, but he stepped toward her regardless, grasping her by the arm as he hauled her to her feet. The manacles ensured her hands remained behind her back, her power more or less drained by the twisting gray ivy, but it didn’t mean she wouldn’t try something if she got the chance. Carefully, Alex helped to maneuver her back into the armchair by the fireplace, and slowly sat down opposite her.

  “You’re not going to undo these cumbersome chains?” she purred.

  “Not a chance.”

  “I’d say I won’t hold this against you, but I’m the kind of woman who loves to bear a grudge, and you have given me more than enough to stack against your name.” She sneered, the expression looking strange on her patchwork face of beauty and ugliness.

  “But you’ll talk?” he asked.

  She gave a casual shrug. “Seeing as you saved my life, I could be persuaded to answer a question or two, though how is it that you continue to outmaneuver me, Alex Webber?”

  “Call it a bad habit.”

  An amused expression graced Alypia’s brow. “You know, I was hoping to put you in a little gift box and hand you to my father on his birthday. And yet here I am, stuck in this foul place with my insane uncle watching over me. I must say, this wasn’t quite how I’d hoped things would pan out.” She laughed bitterly. “I should have just told my father about you when I had the chance. It was that wormy little brother of mine, persuading me that it would be so much better if we kept it secret until we could find you again and hand you over as planned.”

  “I think you underestimate me, Alypia,” said Alex calmly.

  “And I think you think a little too highly of yourself,” she warned. “You think you can simply take over, with no consequences? You think you can run around saving all these lives, without any sort of retribution? My father will come for you, and if you think you can outmaneuver him, you are a dyed-in-the-wool idiot. You might have gotten the better of me a couple of times, but you won’t have a chance with him.”

  “He’s just a man,” remarked Alex, with more confidence than he felt. “Besides, he needs me alive.”

  Alypia laughed coldly. “Just because he needs you alive doesn’t mean he won’t go through every person you care about in order to get to you. He is capable of anything.”

  “I know, I had the pleasure of seeing him in action,” Alex said grimly, remembering the floppy body of the disintegrated prisoner.

  “Then you should be trembling in your shoes,” Alypia said with a tilt of her head. “Just because you are what you are doesn’t mean you will be safe from my father. He loathes your kind—if he feels like it, he will kill you regardless of whether or not you can do the spell my brother couldn’t.” She gave a short laugh. “I can still hear the screams Virgil made when he failed, and Julius found out. Just think—you could be next.”

  “He’d kill me even if it meant the demise of mage-kind?” Alex asked dubiously. He had seen Julius kill one man without batting an eyelid, but surely the king wouldn’t let everyone die, just to satisfy an impulse.

  “Who knows?” she said, her tone disturbingly chipper. “Although, I think he’d much prefer forcing you to do it. He would relish the opportunity to get his hands on you, and make you suffer for everything your kind did to his people.”

  “Everything my kind did?” Alex spat.

  She smiled coldly. “You think he cares about the indiscretions of the mages? They’re his nighttime reading. Even when I was a child, he used to tell me tales about the men he’d killed, and the executions he’d attended. His greatest achievement is what he did to your race, Alex,” she sighed. “You think I’m some sort of monster, but you don’t know monstrous until you have seen what my father can do, and does do, on a regular basis. I am a kitten in comparison. He could blow up a man from the inside out and think no more of it than if he had squashed a fly. Mind you, he’s going to be so peeved when he hears he came so close to you without knowing.”

  “He won’t get the chance,” Alex replied brazenly.

  Alypia chuckled. “You have no idea what you’re up against, little boy. You had just better hope that I don’t find a way out of here, or find a way to get a message to my father. If I do, you will wish he knew the meaning of a quick death. He will make every one of your little friends suffer in ways you couldn’t even imagine.”

  Alypia was making it very hard for Alex not to regret, just a little bit, that he hadn’t let Caius kill her.

  “We’ll be long gone before he even knows there’s a problem,” Alex retorted.

  “As I say… you’d better hope so.”

  Alex frowned, his heart pounding. “You sound like you worship the man. How can I look at you and not think you’re a monster, when you adore a man who is capable of all those things?”

  “I value power,” she said simply. “And he has immeasurable power.”

  “And what about the way he treats your mother? Surely, you can’t stand for that?” Alex asked, wanting to see how far he could push Alypia.

  “My mother is weak,” she whispered. “My father was right to punish her—she didn’t fight back. She is my father’s property, and she allowed herself to be tarnished.”

  Alex couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of Alypia’s mouth. From such a strong, formidable woman, they sounded absurd, making him wonder if she had somehow been brainwashed along the way, to believe the vile things her father said
and thought to be morally right.

  “She’d be dead if it wasn’t for Caius,” Alex said. “You should respect Caius, not your father.”

  Alypia was silent for a moment. “Perhaps that would have been kinder… if she had died back then. I’ve often thought so.”

  “We’re done here,” said Alex suddenly. He’d heard everything he wanted to know about Julius, and the threat the king posed if he found out what the others were doing at Stillwater and Spellshadow. It made him realize he had to be quicker than ever; he had to go through the portal to Falleaf, retrieve the book, get Virgil to do the counter-spell as fast as he possibly could, and get everyone out of there.

  He had just reached the door to the cell, when Alypia’s sickly sweet voice called his attention back.

  “You know why my uncle allowed you to stay and speak with me, don’t you?” she said softly.

  Alex frowned. “So I could get information from you—you heard me say it.”

  “Sometimes, my uncle forgets which side he is actually on. It’s a personality disorder of some kind, making him believe he’s a Spellbreaker when he’s really one of us,” she purred. “He would do absolutely anything to punish his brother. He would do anything to keep you from saving the rest of us. I wouldn’t be surprised if he were already at your little portal, dismantling it as we speak. Don’t get me wrong—it’s the opposite of what I want, but I figured you should know… you know, in case you wanted to stop him.”

  Alarm rippled through Alex’s body.

  “What?”

  She smiled. “Go see for yourself…” she whispered.

  Pulse racing, Alex darted out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him in case she decided to make a break for it. His feet pounded hard against the flagstones as he sprinted toward the place where the portal to Falleaf was, hoping against everything that it was still there.

  She has to be wrong. She has to be, he told himself as he ran, turning the corner into the hallway where the antechamber was.

  Alypia’s voice followed him, echoing down the corridors.

  “You should have taken my offer, boy! You’re doomed now!”

  He skidded to a halt in front of the door to the small room. Slamming his fists against it, he pushed the door open with alarming force and peered into the darkness beyond, desperate to see the glimmer of the portal staring back.

  No, no, no, no, no...

  Shaking his head, his heart thudding with a sick dread, he ran toward the wall and clawed frantically at the blocks of stone, but it was no good.

  The portal was gone.

  Chapter 32

  Gulping in great, panicked breaths of air, Alex tried to rationalize the sight before him. His fingertips were raw and bleeding from attacking the stone wall in desperation, but he wasn’t ready to give up yet. He had asked Lintz to keep the gateway open, and though it was gone, Alex knew there had to be a reasonable explanation for its disappearance.

  Maybe it closed by accident, he thought to himself over and over, trying to calm his fractious nerves. Alypia can’t be right… Please don’t let her be right.

  Just then, he became aware of the shuffle of feet behind him, and turned sharply to see Caius emerge from the darkness, his cane clicking on the stone. He was holding a half-dead Vincent by the neck with the hand not clutching the cane, dragging him along like a ragdoll. The necromancer was limp, his black eyes rolling back into his head, and there were cuts on his pale arms and bruises to his face, as if he had tried to fight the warden off.

  It was more than Alex could take.

  “She was right,” he gasped.

  “I’m sorry, Alex,” Caius said softly, with a kindness in his voice that almost fooled him.

  “What is this?” Alex asked, gesturing between the empty wall and the limp necromancer.

  “I am so sorry for this, my boy… I thought I could let you go. I honestly believed I could, but then you spoke about the book, and the risk became too great. I realized I couldn’t let you go after all, as much as I wanted to.” The old man sighed heavily, dropping Vincent to the floor with a sickening thud. “I know you won’t believe me, but I didn’t intend it to be this way.”

  Alex glared. “And how was it supposed to be?” he spat.

  “They have to pay, Alex. Hearing your plans to save them all… I’m sorry, but I can’t allow you to walk free,” said Caius, his expression infuriatingly sad.

  “Why should I have to suffer for what they all did?” Alex asked, balling his hands into fists. Anger pulsed inside him, making the edges of his aura bristle with silver light. It was like being a caged animal, with nowhere left to run.

  “You should blame them, not me,” Caius urged, to Alex’s increasing annoyance. “Your anger is misplaced.”

  “No, I blame you! You’re the only one standing here—standing between me and what little hope I have left,” Alex hissed. “Why, Caius? Make me understand, because right now I don’t have a clue what you’re doing this for! I trusted you… For God’s sake, I trusted you!”

  Caius had the decency to look ashamed as he spoke. “I will tell you all the answers you desire, only because you have a right to know why I have chosen this path. The simple truth is, Alex, I don’t want the mages to survive—they do not deserve it. You are young, but I have had a couple hundred years to mull over my thoughts on them, to come to this conclusion. I have witnessed the horror they have inflicted upon innocents, and I have continually stood by and done nothing, because I was younger then too, and I thought as you do now. I didn’t understand what had to be done.” Caius closed his eyes for a moment. “Can you imagine what it is like, tearing the very essence from a person, for personal gain? It is not a means to an end—it is inhuman, and I am certain now that the Great Evil would be kinder than any of this. Who knows, when it has eaten its fill of our kind, perhaps it will leave the innocents too. We were too proud to test the theory, valuing our own lengthy lives above others we cut short,” he muttered bitterly. “You heard the things Alypia said to me, and you have heard the things Julius, and all the rest of them, have done—those are their true colors.”

  Alex tried to calm himself with steady breaths. Surely, he could talk Caius into seeing sense. Surely, he could reason with the man who had once been an ally.

  “Alypia and her father are two rotten apples in a bunch that aren’t, Caius. What if your theory is wrong? What if it never stops, until there are no mages left?”

  “If my theory is wrong, it is still the kinder course. The royals have learned nothing. They don’t care even a little for what they did—give them the choice again, and they would repeat history,” Caius insisted, his golden eyes glinting with angry tears. “Even nature itself wants magic gone—fewer and fewer mages are being born, even within noble magical families. Mother Nature wants to wash her hands of it, for good, as punishment for the genocide they wrought upon your kind. I am simply speeding up the inevitable.”

  “What would Guinevere say, if she could see you now?” Alex said desperately. “She wouldn’t want innocents to burn too, would she?”

  “Perhaps not, but she isn’t here to stop me, because they killed her,” the old man reasoned. “I have the chance to make amends for everyone who died. An eye for an eye.”

  “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, Caius.”

  Caius smiled. “A blind world is better than one filled with mages.”

  “You can’t honestly believe that,” said Alex, horrified. It was unimaginably awful, what Caius had been through, and he couldn’t help but wonder how he might feel if it was Ellabell in a situation like that. But no matter how he dwelled upon it, he knew nothing could justify yet more death, on such an enormous scale.

  Glancing around, Alex looked for any sign of a feasible exit, knowing he would need one when this talk inevitably came to blows. He understood that his chances of overcoming Caius completely were slim, but he felt he might be able to stun Caius for long enough to make a break for it. For now, he just
needed to keep the warden talking, keep him distracted until he could see a viable route to take, when the time came.

  There was the door to the tower room, but he knew he might not be able to get it open before Caius got up again. Then, there was the broken door leading toward the common room, but that would involve stepping over Caius. He could try magical travel too, but the thought of taking the brickwork with him and having it crush him or rip him apart prevented him from doing so. He was, for all intents and purposes, trapped.

  “You won’t change my mind, Alex, though I admire your spirit,” Caius said, an eerie calm in his voice as he strode over Vincent’s limp body.

  Alex tried to take a step back, but there was only a brick wall behind him. “You don’t have to kill me.”

  Caius grinned with odd warmth. “I tried to do this the fair way once before, with your father, but that didn’t work out so well. The only option now is death.”

  Alex froze. “My father?”

  “That vision you had, using this unnatural abomination’s skillset,” Caius said, nodding toward Vincent’s body. “It was my man running after your father—I would have brought him here, where I could lock him up and keep him safe from those selfish savages. I even had a chamber decorated specifically for him… I believe you know the one, near the entrance to the pit.” Caius smiled briefly, but all Alex could do was stare in shock. “It wouldn’t have been a hard life for him. He would never have wanted for anything, and I would have come up with a tale to tell his wife, to soften the blow, but then that shadowy idiot went and killed him.” He sighed woefully. “It wasn’t ideal for anyone, but I suppose it did the job just as well, in the end.”

  Alex recalled the hooded figure in the trees, and realized it hadn’t been the Head after all, but Caius, hiding in the tree-line, ensuring the task was done, waiting to have his prize brought back to him.

  “My father would never have run if you hadn’t had him chased. He would be alive if it weren’t for you,” Alex growled, not quite knowing how to process this new information.