by Imogen Elvis
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Lady Madella’s carriage rumbled through the streets of Mizra, heading for the castle. Even this early in the morning, the streets teemed with people, not so much rushing around on their own business this time, but stopping to gossip with the people around them. Briar caught glimpses of the city from where she sat, wedged between Lara and Kade, pressed as far back in the carriage as possible, in the hopes that no one would spy them from outside. Lady Madella herself sat on the seat facing them, her full, glossy skirts spread out around her to keep them from creasing. The light from the window lit her face as she gazed serenely out at the passing scenery as if this were any other day and she wasn’t travelling to the castle to decide the fate of the country.
Briar clasped her hands between her knees, stilling their nervous twisting. It had sounded like an excellent plan in Lady Madella’s breakfast room. Ride in her carriage, relying on her reputation and status to get them through the gates unquestioned. Slip into the castle using one of the unguarded side entrances. Search Master Sachio’s room and find the song catcher, then leave without anyone being any the wiser. Simple. Now they were on their way, however, Briar was starting to question how easy this was really going to be.
“We’re almost to the gates,” Lady Madella said.
Leaning forward, Briar got a clearer look at the road. The carriage slowed as it reached a set of gates thrown open to allow carriages to pass through freely. Though the gates might be open, they were also heavily guarded. Soldiers flanked the road, some standing sentry, while others stopped passing carriages, questioning their occupants.
“What if the soldiers stop us?” Briar asked. They’d be spotted the moment anyone came to the window to speak to Lady Madella.
“They will let us pass. My crest is enough to guarantee that.” Lady Madella seemed calmly proud of that fact. If she held that kind of a reputation, then she had every right to be proud. “You’ll be quite safe.”
“Sit back, Briar.” Lara nudged her with her elbow. “Someone will see you.”
Briar sat back, losing her view of the road, and Lara returned to fiddling with the fraying end of her braid. Lady Madella glanced out the window again and let out a prim sigh, gathering her belongings. “We’re almost to the castle. My driver will let me out, and then deliver you somewhere quiet. I will be with the council all day. You have my word that I will do all I can to stall their decision on the king for as long as possible. The rest is up to you.”
“Thank you,” Kade said. “We’ll do our best.”
The carriage came to a halt with a gentle bump. Briar bit her lip, pressing as far back into her seat as she could while booted feet scrunched round to the door. Even though the carriage driver knew they were there, a shiver still ran down her spine.
The door swung open, and the driver appeared. He tipped his hat to Lady Madella and offered her his hand, his eyes fixed on his mistress, never acknowledging the other three passengers in the carriage. Lady Madella gathered up her skirts and alighted without so much as a farewell, or backward glance. The door swung shut again with a sharp click.
“We’ll head straight for one of the side entrances,” Kade said in a low voice. “They’ll be less busy at this time of day. We can use the servant’s halls to get close to Sachio’s suite.”
The carriage gave a little lurch as it swung into motion once more. Briar fiddled with the cuff of her sleeve. This was not the sort of mission that should be undertaken in broad daylight. It was better suited to a velvety black night when the moon was dark, and a thousand stars twinkled overhead. But they didn’t have the time to waste waiting for nightfall. It was now, or they would be too late.
The carriage rumbled to a stop again. Lara stuck her head out of the window. “We’ve pulled around a corner,” she said. “Though, I don’t think the coachman is interested in helping us out.” She shook her head. “If he knew who exactly he was carrying-”
“There’s a reason we didn’t tell him,” Kade said.
“I was talking about me, not you.” Lara turned back to him with one eyebrow arched. “Maybe I would like people to give me the respect that I deserve.”
The corner of Kade’s mouth twitched up. “Then you’d better make sure you do your part properly and earn some of that respect.” He pushed open the carriage door, looking around warily, before climbing out.
Lara followed him, and Briar brought up the rear. Kade offered her his hand as she stepped out, and she took it. His fingers were warm and lingered a little longer than necessary, while his eyes searched her face as if looking for something. What did he expect to see? Grief? Hope? Faith? Briar wasn’t sure what she felt any more. Just numbness. At least she had some purpose to pour herself into now.
The carriage rumbled away the moment Kade closed the door, leaving them standing in the middle of the road looking after it. Briar shivered at the openness, crossing her arms and hunching in on herself. “We should keep moving,” she said. “Someone will see us.”
“There should be a door somewhere over there.” Lara led off.
Briar and Kade fell into step behind her. A line of flowering bushes followed their path around the side of the castle. They grew up against the wall of the building, dropping white petals around their roots like drifts of snow. On the other side of the road stood a high wall, built of golden stone, which blocked Briar’s view of the city beyond. The sun shone down brightly, warming the stones.
“How much further is it?” Briar asked in a low voice.
“Not far. Around this next corner and through a few bushes,” Lara said. “It’s just a side entrance, so it’s not going to be grand.”
Not grand, but also not guarded, which was of greater importance. They ducked around the corner. Here, the road swung away from the castle a little and a small garden had been planted in the little nook. Spreading trees cast a cooling shade over the ground, while bushes ringed the little half-circle of grass, creating a sense of privacy. Clusters of flowers grew beneath these bushes, blooming in cheerful yellows and oranges.
Briar pushed through the clinging branches into the shelter of the little nook. At least now they weren’t quite so visible to anyone on the road. Just in time too. The faint hum of voices caught her ear, growing louder as the speakers came in their direction.
“Someone’s coming,” Briar hissed.
Kade glanced around. “We’ll have to use the bushes for shelter and hope they don’t come in here.”
Wonderful. Briar crouched behind the thick branches of the bushes, folding herself into the smallest space possible. She peeped between the twigs. By now, she could almost make out the conversation of the approaching people. Who was coming this way? Soldiers? Courtiers?
Neither. A shiver of dread ran down Briar’s spine as two Nameless Ones stepped into view. As ever, they were dressed all in black, even down to their gloves, while masks covered their faces. However, unlike the masks they had worn when Briar saw them before, which were made of soft black fabric, these were formed from beaten metal, etched with fine lines tracing the edges. These decorations did nothing to lessen their aura of menace.
The Nameless Ones escorted two familiar figures. The first was Master Sachio himself. Briar’s chest tightened, and she had to stop herself from recoiling. Why wasn’t he in the meeting with the ruling council? Shouldn’t he be with them now, orchestrating his brother’s downfall to its bitter end?
At his side walked Lucien Redfern, wind magician, staunch supporter of Master Sachio, and older brother of Kade’s former fiancée. Briar frowned, leaning forward. Why was he in Mizra? The last time she’d seen Lucien, he’d been in the far north, with the rest of his family. Of all the people she had expected them to see here in Mizra, Lucien was not one of them.
“-king is no more capable of thinking for himself than a sheep,” Master Sachio was saying as they approached. “There is no danger that the council won’t vote against him. It is best that they think they’ve come to this decision
themselves.”
Lucien nodded, though his mouth twisted as if he wasn’t fully convinced that it wouldn’t be better to hold onto control with both hands until the crown was firmly on Master Sachio’s head. “What will you do with Varik once you take the throne? You won’t want to keep him here.”
Beside Briar, Kade stiffened at the mention of his father. She glanced up at him, but he held absolutely still, though his whole focus remained on the conversation between Lucien and Master Sachio.
“We’ll remove him to one of the country estates. His mind is addled enough that he won’t cause any problems. And of course, if he were to have some sort of an accident while there, well, that would be tragic, but hardly unexpected.”
Briar’s fingers tightened around her medallion. They were talking treason of the highest order here. Overthrowing the king, and then killing him to make sure that Master Sachio’s hold on the throne was secure. And he believed that he actually deserved to be king.
“And the queen?”
If Kade had been stiff before, now his whole body was as rigid as stone. Briar reached her other hand out to him, clasping one of his. He closed his fingers around hers, though his gaze never shifted from the men in the road.
“Acacia is no threat. Whether she stays here or goes with Varik, it makes no difference. She has no power to stop what will happen.”
“It might be better to remove her anyway,” Lucien suggested. “With all respect, people in your family tend to be surprisingly stubborn.”
“That is true.” Master Sachio tipped his head to one side. “I’ll consider what is best to be done with her. We’ve time yet.”
“Not that long. The council will vote in your favour today,” Lucien said. “My father says they are more than willing to crown you, especially after what happened last night. You’ll be king sooner than we could have hoped.” Lucien bowed his head in respect, but Briar didn’t miss the slight narrowing of his eyes, and the half hopeful smile that creased his lips, the way he hungered for something of his own.
“And when that time comes, I will not forget those who helped me.” There was no magic in Master Sachio’s words now, just a knowledge of what people liked to hear, which words to say to keep them loyal. Master Talor was right about one thing. Master Sachio had a tongue of pure silver, but his heart was cold and greedy.
“Will you be speaking with the council at all today?” Lucien asked. “After all you did last night to secure the safety of the city…”
Master Sachio shook his head. “Unless they specifically ask me to address my decision, I won’t be sitting in on the council’s meeting. They must come to me. A king is only secure when he is placed into power peacefully.”
Because there was so much peace about all of Master Sachio’s plans. And yet, he was right, much as Briar might wish he wasn’t. No one would challenge his right to the throne if it was the ruling council who placed him there. He manipulated them all from behind the scenes, but his hands appeared spotless. Briar stared after Master Sachio and Lucien as they passed by, turning the corner and disappearing from view. Neither of those men deserved their gift of magic.
“That was too close,” Lara said. “Sachio talks as if he already holds the throne. The way he deals so casually with his own brother’s life…” She shook her head. “We need to find that song catcher.” She turned and plunged on through the small patch of garden in search of the side door. Kade, however, lingered, staring after Master Sachio, even though he had long since disappeared.
Briar waited with him, still clasping his hand. “What they said about your father and mother-”
“-won’t be important soon.” Kade pulled his eyes away from the now-empty road with a visible effort. “Once Sachio’s magic is gone, he won’t be able to control my father, and he won’t be in a position to harm my mother either.” Kade swung round, his hand slipping from Briar’s grasp, and followed Lara, moving so quickly that Briar had to run to keep up. “We just have to make sure this plan works.”
Yes, all they had to do was pull off the nearly impossible task of not only stripping Master Sachio of his powers but also exposing his deeds to those who saw him as a saviour. They could do it, but Briar still couldn’t stop the doubts that crept in. She hadn’t been able to save Ava. Why should she believe that she could do any better now?
With an effort, Briar pushed aside her doubts and focused on catching up with Lara, who had stopped by a small side door, her hand already on the knob as she waited impatiently for them to catch up, her foot tapping restlessly.
“Wait,” Kade said, as Lara made to turn the handle. “Briar, can you check that the hallway is clear?”
Briar nodded and closed her eyes, reaching out with her mind to search for life songs in the hallway beyond the door. A physical barrier made the task harder, but, after a few moments, she was reasonably certain. “There’s no one there.”
Lara pushed open the door without waiting for further confirmation. No shout sounded as she stepped inside the dim hallway beyond. Briar took a deep breath and plunged after her, with Kade bringing up the rear. Their footsteps echoed against the stone until it sounded like a legion of people marching through, inside of only three. The air was cool and clung to Briar with creeping fingers of dread. She stepped close to Kade, trying not to imagine all the ways that this could go wrong.
At the end of the corridor, Lara stopped. She shifted, biting her lip. “I’m not quite sure of the way from here. Kade?”
Kade moved smoothly to the head of the line and turned right. This new hallway left them at the foot of a narrow set of stairs, just wide enough for two people to pass each other if they took care. A servant in a grey-green dress, with a large white apron over the top, stopped halfway down the stairs, her eyes wide as Kade led the way up. It was very obvious, even just by the way Briar and her friends dressed, that they didn’t belong in this part of the castle. Briar braced herself for the inevitable moment when the woman would turn and run, shrieking about intruders. But instead, the servant held still and silent as they jostled past her and carried on up the stairs.
The staircase let out in another small hallway, identical to the one they had just left. Set into the wall directly opposite the stairs was a door, while a corridor led off in both directions. Kade turned right again and led the way to a second set of stairs. They passed another couple of servants, who stood aside to allow them through, their eyes wide, but otherwise silent. No one moved to alert any guard of their presence. Maybe, though they would be surprised that someone other than a servant would be using these passages, they didn’t know who Kade and Lara were? Briar had assumed that everyone in the castle would recognise them on sight, but perhaps that wasn’t entirely true.
“How do you know your way around the servants’ halls so well?” Briar asked.
“I liked to explore when I was younger,” Kade said.
“When you were younger?” Lara let out a little snort. “I remember escaping through these halls more than once when we caught sight of someone you didn’t want to speak to, and you were hardly young then.”
“That doesn’t sound like me,” Kade said. But the look he cast back over his shoulder twinkled with mischief.
This second flight of stairs led up to yet another identical hallway, with a door right across from the stairs, and the hallway running left and right. Briar expected them to go in search of yet another set of stairs, but instead, Kade crossed to the door, stopping with his fingers on the handle.
“This will let us out of the servants’ halls,” Kade said. “People here are more likely to recognise us and call the guards.” He pushed open the door, checking the hall beyond, before stepping through. “It’s clear.”
This new corridor ran parallel to the servants’ passageway. It was easy to see that this was a different class of hallway to the one Briar had just left. Thick carpet covered the floors, woven in deep red, with threads of shining gold catching the light. The doors that lined the walls were fi
tted with shiny brass handles and hinges. They reflected Briar’s face as she passed. Even the unlit lamps in their holders gleamed, their glass polished until it was crystal clear.
“There are sure to be some guards near Sachio’s rooms,” Kade said. “Wait until I’ve distracted them before trying to get in.”
Briar bit her lip. It felt so wrong to be putting Kade in such danger. All this time, they’d been trying to avoid having anyone recognise him, and now he was willingly putting his life on the line to create a distraction large enough that Briar and Lara would remain unnoticed as they slipped into Master Sachio’s private quarters. If Kade was caught now, well, Briar tried not to imagine that.
Voices filtered out through a couple of the doors as Briar passed, muffled by the heavy wood so that the words themselves were too indistinct to make any sense. Turning a corner, however, Briar and her friends almost ran right into a group of young women, sauntering down the corridor, giggling and chattering, their arms looped together. The women cast curious glances at them as Kade brushed by, Briar and Lara following in his wake.
“Are they letting just anyone into the castle nowadays?” one of the young women asked, her voice pointedly sharp. “The small one is such an urchin. What does she think she’s doing here?”
Briar’s cheeks flushed. It didn’t matter what they thought of her. She was here to find a song catcher. She didn’t need to measure up to their standards. But still, their words cut deep. Was she really so poor and plain-looking?
Much to Briar’s relief, they quickly left the young women behind as they wound their way through what felt like miles of twisting passageways. It made Briar doubly glad that she had Lara and Kade. There was no way she would ever remember the way back.