Once he had finished counting the gold, Napoleon returned the purse back to its hidden resting place. “If I think the information you provide is worth my queen’s attention, I am willing to give you more. And the more you tell, the more you shall receive.”
Arthur toyed with the coins sitting on his desk, separating them into neat little stacks out of the advisor’s reach. “I think we have a deal.”
“Good,” Napoleon Duhmer agreed, his frown turning into an ice-cold smile, “Now tell me all that you know about Red Riding Hood.”
Chapter 25
Red looked up from the base of Britton’s greatest mountain. She had seen the great pile of rocks and dirt in passing many times as a child—always amazed by its far off, snow-coated peaks. But she had never been able to appreciate its full glory up close.
She fastened her cloak around her neck, making sure that the harsh winds would not be able to steal it from her. Red tightened her pack across her shoulders. It had been emptied of everything but the essential supplies, yet it still felt as though it were filled with bricks.
Red shook out her tense muscles, not allowing herself to worry—Alpha and her daggers were within easy reach. She looked back at the mountain’s peak, gooseflesh running across her entire body in anticipation.
Red waited, ready, at the base of the mountain for hours. She willed her feet to push forwards, but her shoes did not cause a single pebble to shuffle as she stood in place.
Hours. Days. Weeks. Time passed Red by as she stood, staring up at Mount Orazorwik.
Hunger did not come and force her to eat. Thirst did not push its way down Red’s throat and make her drink. Sleep did not bother to visit to make her rest.
“Aren’t you going to go up there?” a woman asked. She stopped to stand at Red’s side, close enough to be noticed, but far enough so as not to startle the assassin.
“Why should I?” Red returned, her eyes still fixed on Mount Orazorwik’s peak. She did not turn her eyes to the woman as she spoke, already knowing who stood next to her. “This should have been your mission, Estra. Not mine.”
“It was my mission,” Estra Ayrith commented. The old woman fixed her gaze on an oblivious Red. “It was until it wasn’t.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense. Either it’s your mission or it’s not.”
“Think of it as a quest then. I completed my part. Now you must complete yours.”
“How long will my part be?” Red asked. She knew that she would not receive a true answer, but she was still curious.
“As long as it takes,” Estra answered smoothly.
The two women stood in silence together. Estra stood partially in shadow, the colors of her sapphire cloak faded and muted—the fabric still and lifeless. Red stood where the shadows did not quite reach, her ruby cloak billowing around her in the wind.
“I don’t want to go,” Red stated quietly. She clenched her jaw together as she kept the quiver in her lip from taking over.
“I know. But you will,” Estra stated, as if she demanded it.
“Why?”
“Because you have to.”
“That’s not fair.”
“The Destroyer does not touch our lives to be fair,” Estra shot back, her voice rising with the howling wind. “The Maker does not create new lives in our places to be fair.”
Red could feel Estra’s anger rolling off her soul in sweeping waves. She was shocked by the older woman’s temper.
“We are not born into these predetermined roles because it is fair,” Estra’s voice shook out. The roar of the wind swept her voice around Red. “The people that have suffered and died in your wake did not cross your path because it was fair!”
The ground shook dangerously. Boulders and avalanches of snow crashed down Mount Orazorwik’s side. Red watched the rocks tumble past, but she did not turn to run into the safety of the woods behind her. Red could smell a great fire, but she did not look to see what was burning. Her skin grew clammy underneath her layers of clothing, but she did not take anything off to relieve herself from the heat.
Through all the chaos, Estra Ayrith continued in her unbreaking rant. Red let Estra’s voice hit her—but it was her own thoughts, her own words that spewed out of the old woman’s mouth.
“Why would the Maker bless you? How could she throw away her gifts for someone who doesn’t want them? Someone who doesn’t deserve them?”
Red could hear her own voice warped within Estra’s. She knew every sentence—every word—before it was even said. Yet she just stood there, watching Britton’s greatest wonder fall apart.
“It’s no wonder your aura is filled with death. The Destroyer favored you. He knew all along what you would turn into before the Maker even had the chance to create you.”
The ground shook and cracked under the pressure from the falling mountain. Trees sank into the ground, their branched roots pulling their neighbors down with them. Britton’s grounds were torn apart as if they were made of paper.
Red blinked away the dirt that sprayed at her face. Her body shook with the force of the trembling earth. Screams from a nearby town reached to deafen her ears.
Her eyes only slipped away from Mount Orazorwik’s peak when Estra stepped past the veil of the dead. Her skin was gray and ashy. Her eyes were a cold black void. Estra looked ready to decompose and blow away in the raging wind, but she stood firm.
“You were Destroyer-Cursed before you were Maker-Blessed,” Estra said through yellowing teeth. “And you will be nothing more than that unless you manage to take control of your own damned fate.”
Red felt the gravel crunch beneath her soles as she managed to move toward Estra. The old woman looked at the assassin with dead eyes as she backed toward the shadowy veil meant to separate her from the living. Red reached out to stop Estra, but her fingers slipped through nothing but fog and wind.
“You can’t leave me here,” Red pleaded, her voice cracking like the earth beneath her. “I’m not the one you want for this.”
Estra Ayrith did not turn to acknowledge Red’s pleas. She continued down her own path, leaving Red behind in a crumbling world.
Red turned back toward Mount Orazorwik, her breath catching in her throat as she pushed her brain to work over the pounding power of her heart. Her ears once again caught onto the ear-splitting screams that threatened to deafen her. She followed the sound, not bothering to wonder why it did not grow louder as she pressed onward.
She looked back at the base of the mountain, only to realize that her view had not shifted. Her feet continued to trek against the pull of the wind, but she remained in place. Red could not determine whose screams pounded against her eardrums as an avalanche of dirt and rocks came crashing down from Mount Orazorwik’s magnificent peak.
Red did not bother to brace herself as she watched the earth come rushing toward her. She stopped her fight against the raging wind, her feet halting in their unmoved places. Red took one last breath—caught short in her throat—as she was swept away by the roiling land.
~~~
Robyn sprinted through the compound’s twisted tunnel system. His heart threatened to burst right through his ribcage with every pounding beat. He ran from his rising panic, but each tremor in the earth surrounding him helped his fears to catch up in their race.
The young leader cursed himself for wishing for something to do on his monthly night off. Robyn Thorn had just tucked himself into his underused bed when the guards began shouting for him. He would have to catch up on the previous month’s sleep on his next night off.
“I can’t get one break from her. Not one.”
Robyn swiped away the earthworms and pill bugs that fell from the shaking ceiling. He ignored the itch from the fallen dirt as it mixed with his sweat, forming a thin layer of mud across his shoulders and chest. Robyn was glad that the ground was dug out neatly so his bare feet could avoid further damage against the few roots and stones that could not be removed.
Robyn pushed past the
confused rebels that were stepping out of their bedrooms to see what the commotion was about. Many slammed their doors back in place, assuming that Eliseo Flori’s nieces and nephews were playing hapless pranks on everyone. Robyn Thorn shouted at the rest of the foggy-eyed creatures to return to their rooms until the guards could find out what was going on.
Through labored pants that did not show any sign of calmness, Robyn exclaimed, “No one needs to panic! Stay in your rooms and I will tell you what I know the moment I learn what is going on. Don’t worry!”
The young leader shouted this over and over again, doing his best to reassure the rebels that he would soon have control over the situation.
Robyn prayed to the Maker that the surges of power were coming from the earth itself and not the only person who was able to do such damage. To his disappointment, his suspicions only became clearer as he neared Red’s room tucked into the far end of the compound’s winding halls. The pair of guards that had abandoned their posts outside her door only confirmed his suspicions as he bellowed at them to get back to their jobs.
“What are you two doing all the way over here?” Robyn Thorn panted. His eyes squinted in the blue light of their faerie orb, but he could see the fear in their faces as he looked down at the trembling pair. He looked up at the three guards that had chased after him after they had sounded the alarm and woke him up.
“Someone better be at that post!”
One of the shaken guards looked at Robyn with wide eyes. “I’m not letting myself get killed for standing outside that assassin’s door. Let the Destroyer take me before I have to go back there.”
“What are you talking about? This compound is also a sanctuary. Red is forbidden to touch anyone who stays within these tunnels.”
“She’s going to kill all of us if we stay in these damned tunnels,” the other guard cut in sharply. He glanced up at the ceiling as if it were ready to crash down on them at the slightest movement.
Robyn grabbed the two guards, yanking them away from where they were huddling against the tunnel’s wall. “You are going to be put on babysitting duty if you don’t go back to your posts immediately,” Robyn stated coolly.
The guard that had first spoken stood in line with the others. The second guard ripped his arm out of Robyn’s iron grip, accepting a job filled with sticky hands and high-pitched screams. Robyn looked at the guard that shrank back into the corner, offering him one last chance before signaling for the four guards left to follow him.
When the group came upon Red’s room, the men stopped dead in their tracks over a dozen doors away. Another tremor shook the earth around them, throwing the terrified guards to the ground in a heap of spears and armored limbs. Robyn grabbed hold of a loose root in the wall, his toes digging into the ground as the world around them quaked.
When the shaking subsided, Robyn Thorn grabbed hold of the handle on Red’s door. His ears caught onto the siren shrieks coming from the Mantano moles that were trapped inside their homes within the walls. Robyn could not pull the door free—the top pushed down into the ground by the weight of fallen roots from the trees above.
Robyn raced back to the huddled group of guards, prying one of their spears out of their white-knuckled hands. He turned around, only to be thrown to the ground in an explosion of dirt and disintegrated rubble.
The crack and groan of old wood made its way through the patter of the dirt rain as the trees above them burst at their trunks. The tree sitting directly above Red’s room tipped over—its foundation no longer able to hold it aloft as its roots gave out.
“By the Maker,” Robyn whispered under his breath. He coughed against the dust and soil that snaked its way into his nose and throat. The guards around him were frozen with utter shock, but they jumped to their feet when they heard a muffled scream coming from the direction where Red’s room used to be.
“C’mon men!” one of the soldiers shouted. “We can’t just leave her there.”
The adrenaline finally seemed to hit the guards, their bravery returning to them as the world stopped falling apart. They set their faerie orbs around the mound of rubble that had washed away several of the rooms nearest Red’s.
The group honed in on the muffled scream that they could barely make out through the dirt. Their hands immediately dug into the soil to find the being trapped below.
Robyn Thorn prayed aloud to the Maker as the yell slowly lost its gumption and faded away. The guards echoed their leader’s words as they scooped away the mound of dirt with their hands and helmets.
“Maker, do not let the Destroyer take Red’s stubborn ass from this world,” Robyn demanded, begging as he dug away the earth below him. “If anyone can survive a landslide, it’s her.”
The hallway beyond was filled with rebels who watched the group’s progress. A line of whispers was passed along, informing those who could not see what was taking place. Several joined in on the digging, taking up their own places in their night clothes and scraping away the debris. The rest joined in Robyn’s prayers, adding to his requests when he turned his full focus to the ground beneath him.
“We found something!” a pair of guards shouted, their shovels pausing to point out the bottom of Red’s cot sticking outside of the dirt. They continued in their pursuit, carefully scraping away the soil just around the bed in hopes of finding Red.
The other diggers rushed to the site, immediately taking up new places and diving into the dirt around the crushed cot. The crowd fell silent, breaths held in tightly as they waited for Red to be recovered from the rubble.
One of the guards screamed as a hand shot through the soil, reaching out for him as he scraped away the dirt around it. Robyn pushed the shocked man aside and began hacking away at the dirt covering Red.
“I’m going to get you out of here,” Robyn shouted at Red’s flailing hand. He dug at the dirt in the direction of her head, trying to get oxygen to her before he took care of the rest of her body.
A pair of guards yanked Robyn Thorn away from the rubble, forcing the rebel leader back as a mass of dirt and rocks tumbled from the mound of debris. The two men held Robyn back as he fought against their grips, his bare feet slipping on the unkempt floor. Robyn only stopped in his struggle when one of the diggers pointed out the strange shadow coming from within the pile of dirt.
One side of the mound exploded outward, a disgruntled Red tumbling out of the hole—gasping for clean air. She lay on top of the strewn soil, a refined string of curses falling out between heaved pants. Red lazily brushed her hands down her arms and legs, trying to remove the dirt that had never touched a single hair on her head.
With each pass of her hand, the black flames that coated her body subsided—returning her skin to its normal, human pallor. Her veins were still outlined with a dark blue tint, but everything else about Red looked normal.
“What did you do?” Robyn demanded, pushing the guards aside as their grips loosened on his arms. He gestured toward the mound of dirt next to Red before crossing his arms over his chest with a huff.
Red did not look at Robyn as she took in the sight of her destroyed room. She looked as surprised as everyone else there. Her whole body trembled with shock as she slowly sank to the ground.
“Everyone is to go back to their rooms,” Robyn Thorn stated, his cool tone a sharp contrast to his worried frown. He signaled for the guards to guide the rest of the rebels away, the people relieved to head back to their beds.
When everyone had left the corridor, Robyn knelt down next to Red. He was careful not to get too close as he noted her blank stare. “What happened? I thought you said you had at least some control over your powers.”
Robyn’s words swept through Red’s ears, her brain no longer able to recognize what he said as she struggled to process what she had done. “Was anyone hurt?” Red asked numbly, her breath catching in her throat. Red’s chin dropped against her chest—her body curled in on itself.
“No one was hurt,” Robyn stated softly. “We kept
people away from your room on purpose. But what if this had happened somewhere else? What if the guards had stayed at their posts? Someone could have died.” Robyn tilted Red’s chin up so that he could look at her. “Y-you could have died.”
Red turned her head away, her gaze roaming over the mound of soil that used to be her room. She felt around her bed, struggling to brush dirt aside as she tried to reach beneath the cot. Red reached under the bed, shoving the upper half of her body underneath it.
Robyn Thorn dove to pull her out, a hefty layer of dirt tumbling over them from the movement. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?” he shouted, shaking Red by the shoulders.
“My stuff is under there,” Red mumbled, trying to move around Robyn to get back under the cot. “I need… I need my cloak and my… shoes.”
Robyn grabbed onto Red’s arms, forcing her away from the mound of fallen soil. He brushed a stray hair out of her face, trying to reach the assassin’s eye. “I will send someone in the morning to carefully dig out your things,” he promised, pulling her onto her feet. “Can you wait until the morning?”
Red looked longingly under her bed, squinting as if she could see her belongings tucked away in the shadows. She nodded sadly.
Robyn tucked a protective arm around Red, holding up her weight as he slowly started walking her farther into the tunnel system. “Let’s go and get cleaned up,” he offered, despite the fact that not a speck of dirt had even touched Red. He squeezed her shoulders, his heart falling when she did not reply or even try to step out of his embrace.
Robyn picked up one of the forgotten faerie orbs, lighting the way as he led Red toward the rest of the compound. The pair took their time winding through the halls, Red’s feet never really willing to move as Robyn practically dragged her along, leaving behind the mound that could have easily been her grave.
Chapter 26
Dranac Gnorw trudged through the forest that encircled the Rogue Manor. He wiped away the sweat that had been steadily streaming down his brow despite the crisp autumn air that surrounded him—his hand came away tinged pink. The trees and bushes were coated in a fresh layer of ruby from rain earlier in the morning.
Cloak of Darkness (The Destroyer-Blessed Saga Book 1) Page 36