Gothel stepped back, tilting her head as she surveyed me. I could feel the change in my appearance the moment her eyes widened. A wave of magic crept along my skin, revealing my true face to her.
Her eyes narrowed and recognition filled her pale eyes, serving me with a sweet satisfaction.
“You?” she blurted, her brow furrowing in confusion.
“So you remember me?” I asked, relishing regaining an inch of power from her.
“Cassian Lazar,” she spat like I was a plague on this world.
She clutched my throat, her upper lip rolling back as she dug her sharp nails into my skin. I didn't wince as she increased her grip, her rage lighting a dark fire in her eyes. “There is only one way you could look like this. So where is my lamp?!” she roared, her hand crushing my oesophagus so I couldn't tell her even if I'd wanted to. Which I absolutely didn't.
She retracted her hand, glaring at me with such fury it spilled from her in waves. “Where. Is. It?” she snarled.
I chewed on the inside of my cheek, refusing to answer.
“Well.” She recomposed herself, storming away from me toward the cauldron. “No point in changing my plans. I'll seize your mind and your tongue and you will tell me everything.”
Concern writhed through my stomach as I watched her. Becoming this witch's puppet was the most terrible of fates. But I couldn't see a way around it. I was immobilised; even with all my strength I couldn't break through iron chains.
“Is that potion is how you control the Emperor?” I snarled, needing to hear it from her lips before I was forced under her control. It has to be that.
Her eyes narrowed, suspicion crawling across her expression. “And what would you know about that? You're just a guard. Less than a dog. A mindless lump of muscles to protect the palace walls.”
“I'm not blind,” I hissed. “Since you arrived in the palace the Emperor hasn't been himself. The city has fallen to disrepair. The laws he was on the cusp of passing were pushed to the wayside. I know it was you because I've watched you like a hawk. The way you saunter around this place as if you own it. The way the Emperor has faded since he married you, the way his words don't sound like his own anymore.”
She released a breath through her nose. “What could you possibly know about such things? You're just a vessel, Lazar. They beat your personality out and replaced it with nothing but rules and Osarian law.”
“I'm more than that,” I snarled, but even I heard the doubt in my own words.
Gothel threw her head back as she laughed and my heart squirmed and writhed in my chest as if it didn't want to be in there anymore.
“Is that what this is really about?” she simpered, her mocking clear. “You seized my precious lamp and wasted your breath wishing for a new face, a new life? A nobody trying to be a somebody? Is that what your pathetic little mind dreams about?”
Anger flared inside me. Though I battled hard not to react to her words, my heart twisted and came apart. That wasn't what this was. But she had one thing right. I was a nobody rising above my station. And the truth of that fact undid me.
“I only seek to protect the palace. I've been watching you for a long time. And I almost had you the night I saw the Princess. Do you really think I'd break Osarian law for the sake of seeing her? I was following you, Gothel.”
“Oh how noble.” She rolled her eyes. Gothel scooped the ladle out of the cauldron and my shoulders tensed. “I do hope you had fun using my lamp, Lazar. But how pathetic your wishes have been. Did you really think the Princess would ever want to marry you?”
I ground my teeth, refusing to give her the satisfaction of an answer. She didn't know about the real Aladdin and she was going to get one hell of a shock when she discovered him attending the next brawl.
“No matter what face you wear, you're just the same worthless creature underneath.”
“I could say the same to you, witch.”
She glared at me a moment before facing the cauldron once more. Instead of forcing the elixir on me, she drank several deep gulps herself. I tensed my arms as I watched, tugging against my restraints.
She convulsed for a moment, holding a hand against her stomach and I prayed she'd accidentally poisoned herself.
When she turned to me, her eyes glowed with some terrible power and fear strummed a chord in my heart. Because if she stole my will from me like she had the Emperor, she'd get her hands on Kyra. She wouldn't hesitate in killing Aladdin and taking the lamp from him. And I'd be helpless to stop it.
Kyra took the lead along the corridors beyond my chambers and I followed her as she used a glimmering golden arrow on her palm to guide us to Cassian.
She set a quick pace and I was forced to hurry to keep up with her.
“Why are you so convinced something is wrong with him?” I asked her as she began muttering to herself about time running short.
“I can just feel it,” she murmured. “He’s my friend. I’m connected to him, almost as I am to you though nowhere near as strongly. But ever since I realised I cared about him, my link to him grew into something tangible, you know.”
“No, I don’t know, Kyra,” I replied with a frown. “That’s obviously a genie thing.”
“Is it?” she asked in surprise, stopping so suddenly that I collided with her.
She almost fell to the floor and I grabbed her hand. Her power slammed into me so hard that I was nearly knocked from my feet too until somehow she was the one holding me up and not the other way around.
“Sorry,” she breathed, releasing me.
I shook my head as the cloud of her energy withdrew and I was able to think clearly again.
“It’s alright,” I muttered, trying to make sense of the scrambled thoughts I’d been left with.
Kyra held her hand out between us hesitantly and the golden arrow on her palm pointed down a corridor to our right.
“That’s the royal quarters,” I warned, knowing that those rooms were heavily guarded and there was no way we’d be able to get into them. At least not directly.
“So what do we do?” she asked desperately which seemed kinda crazy for an all powerful entity.
“We need to find another way. Lucky for you, this is my thing. Breaking and entering comes a lot easier to me than prancing about like a Count.”
“Oh, I’d love to see you work,” she cooed and I rolled my eyes. I’d hardly call thieving work but then again maybe she was right; it was how I’d earned a living for most of my life and though I didn’t pay taxes on my income for it, that had only made it all the more profitable for me. That said, Egos’s cut had always been far greater than any tax ever would have been so maybe it wasn’t so great for me after all.
“Come on then,” I turned and jogged back towards my chambers. The Princess had come to me directly from her room using a secret passage. She obviously wouldn’t have wanted to risk being seen so I guessed the passage she’d used must have let out somewhere within the royal residence. I just had to figure out how to access it from my end.
As we drew closer to my chambers again, I started knocking my fist against the wall as I went, seeking out any sign of a hidden passage.
“Knock a penny, hop a penny, dance a penny tune,” Kyra murmured as she followed me, rapping her own fist against the wall too. “Mock a penny, drop a penny, party like a loon.”
“You have a beautiful singing voice,” I joked.
“Thank you,” she breathed and I almost felt bad for teasing her. “Well, even if he is lying, he was being nice by doing so! So why don’t you keep your big nose out of it or just stop existing like you keep threatening to do?”
Kyra fell silent, tilting her head as if she was trying to listen to something and I knocked my fist against the wall again, eliciting a hollow sound in response.
“I think I found it,” I hissed.
Kyra sighed and moved closer to me. “I’ll never leave me,” she muttered, eyeing me sadly.
“That’s really confusing. But I�
�m guessing if she’s you and you’re you too then maybe you shouldn’t really want her to leave?” I replied as I slid my hand along the wall, trying to locate a way into the passage.
Kyra remained quiet as she drew closer to me and I reached up to pull on an unlit torch bracket. The sound of sliding stone filled the air but no entrance appeared.
I frowned at the wall, looking along it until I spotted a tapestry. The bottom corner of it lifted slightly like it was caught in a breeze and I pointed at it as I led the way along the carpeted corridor.
Kyra hurried after me and I pulled the tapestry back to reveal a hidden stairwell which ascended into darkness.
“A little light, genie of the lamp?” I asked with a smile.
She stepped ahead of me and a glowing purple orb appeared above her head, illuminating the way on. I followed her inside and dropped the tapestry behind us.
“Well we always had purple lights in the lamp,” Kyra muttered. “He doesn’t mind or he’d say he minds-”
“I love the purple light, Kyra,” I said loudly, interrupting the argument she was having with herself over it.
“Really?” she asked, turning to look back at me from a few steps above.
“Really,” I confirmed. “Everything you do is just... unbelievable. You couldn’t get it wrong if you tried.”
Her lips parted but she didn’t say anything in response and I wondered if she was having an internal discussion over it with herself again.
I passed her on the stairs and she began to follow me as we climbed higher. I kept going, up and up until we must have climbed four floors and were deposited in a dark corridor.
My fancy boots weren’t as suited to moving silently as my old ones but I managed well enough despite the stone floor. We came to the end of it and there were two doorways awaiting us; one to the left and one on the right.
Kyra summoned her golden arrow and it pointed firmly to the right.
I raised an eyebrow at her and moved to push on the wooden door, easing it open silently. Another stone passage awaited us and we crept on. My heart started to beat a little faster, my thieving skills kicking in as we moved deeper into forbidden territory. I had no doubt that we were well within the royal family’s private quarters now and the idea of it sent a thrill of longing through me.
How close might I be to the crown jewels right now?
We also could be just minutes away from getting caught and I wasn’t sure what would happen then. Perhaps I could say that Rapunzel had told me about the secret passages and asked me to come to see her which would probably be less of a crime than breaking and entering but how would I explain Kyra’s presence? Maybe I could say I’d brought her as a chaperone but would anyone buy it? So I was sneaking to the Princess’s quarters and my intentions weren’t to get her alone in her bedroom... Unlikely, but if anyone could sell it then I was willing to bet I could.
The passage came to an end and I stilled before a door with a small hole located in the centre of it. I pressed my eye to it to see through and found myself looking at a large room with a fireplace on the far side of it and a thick red rug lining the floor beneath a dark, wooden table. There didn’t appear to be anyone inside it so I eased the door open.
Kyra stayed close enough to me that I could feel the echoes of her power brushing against my skin.
I stepped into the circular room with a frown. The fire had burned low which suggested someone had been here earlier but the place seemed deserted now.
It looked like some kind of office or private study, sadly void of anything of value aside from reams of books and papers.
I turned to push the door closed behind me and found myself looking at a huge painting of the Emperor seeming younger than he was now with a golden haired woman by his side who must have been Rapunzel’s mother.
The hole I’d looked through had been cleverly disguised within the pommel of his sword.
Kyra eyed the compass on her hand but the thing kept spinning around and around, flailing left and right like it didn’t know which way to direct us at all. I frowned at it and Kyra sighed.
“He must be invisible,” she murmured. “But I don’t know why he’s not talking to us.”
“I don’t think Cassian is invisible,” I replied. But I was beginning to feel a lot more uneasy about this whole thing than I had been.
I’d been quick to dismiss Kyra’s concern for Cassian initially but now that we were in the furthest reaches of the palace, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was doing here. There was no way he could have gained access to this part of the castle and after the Princess had told me that he’d had an interaction with Gothel, I was beginning to think that maybe she’d been right to be concerned for his well-being.
“If the compass thinks we’ve found him then I’m guessing we must be either right below him or right on top,” I said. There were no windows in the round room we’d entered but after the stairs we’d climbed, I was willing to bet we were pretty high up in one of the towers. With that in mind, I guessed that Cassian was below us somewhere.
“So we need to go down! Maybe you should wish for there to be a hole in the floor?” Kyra suggested excitedly.
“Maybe... or we could just take the stairs,” I pointed out. “It might be a bit more subtle.”
“Right,” Kyra agreed with a look in her eye which hinted that she was disappointed with my choice.
I resisted the urge to laugh and crossed the room to the only door instead.
I tried the handle but it was locked and I released a breath of frustration.
“Have you got a hair pin?” I asked and Kyra produced one magically, holding it out to me.
I dropped to my knees, manipulating the lock with well practiced skill and after several achingly long minutes, the door clicked open.
“Wow,” Kyra breathed.
“I’m a man of many talents,” I replied with a smirk.
“No I just meant; wow, I can’t believe you wasted so much time doing that when you could have just wished for me to unlock it.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, feeling like an idiot for not realising that while also wondering if anything I could do would be worth remembering anymore. With her by my side, most of my skills were pretty irrelevant and all the things that had made me impressive were now unnecessary. Hell, she was making it possible for me to be the next Emperor, I would never want for anything again in my life! And yet the idea of my skills being debunked sent a trace of sadness through me which I never would have expected. I decided not to think about that and turned my mind back to the task at hand instead.
“Whatever Cassian has gotten himself mixed up in, it can’t be good,” I said as I prepared to open the door I’d unlocked. “So just be careful, okay? Stick behind me.”
Kyra’s eyes widened and she nodded before following me through the door. We stepped into a tightly circling staircase and started heading down. The further we went, the colder it got. We passed several doors which led back into the castle but didn’t stop to check any of them. Kyra shook her head at each of them, her connection to Cassian making her sure that that wouldn’t be where he was.
If Gothel had taken him then I knew she wouldn’t be serving him wine in a lounge somewhere. He’d be in the kind of place where no one could hear him scream. And the only place in the palace which was fit for that would be all the way at the bottom. In the murky depths of the place, far below the glamorous facade they wanted the world to see.
Down here would be the darkness they hid from their subjects. Down here would be the truth.
Gothel convulsed and I stopped fighting against my restraints as she jerked and groaned, shock making me fall still.
What the hell is happening?
She released a guttural noise that sounded as if it had come somewhere from the pit of her stomach.
She started moving toward me, her back straightening and her eyes flashing with a wild hunger.
“Stay back,” I commanded as she cl
osed the distance parting us.
I bucked against my chains, a renewed terror filling me as the witch drew nearer.
If she takes control of me I'll never save Osaria. Rapunzel will be forced to marry her son. The Emperor will never be free of her.
“You want the lamp?” I snapped, desperately trying to think of a way to hold her off on doing this. “I don't have it anymore. A thief took it after I made this wish.”
Her lips curved into a knowing smile. “Liar.” She moved to end of the stone table, climbing onto it between my legs.
Holy shit what was she going to do to me?
I recoiled into the stone, trying to bringing a knee up to hold her off, but I couldn't do anything except let this unfold. She crawled over me, resting her knees either side of my hips and leaning down so that her hair created a curtain around us.
Her cold, metallic eyes bored into mine and I ground my jaw as I glared back at her.
“Get off,” I snarled, but her response was an empty laugh.
She lowered her mouth to my chest and I wave of nausea gripped me as her wet lips moved down my body.
I bucked my hips, but I couldn't get her away. She dug her teeth into my stomach, encasing my navel with her lips.
“Crazy bitch!” I fought as hard as I could but she continued to bite down and pain raced through my skin.
When she lifted her head, a circular ring of bloody teeth marks were imprinted on my flesh. I scowled at her, fighting the fear which threatened to undo me.
Her eyes turned to pitch and she threw her head back, her hair tumbling around her shoulders as she released a low growl.
She hunched forward and coughed heavily, raising a hand to her mouth. A grimace had taken up permanent residence on my face.
What is she going to do?!
She coughed once more then lowered her hand from her mouth, revealing a large, shining black beetle in her palm.
“Take his mind,” she whispered to it as I gazed on in abject horror.
She let the bug crawl from her hand onto my stomach and I jerked wildly to try and get it off. Its little legs brushed across my skin as it moved, darting toward the bloody marks around my navel.
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 26