Chasing Shadows

by Ashley Townsend

  It sounded innocent enough the way he said it, but Sarah knew better. Righteous anger flared up at what he was implying.

  She took a step closer to him, though she was still tempted to run away with her tail between her legs. Straightening her body to reach her full height, she unfolded her arms and clenched her hands into fists at her sides. “If you actually think that by throwing out a few compliments and playing the role of gentleman, I’m just going to roll over and play along, well”—she jabbed a finger into his chest and managed not to wince as her appendage bent against lean muscle—“then you better think twice about messing with me, pal.” She tried to look tough, though she knew her eyes were too wide and her voice quavered too much for her to appear threatening.

  Damien looked completely shocked at her outburst. “You couldn’t possibly believe that I—” His face relaxed, and his sudden chuckle threw her. He reached for the hand that was still poking him in the chest and then released it without a fight when she tried to wriggle free. “Oh, my lady, I’m so terribly sorry. What you must think of me!” He shook his head and pulled at his collar as if he was suddenly very warm. “It’s simply that with my injury and you being my caretaker—that is to say, I felt very at ease in your presence and requested that you be moved nearby to help me improve. To save us both time.”

  Sarah was sure she couldn’t look more confused. “Wait, so you didn’t move me up here for . . .” She couldn’t even finish the sentence. To Damien’s credit, he looked embarrassed as his eyes shifted around the room, though she was sure it was nothing compared to her mortification. What a complete idiot she had been! But though she felt like a total fool, she couldn’t have been more relieved.

  A giggle of relief bubbled up from her stomach, and Damien’s eyes snapped up when she couldn’t contain her laughter any longer. “That’s great to hear!”

  The surprise and embarrassment ebbed from his features as his face relaxed once more, and he even chuckled a little. “You looked like a fierce kitten ready to paw me to death if I touched you.”

  “Hey, I’m tougher than I look.” She glared at him and received a laugh for her look of death. Grinning, she shrugged. “It usually works better on yarn balls and bowls of milk.”

  Damien gave her a slow, heart-melting smile that Janice would have swooned over. His dark brows rose on his forehead. “Who knew you had the ability to jest? I thought you could only glower at me.”

  Sarah laughed, feeling a little euphoric in her relief. “Yeah, well, I’ve got a temper too, so you might want to think twice about crossing me.”

  That smile was still in place, and his dark eyes gazed into her own with a familiarity that he didn’t possess, but somehow it was so sincere that Sarah wondered if maybe he understood her better than she thought. “You have a beautiful laugh, my lady.”

  She swallowed and shuffled her feet, feeling suddenly self-conscious. His expression was so genuine that Sarah couldn’t tell if it was a line or not. “I’m nobody’s lady,” she murmured, repeating the words she had spoken to Edith. Trying to steer the conversation into safer territory, she said, “Speaking of which, why did you ask them to lay me off? I mean, I could just stay here and be a servant at the same time.”

  Damien appeared younger as he fidgeted awkwardly, appearing shy and very boyish for someone in his mid-twenties. “In all honesty, I wanted to know you better, and this was the best way I could think of to do it. I know it was presumptuous of me to think that you would prefer a . . . higher life, but I felt that—” He looked so confused and nervous that Sarah felt herself softening as she waited for the rest of his explanation.

  Expelling a heavy sigh, he looked at the ground as he spoke. “I can’t honestly say why I felt the need to release you from servitude after only having just met you, but”—his gaze found hers, and she swallowed at what she saw there—“I saw you like an angel come to save me right after I had been stabbed, and you tended to my wound and were so kind. I have not seen compassion like that in many years.” Sarah cringed as she recalled how she had slapped the cloth to his gash when he aggravated her.

  “You don’t belong in servitude, scrubbing floors and pounding rugs,” he continued, his expression sincere and magnetizing. “Forgive me for saying so, but you appear like you belong here as much as I do. We are both fish out of the lake, you might say, and I desired to set you free. You were made for more; I felt this when I first saw you.” Damien shrugged shyly. “I know how strange it must seem, but I admit my hope was that we might become . . . friends.”

  So she wasn’t the only one who felt the odd connection between them. Sarah made a conscious effort to keep her mouth closed. His honesty was far too disarming for her comfort level, though that was one of the sweetest things anyone had ever said and done for her. She glanced over at the rose on the bed and grinned at him to cover the soft smile caused by the fluttering in her stomach. “Do you give all your friends flowers?”

  He returned her grin, going along with the change in mood. “Only the most special ones who can withstand the sight of open wounds and blood.”

  “Well, I did have to leave the room,” she reminded him, “but I’ll still accept the rose.” They smiled at each other, the watch on her wrist completely forgotten. Sarah could deal with playful and sarcastic, but it was odd to think that a near stranger would do so much for her. It was also incredibly flattering, and she wondered at him having so quickly disarmed her.

  “Ah!” Damien exclaimed suddenly. “I nearly forgot my purpose for calling. I wanted to see how you are settling in.”

  “Well, I’ve been here for about twenty minutes, so things are good so far.” She quirked a brow. “Anything else?”

  He motioned to his injured arm, crooked safely against his side. “I am also in need of some new dressings, and I believe I still require your assistance with that.”

  Sarah’s blue eyes widened. “Oh, Damien. You should have told me sooner. What do you need me to get you?”

  He gasped, feigning a look of shock as he pressed a hand to his chest. “You sound as though you care about my health, my lady.”

  She balked at him and then rolled her eyes, contemplating giving him a playful shove, but she felt uncomfortable touching him so soon in their new “friendship.”

  “As your nurse I’m required to care, so tell me what I need to do.”

  Damien grinned, and she found that his face was even more handsome when he smiled. But barely, she amended. “Do you have any new dressings and the poultice?” he asked.

  “I’m not sure,” she said slowly, glancing over the room.

  He nodded. How did he manage to look amused and carefree all the time? “I had them put some pieces of fresh cloth in your trunk for this purpose, but I’m afraid I didn’t ask them to make the poultice beforehand.”

  Sarah frowned. “Oh. Do you happen to know what’s in it?”

  Shaking his head, Damien answered, “I’m afraid I do not. Would you like me to ask someone?”

  She considered it for a moment before waving her hand in the air. “You’re the invalid; I’m the nurse. I’ll go find out.”

  She bustled past him like a woman on a mission and then paused just outside the doorway. Turning back around, she caught Damien’s grin and shot him an embarrassed grimace. “Um, where would I go to do that, exactly?”

  She was grateful that he didn’t tease her about the out-of-place girl trying to play the role of the independent, self-assured woman. “You will have to find the alchemist for the proper herbs,” he said.

  Sarah sighed. “Super.” Heading down the hall, she muttered sarcastically, “I guess I’m off to see the wizard.”

  —

  Sarah shivered as she descended the cold stone staircase, her apprehension as much to blame for her shaking as the cold itself. She clenched her jaw as she crept downward, mindful of where she stepped in the near darkness, as if a wrong move or noise could disturb the dead from their slumber.

  Her fear was unwar
ranted, but the only time she had been this far underground was to visit the dungeons, and that experience had not been a pleasant one. This time Sarah felt none of the curiosity she’d experienced when she and Will had slipped into the dungeons to see Karen. Sarah remembered her face—tear-streaked and dirty, but eyes bright with hope when she saw the two of them—and cringed at the memory of Karen’s imprisonment. How many days had she been trapped down there? Five? Six? Sarah’s stomach knotted at the very thought, and in the end, she hadn’t even been able to save her friend.

  But the Shadow had.

  She was honest with herself and acknowledged that descending into the depths of the labyrinthine halls below was so daunting because she was completely alone this time. Will had been with her that day—he always seemed to be there when she needed him most—so strong and reassuring as he guided her to her friend, and his compassion for her that night in the midst of her distress had cemented him in Sarah’s heart.

  Will’s concern for her had never been fabricated. It was never more obvious to her than when she’d realized that he had stayed by her side for days after she’d been poisoned. Her stomach warmed at the memory, and she knew that if Will was with her at this moment—regardless of the unresolved feelings between them—he would hold her hand to guide her. She longed for that comfort now.

  The stairs ended, and she stopped where the hallway curved to the left. She held her candle high, the light bouncing off the cold walls and casting shadows across the dark path until they faded into the blackness.

  “Follow the path around to the left.” Hoping to break the stony silence around her and keep her mind from making the darkness more sinister than it truly was, Sarah whispered aloud the instructions from the servant she’d met at the top of the stairs—the same man who had also kindly provided her with the small candle. The hallways and turns had easily confused Sarah, and he had been the third servant she’d asked directions from, not to mention the guard who’d seemed none too happy to be interrupted from his important duty of standing in front of a door. She had decided to steer clear of any guards for the rest of her stay at the castle.

  “Do not veer off to the right too soon,” she whispered, her breath causing the flame to flicker and nearly go out. Sarah froze and sucked in a lungful of stale air, terrified at the possibility of being left in complete darkness. She hardly dared to breathe even after the flame came back to life.

  With one hand cupped protectively behind her only source of light, Sarah moved slowly through the passageway, her eyes flickering to the dancing flame every now and then as she mentally went over the directions—Third arch, go right. Follow the stairs down . . . take the left tunnel.

  Making her way down yet another flight of stairs, she walked forward slowly, stopping, almost against her will, in the middle of the floor where the four passageways connected. Her spine tingled in apprehension an instant before she realized where she was. She told her feet to move down the tunnel leading to the alchemist’s lab so she could abandon her wandering in the creepy tunnels. But still, she found she couldn’t move.

  These passages all looked impossibly similar, but the tightening in her stomach told her that if she continued on through the tunnel just ahead, she would end up in the dungeons. She wasn’t sure if it was out of morbid curiosity or nostalgia for that night nearly a millennia ago, but Sarah found herself straining to hear any sound coming from the tunnel as she stared into the darkness ahead.

  She was so focused on listening for noises coming from the dungeon that she didn’t hear the rat until it climbed over her foot. Her shriek echoed off the stones as she jumped away from the vermin, though it had already scampered down another corridor, squeaking in fright. Sarah lost her grip on the candleholder, futilely grappling for it in the air. The small flame was extinguished by the wind her flailing hands stirred, and she lost sight of it before it clattered to the ground.

  Frozen in terror, her heart beat erratically against her chest. The candle was useless to her now since she had no way of lighting it, so she didn’t bother searching for it in the dark. She stood there, body rigid, staring at the lighted tunnel but too afraid to move an inch.

  In the total darkness that enveloped her, she waited for the grating noise of dragging chains and the sound of life wasting away to start up suddenly, or the blood-curdling screams of torture and whimpering children and prisoners who had given up hope. At the very least Sarah expected to be able to hear a guard or two shuffling around in the passage as they moved from cell to cell, checking on the neglected inmates.

  Nothing.

  The absence of noise was somehow more ominous than the ones Sarah had braced herself for. She shivered as a cold wind whistled softly in the tunnel on its way to her, curling through her hair and touching her body with icy fingers as it brushed past her. A whip suddenly snapped somewhere down the way. She jerked in surprise, and her breath caught when she made out the faint sound of the lifeless, almost inhuman moan that rode on the breeze coming from what she imagined must be the torture chamber.

  Sarah’s bones chilled at the hollow, wavering sound of someone too weak to cry out, and she stood there another moment in wide-eyed horror, feeling helpless to do anything. Could she help whoever was being beaten? Did they deserve punishment? Maybe she could steal a guard’s key and release the prisoners, then whisk them off to the forest where they could build a village of their own.

  Her shoulders sagged in defeat when reality struck and she regained her senses: She was no Robin Hood—she was nobody’s hero. With no weapons and even less common sense if she followed through with her tomfool plan, she would never be able to overpower the guards, carry the wounded prisoners to safety, and even though her dad owned a hardware store, she had absolutely no idea how to build anything if it didn’t come with instructions, let alone an entire town from scratch. She was powerless to do anything, and she knew some of them belonged in there, anyway.

  The reminder was like a bucket of ice water over her head, and she quickly ducked into the safety of the tunnel on the left, though she felt like a coward for doing so. But there was nothing she could do to help them, and her interference would only make things worse when she failed.

  Even escaping into the warmth of the lit tunnel wasn’t enough to abate the remaining chill from the cold wind and the hollow moan it had carried with it. Rubbing her arms to warm them, Sarah stood close to one of the mounted torches, relishing its warmth as she looked for the open doorway belonging to the alchemist. Spotting the wide, door-less entrance a ways down the long corridor, Sarah nearly skipped to the entrance in her haste. A drawer slammed shut from inside the room just as she stepped into the doorway, rattling the vials and tubes on the table at the center of the room.

  The only person in the small space—a slight, wiry man—was hastily trying to right the instruments he had overturned on the two shelves stacked at the back of the table. He looked frazzled at her sudden appearance, though Sarah was fairly certain she had made enough of a racket to alert him of her presence as she ran like a frightened mouse through the corridor.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.” She stood in the doorway, unsure if she would be of more use helping him clean up or staying out of his way. Before she could make up her mind, he had put all the empty vials back in their places and straightened the contents of the table. He looked up and shot her a nervous smile through the menagerie of vials, his right eye magnified through one of the shakers filled with a clear green liquid, giving him the look of a mad scientist.

  Through the gap between the bottom shelf and the table, she could see him ball his shaking hands into a fist. “Not at all!” His voice sounded constricted and overly bright, and he cleared his throat. “You must tell the prince’s advisor that it is not quite ready yet. I will alert him the moment of its completion.”

  Sarah blinked. “Oh, I’m not here because of the prince or Cadius.”

  The older man rubbed a twitching finger beneath his straigh
t nose, and she noticed that there was a small pink mark on either side, like he had been pinching it earlier. He narrowed his eyes at her, like he was squinting to see better in the brightly lit room. “Oh? I assumed you came to summon me on behalf of the prince. Is there something else for which my assistance is required?”

  His apprehension was palpable. Sarah stepped into the room and stood on the other side of the desk. She leaned down to better see him through the shelves and smiled, putting on a calm and open expression to alleviate his nervousness. “I’m supposed to collect some herbs for a poultice. Damien Lisandro sent me.”

  “The lord?” He appeared surprised, raising his nutmeg-colored eyebrows until they nearly touched the smattering of gray at his temples. “Was someone injured?”

  Now it was Sarah’s turn to look surprised. Stories seemed to circulate quickly among the staff, and she’d assumed that everyone had heard about the encounter between Damien and the doctor by now. How far removed from the world was this man? “Well, the lord was stabbed, actually. By the doctor.”

  His eyes widened as they searched her face for the truth, revealing irises that matched the patches of darker hair on his head. The candlelight played off the gray flecks speckling the brown of his eyes, making his surprise and disbelief even more apparent. “The physician? I can scarcely believe such an account.”

  “I saw it happen myself.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true, since she hadn’t actually seen the doctor stab Damien, but she had heard them arguing, which was practically the same thing. “Were you friends with the doc“—Sarah corrected herself—“the physician?”

  “I would not go so far as to say that. We were more . . . colleagues,” he answered slowly, sounding guarded. “But Malcolm hardly seems the type to attack anyone, let alone a lord. It just seems so unlikely.”

  He was around the desk and mere inches from her before Sarah was fully aware of his movements. His look was a mix of urgency and curiosity and . . . excitement? How starved was this man for news from upstairs? “You said you saw the event?”