by M. Lynn
Helena averted her gaze. “I wish Madra had gotten to see more of her. My father and his priests placed her into the role of figurehead. She was a queen who was only noted for her beautiful dresses and the children she bore, but she was so much more than that.”
“I’ve never heard you talk of her.”
Helena rounded the white settee and sat, pulling her legs up under her. “Sometimes I forget.”
“Forget what?” He moved to a torch along the wall, pulling it free to dip into the smoldering fireplace. It lit, and he replaced it on a hook, his face now bathed in an orange glow. But it wasn’t just the flame. Dell shone from the inside out. She’d noticed it the first time she’d seen him, and it had never gone away.
He sat beside her.
Helena bit her lip. “That she’s gone.” She flicked her eyes to the fire as if ashamed of her words. “I’ve been so focused. I want to avenge her death, but I never really processed the fact she’s gone.”
“I was young when my mother died.” Dell twisted his hands together. “And then my father soon after.”
She sat up straighter, reaching for his arm. “I’m sorry, I didn’t even think. Sometimes I forget I’m not the only one who has lost people.”
He placed his hand over hers. “That’s not why I’m telling you. It took me a long time to feel normal again. To stop looking around every corner for the next event that would further destroy my life. I didn’t let myself get close to anyone or believe in anything. My brothers… Ian has always been a lost cause. But Reed? I spent a lot of years just looking for a fight. And I found plenty. Maybe we could have been there for each other if things were different.”
Her hand squeezed tighter. “If you weren’t a street fighter, you’d never have met me. Or Edmund.”
A smile slid across his face. “I like to think we’d have met no matter the circumstances.”
Energy zipped along Helena’s every cell. The hair on her arms stood on end as she lost herself in the depth of Dell’s crystalline gaze.
She wedged her lip between her teeth, unable to move any further. He trapped her in his power.
They broke apart when someone pounded on the door. Helena jumped to her feet and ran to open it, desperate for a moment to breathe.
Tyson greeted her on the other side. “I have news.”
She gestured for him to come in. His eyes swept the room and one eyebrow rose when he saw Dell.
“I’d feel bad for interrupting, but this is important.” He crossed the room in a few strides and fell into a large wing-backed chair with a self-satisfied smirk on his face.
“What are you waiting for?” Dell asked.
“Edmund. I sent a messenger to rouse him and bring him here.”
Edmund barreled through the door, sleep still dogging his steps. His scowl softened as he shook himself awake. “What’s going on?”
Tyson leaned forward, his elbows on his knees. “My mother will not tell Madra they can’t have Quinn.”
Helena deflated. She’d gotten her hopes up when Tyson arrived.
Tyson held up a hand to stop their questions. “But, if bandits were to overtake him somehow, she would not send her men to hunt them down.”
A smile spread across Edmund’s face. “She’ll let us go?”
Helena sat once more. “You told her our plan?”
“Yes.” Tyson directed the first answer to Edmund before turning to Helena. “And no. My mother is a bright woman. And she knows me. She also recognizes something in the speech you gave her. It sounded very much like the self-righteousness Etta once carried around here.”
Edmund laughed. “It did, didn’t it?”
“Self-righteous?” Helena’s lips drew down.
Tyson was the one who answered her. “Most of the people in Gaule hated Etta. But, there was one thing we all learned.” He smirked. “She was always right. She knew what the right thing to do was before the rest of us.”
Helena couldn’t decide if their description was a compliment or not, so she ignored it. “So, your mother assumed we’d try to get to Quinn, anyway? And go against her wishes in doing so?”
Tyson nodded. “She was blessed with insolent children.”
Edmund grunted in agreement. “We need to prepare. We won’t return to the palace. Landon will meet us with the horses once we have Quinn. If we are to be at the cove before the morning tide, we must leave soon. We have a trek ahead of us. The castle gates won’t be open yet, but that’s not the only way out of here.”
Secret tunnels. Hidden entrances. Maybe Gaule wasn’t so different from Madra after all.
Chapter Nine
Helena eyed Tyson in question as he laughed and turned into a chapel that looked like it hadn’t been used in a century.
“All these years and mother still hasn’t cleaned this place up.” He ran his fingers along a dusty altar before jumping onto the small platform to push at a door that groaned with disuse.
Helena started losing faith he’d get it open, but Tyson reached for a hidden panel. He pulled a latch, and the wood groaned as it turned on its hinges.
Bits of rock rained down as Tyson pushed it far enough for a person to slip through. He shook dark curls out of his face and turned to them with a grin. “Cool, right? I love this palace.”
Edmund patted his shoulder. “Bela will have its fair share of secrets one day as well.”
Tyson gave him an appreciative smile as if that had really been a concern of his.
Who were these people? Helena’s father would consider them the wrong sort to get mixed up with, but she imagined her mother would have liked them. Tyson was as tall as a man and as muscular too, but he had this childlike glee she hadn’t seen since… she glanced toward Dell. Since she’d met the boy of Madra who took nothing seriously.
She hadn’t seen that side of Dell since they arrived in Bela.
But then, she’d changed as well.
She shook her head. Her father would be wrong. Tyson was exactly the kind of person she needed by her side. While she and Edmund mourned, he reminded them there was still something worth fighting for other than vengeance. It wasn’t a childlike glee. She saw it clearly now. Tyson was just good.
He waved each of them through the secret door before shutting it behind them.
“We’re in the wall right now,” Edmund explained of the short tunnel.
“In the wall?” Dell’s voice was close in the darkness.
Ahead was a second door, illuminated by a sliver of dawn light.
Edmund reached it, turning back to them. “There’s a part of the castle where the inner and outer walls connect. We’ve used this many times with Etta and Alex. This hall takes us straight from the inner castle to the outside. We’ll exit on the eastern side of the walls. As soon as we get out, we have to run for the forest.”
They each nodded in understanding before Edmund pushed through the door, letting them out onto a grassy hill. Helena glanced back as the door shut. From the outside, no one would even know it was there.
Edmund took off, and she followed him, pumping her arms in time with her steps. The darkened forest stretched in the distance. Over the trees, the beginnings of a sunrise highlighted the morning.
Dell ran beside her, his chin down as his lithe frame moved gracefully.
By the time they reached the tree cover, Helena struggled to breathe. She put all her energy into not collapsing as she bent, air wheezing in her chest.
“Everyone okay?” Edmund asked.
“Never better.” Tyson grinned. Did nothing affect him?
He looked as if he’d only gone for a leisurely stroll and Helena almost hated him for it. At least Edmund and Dell had the decency to be short of breath.
She sucked air through her teeth and straightened. They had to move. Quinn was counting on them. She began walking, but stopped when she noticed no one followed her.
“Len,” Edmund called. “You’re going the wrong way.”
She groaned and turned to
walk past them once more. “What do you expect from me? I spent my entire life in the same set of hallways.”
Tyson took the lead, claiming he’d made this trek many times before. “Last time,” he began, “Gaule was besieged. Alex and I arrived to save the day, of course. This was right after we helped drive La Dame from Bela. Well, not Alex. He was sort of under her power. The git. But when we got back to Gaule, our mother was surrounded. Alex was still king. We led our people through the woods to reach the tunnel entrance and save everyone.”
“You saved everyone?” Edmund scoffed.
“Oh, shut up. You weren’t even here.” Tyson leaned close to Helena as if telling her a secret. “He stayed behind in Bela when Etta was being a right jerk.”
Edmund pushed him. “She’d just had the curse broken.”
Tyson shrugged. “She was still a jerk. Well, it wasn’t really her. She had all this power inside her that controlled a lot of what she did, but that power left her once we defeated La Dame for good.”
Dell shook his head. “I’m so confused.”
Helena only knew the stories brought back to Madra from soldiers and traders. They had never told her the details behind the great magic war—as the non-magical folk of Madra called it. She’d never imagined she’d be traveling through a foreign kingdom with two men who were not only there, but deeply involved.
She knew nothing of war, but they did. “When I return to Madra, will you two join me?” She didn’t include Dell because she already knew he’d be at her side. It was his way. But with Tyson and Edmund… maybe she could take her brother down after all. Maybe she could avenge her family.
Both men were silent for a moment, the only sound coming from their boots hitting the soft pine of the forest floor.
Edmund swung his arm over her shoulders. “You don’t even have to ask, Lenny. I told Stev I’d watch out for you and that promise doesn’t end at crossing the sea.”
She smiled up at him. It was the first time he’d mentioned Estevan without stuttering over his name or shutting down completely. Progress.
Tyson shook his head. “I’m sorry. As a prince, I understand what you might be going through. If someone took Alex or Etta or my mother from me, I’d want revenge as well. But, I can’t go against my queen’s wishes and she wants magic kept out of this fight.”
Something inside her told her he didn’t mean his mother. Tyson wouldn’t disobey Etta, the queen who instilled such loyalty. Her heart sank.
Edmund squeezed her tighter to his side and leaned in to whisper. “I’ve never done what Etta tells me to.”
Tyson barked out a laugh. “No truer words.”
She wished Tyson would reconsider, but it didn’t change her plans. When she walked through Madra once more, she’d have Dell, Edmund, and Quinn at her side and her faith rested in them. She felt for the knife at her waist. A sword Tyson had procured from one of the guards hung from a scabbard she’d tied there as well, but it didn’t give her the same comfort as the shorter blade.
As they walked, she went over and over the plan in her mind. They hadn’t fully trusted Reed. He thought they planned to follow him through the tunnels and overtake him as soon as he stepped outside.
He was wrong.
They would still overcome the Madran party at the cove, but the attack would come from the forest.
As they neared the water, the trees thinned. The forest stretched to the edge of land right before the coast curved inward toward the cove.
They reached the edge of the trees, stopping where the ground fell off over a small cliff. A white beach sat below where the waves crashed, foaming toward the shore.
“This way.” Tyson’s voice brought Helena back to the matter at hand.
She glanced at him over her shoulder.
Tyson jerked his head to the side, telling them to follow him. He put a finger to his lips. They were close now.
Helena forced her tired limbs to trudge the rest of the way. They ceased moving as the rocky cove came into view. Still hidden among the twisting branches and thick trees, they watched. A ship sat at the mouth of the cove with its arched Madran style. Long oars stuck out from a dark wooden hull. Helena sucked in a breath. It was one of her father’s ships. The royal flag of Madra flapped in the stiff breeze.
Helena hugged her cloak around her shoulders tighter and pulled her knife free, not bothering with the sword.
A small boat approached laden with two men in Madran officer uniforms. As the water grew shallow, they jumped overboard, crashing through the sea as they pulled their boat onto the sandy shore.
“Only two,” Edmund whispered. “Reed kept his word.”
She heard the danger in his tone. Saw him fingering the hilt of his sword. Those two men wouldn’t live through the day.
And she couldn’t summon a single shred of remorse. Traitors deserved to die.
“Where are these tunnels?” Dell shielded his eyes against the morning sun.
Tyson pointed toward a curved gap in the rock face. “There’s a door through there. It can only be opened from the inside.”
Edmund retreated farther back into the trees. “Time to take our positions. All that’s left to do is wait.”
As the sun rose high above their heads, the two soldiers on the beach stood from the rock they’d been sitting on and approached the tunnel.
Helena met Dell’s gaze, answering the question in his eyes with a nod of her head. She was ready.
She crouched low in her spot behind a boulder at the tree line and gripped a knife in each hand. Tyson knocked an arrow, leaning against the base of a towering pine as he watched the tunnel entrance.
Edmund pulled his sword in one fluid movement, holding it as if it weighed nothing at all.
Silence filled the space between them.
Finally, the men reappeared. Reed walked behind them, his hand clamped around Quinn’s arm.
Helena gasped. They’d tied his hands behind his back and a trickle of blood ran from his hairline. Did he fight back?
Who was she kidding? Of course he did. It was Quinn.
A slow smile spread across her face, halting when another movement caught her eye. More soldiers poured from the tunnel, surrounding Quinn and Reed.
Soldiers they hadn’t expected or planned for.
“Well, what now?” Dell muttered.
“We can still get him.” Her voice hardened as she looked Edmund’s way. “We can fight.”
“They outnumber us three to one.” Tyson lowered his bow.
Edmund’s eyes spoke of defeat.
“No.” She clenched her fingers tighter around her knife. “Edmund, if this was Stev, you’d do it. We have to try. I won’t just leave him. If you won’t help me, I’ll do it myself.”
Helena jumped from her spot and ran, Edmund’s curses trailing after her.
Quinn’s eyes jerked up as she broke from the trees. The soldiers watched her in confusion until she launched one of her knives full speed. It struck the center of the Madran royal crest on the nearest man. He stumbled back, blood soaking his uniform.
That spurred the rest into action. The clatter of swords rang in her ears, but she blocked it out as she ducked the first attack, dropping low and slicing her knife along the back of the man’s knee. He collapsed, a scream she couldn’t hear on his lips.
Another soldier made for her, and she wasn’t fast enough to twist out of the way as he swung his sword toward her. It stopped mid-air as an arrow struck him through the eye. The blade fell from his grasp, and he dropped.
Edmund and Dell reached them, engaging their own attackers. Dell barely avoided a blade to the arm before he tackled his man to the ground.
Edmund twisted on his heel and swung his sword in a graceful arc as he fought two men at once. Helena had never seen a man fight with such grace before. She spared him one final glance before engaging.
Catching sight of Reed dragging Quinn to the small boat, her heart beat painfully. She had to help him.
&nb
sp; Quinn bucked and fought against Reed, but two others joined them to lift him into the boat. Helena stood in a daze, warm blood spraying her face as Edmund fought beside her. Everything happened too quickly for her to help any of them. Tyson took out one of the men with Quinn as two arrows appeared sticking out of his chest. He toppled into the water.
Reed and the other men didn’t spare him a glance as they pushed the boat into the water.
“No,” Helena roared, running into the sea, trying desperately to reach her brother.
But he was too far.
Something bumped into her as she waded in waist deep water tinged with red. A sob caught in her throat as she looked into the face of a dead soldier. Revulsion swirled in her gut.
She lifted her eyes to the beach where Edmund and Dell had dispatched most of their foes. An arrow sailed overhead but landed in the water next to the boat.
Helena lifted her arm into the air, launched her knife with as much force as she could muster. Every lesson her mother taught her rang in her mind. A knife can be as deadly as an arrow at a distance granted you know how to make it so.
A scream ripped through the air as the knife stuck into Reed’s arm. Overwhelming despair quickly overcame any satisfaction of hitting her target.
She pushed the body floating beside her away and ran from the sickening stench coating the air. Dead soldiers littered the beach, but that wasn’t what caught her attention.
Edmund fought with the confidence of a seasoned warrior. Dell fumbled with his sword as his attacker advanced. Their blades clashed and Dell’s flew from his hands as he fell to his knees, driven by a kick to the stomach.
A scream lodged in Helena’s throat as a blade sliced into Dell’s side, steel biting flesh. A Belaen blade tip appeared through the attacker’s chest as Edmund pierced him from behind before kicking him to the side, leaving them alone on the beach once more.
Helena fell to her knees beside Dell as Tyson joined them and fired every last arrow he had toward the small boat. It was halfway to the ship when one of the arrows struck Reed in the leg as he stood to force Quinn’s cooperation.
“I’m out.” Tyson watched the boat reach the ship, unable to do anything more.