Pillars of Six

by St Clare, Kelly

  Ebba released her ribs and straightened, glancing either way. “We should move.”

  “Strolling down the grand stairway and out of the main entranceway isn’t ideal, but it’s the only plan left to us. Unless you know of another way,” Caspian asked Sierra hopefully.

  The younger princess shook her head. “There is only the main stairwell left, brother.”

  “Then that’s where we’ll go,” he said heavily.

  They set off, sticking close to the edges of the hall.

  “I’ve seen you and your fathers use the dynami back in Selkie’s Cove, but not since,” the prince whispered, forehead shining with perspiration. “If the falling stonework didn’t kill them, Pockmark and the others will be laid up for a while.” He cast her a searching look. “Are you all right?”

  She shrugged as they slowed to a jog. Killing wasn’t her favorite thing, really, though she’d always do it to protect herself or her loved ones. Ebba had killed a pirate on Pleo a couple of months ago, but never a group of people. Using a powerful object that gave her an unfair advantage wasn’t sitting completely right with her, even if the pirates had been chasing her to either kill her or drag her to the pillars.

  “Shh, I can hear people in the entranceway,” Anya whispered from the front. She was fluttering her hand at them.

  They trailed to a halt, and Ebba crouched to peer down around the corner.

  The entranceway of the castle was right there, just at the bottom of the last flight of stairs. Beyond the entrance was the large rectangular courtyard, then the portcullis, and after that the open, cobbled trail down to the town. They’d need to make it back to Marigold’s house and leave Exosia with all haste.

  . . . Marigold’s house seemed an awfully long way away.

  Ebba didn’t know who might be stationed outside of the castle or on the path to town, but at the base of the stairwell were around twenty Malice pirates. And . . . she squinted at their clothing. Hold on.

  “Those aren’t Malice pirates.” Caspian beat her to the punch. “They aren’t wearing black uniforms.”

  Twenty-Two

  “That’s how Malice were able to take the castle,” Ebba said, retreating back around the corner of the grand stairwell. “There be other pirates helpin’ them.”

  What pirate in their right mind would join such a quest?

  She stilled, crouching to peer around the corner again. More specifically, at the eyes of the pirates not dressed in black uniforms. Ebba’s tongue stuck to the top of her mouth, and she rolled back around the corner again. “They’ve been taken over.” The pirates hadn’t willingly joined the quest, she’d wager.

  Caspian replied dully, “What?”

  “Their eyes are black. It be the taint.” That got his attention.

  “You’re sure?” he croaked.

  Ebba nodded. “A pirate won’t risk his gullet for much. There ain’t no way these pirates are here o’ their own accord. And I couldn’t mistake the look now. The pillars have spread their taint to them. I’m sure.”

  Verity had said the pillars would have an exponential increase in power with regaining their shadow form and then again once they had their corporeal form. The tainted crew had to have left the ship and flooded Febribus and infected the other pirates. But that the pirates had lost their souls already was terrifying. She couldn’t even fathom how strong the pillars must have become since she was on Malice. They’d claimed all of these pirates and taken over the kingdom. Even with the shadows regaining their actual bodies in the coming weeks, Ebba had thought her crew would have time to figure out how to destroy them before the pillars made their next move.

  The pirates of Felicity had wasted so much time trying to decide if this was ‘their’ battle that they’d lost precious time.

  Caspian tensed. “The pillars are the six shadows you saw manifest on Malice, yes?”

  She nodded, peering around the corner again.

  “I saw them when the taint had me,” he said hoarsely. “In my head, as I got worse, six shadows used to stand around me.”

  She glanced back at him. He’d never spoken of his time while wounded before, other than to say the nightmares had showed him every failure and regret.

  “Beautiful men but for the darkness seeping from their pores. The evil in them leant the air a handspan around their bodies a shimmering quality, like diamonds embedded in graphite. When I began slipping from this world from the tainted wound in my shoulder, they told me. . . .” He shuddered. “They told me horrible things. That I would fail my father, that I’d abandoned my family, that I best stay away from Exosia because I was unfit to rule.”

  Ebba stared at the prince, the heir. His sisters exchanged an anxious glance, and her heart went out to them because while Ebba had a small idea of what was going on, they knew nothing. Their brother had returned minus an arm. Their father was now dead. And they were learning a wave of horrible things they didn’t have time to understand.

  Caspian’s shoulders hung heavy. Shadows masked his expression, and his tone was leaden as he said, “They were right.”

  “Snap out o’ it,” Ebba said flatly.

  Anya gasped. Caspian glared at Ebba, and she almost smiled, despite the situation. He’d never shown any animosity toward her at all; it would be funny in any other setting.

  She tipped her head to the youngest. “We need to get yer sisters out. Have yer failure moment when we be safe.”

  A strangled noise worked up his throat, and Ebba blinked as she realized the prince was trying not to laugh.

  “I’ll do that,” he said, shaking his head as he threw a look at her. “Failure moment.”

  Maybe he’d been hit on the head somewhere, too. Actually, her head really wasn’t feeling too flash. They’d been sitting here too long, and she’d begun to notice her numerous aches and pains.

  “Any ideas?” the youngest said.

  Anya drew herself up. “I’ll go down as a sacrifice. When they’re distracted, the rest of you run. Leave without me. I’ve chosen my fate.”

  Ebba winced, but Caspian cast her a warning glance.

  “Sal,” Ebba said slowly, instead of criticizing the princess’ dramatic plan. “Can ye go down and glow a bit? The Malice pirates wouldn’t enter the servants’ stairs with ye glowin’. I don’t think the taint inside the pirates likes yer goodness. Or whatever yer glow be made of.” Probably made of brandy fumes.

  The sprite’s eyes narrowed.

  Ebba sighed. “I ain’t sacrificin’ ye. Well, not much. Ye can just fly away.”

  Sally gestured rudely and then handed the purgium to the youngest princess.

  “Don’t be droppin’ that,” Ebba said to her.

  Sierra studied the tarnished-silver tube. “Something is moving under the surface.”

  “Aye, and every one o’ those pirates down there will seek to take that from ye. Best hide it in yer jerkin.”

  “You mean my corset?” she asked.

  Ebba ignored her, saying, “If ye lose it, I’ll maroon ye on the nearest island.”

  The young girl blanched and tucked it inside the top of her dress, patting the bulge it created on her flat chest.

  Sally rolled her eyes and then dimmed her glow, flying up so she was as close to the stone ceiling of the second level as possible. Heart in her mouth, Ebba watched as the wind sprite hovered along the top of the cavernous entranceway, keeping close to the heavy purple and gold curtains as she could. Sally reached the opposite side. Peering back, the sprite held up a thumb. At least Ebba assumed she held up a thumb. Could be the other finger again.

  “Get ready,” Ebba said.

  “Wait, where are we going?” Caspian said.

  He’d wasted time telling his story, and now he wanted to discuss the plan? “I thought the courtyard was the only way out.”

  “There’s a passage that exits from the gardens.”

  Sally was flying into position. “Make a choice, matey,” she hissed.

  “It depends what
’s down there,” he managed to say.

  Sally’s white glow burst through the entrance and the four of them raised their arms in unison. Ebba was more prepared, having been close to the sprite in the servants’ stairwell.

  Arm raised, she urged them on. “Too late. Time to go.” She kept low, rounding the corner and moving quickly down the steps.

  The pirates were taking cover from the glowing light, pressing themselves against the confines of the entrance. Some, those in black uniforms, writhed on the ground, while those in general pirate garb had hunched but remained upright.

  She trusted that if the others had any sense whatsoever, they’d be behind her, but confirming this without glancing back was impossible.

  A few pirates had spilled out of the entranceway to evade the sprite’s light.

  They’d have to fight their way out. Sally might be able to keep up her glow until they were clear of the castle, but Ebba had a strong suspicion the sprite’s white light would be useless in stopping a bullet.

  Sally’s glare faltered, and Ebba picked up her pace, peering up. The sprite was shaking her head frantically. Huh? She wanted Ebba and the others to go back up? No way.

  Ebba misjudged the width of the next step and nearly tripped face-first. Recovering, she shook her head at the sprite. Sally doubled her efforts, drawing a finger across her throat.

  That . . . seemed more serious.

  Sally dropped her glow, and Ebba cursed under her breath, halting to crouch beside the balusters that hopefully concealed most of their bodies from below.

  “Why are we stopping?” Anya asked.

  Ebba whispered over her shoulder. “Sal’s ord—”

  Orange and red exploded at the entrance, and the heavy wooden doors there blasted inward, collecting the recovering pirates in the middle. Thick black, acrid plumes of smoke billowed through, and all Ebba could see as she was flung back on the stairs were the flames that rose from the explosion in a mushroom, catching on the drapes and artwork in the huge castle lobby.

  What was happening? She tried to sit, opening her jaw in a bid to pop her ears and be rid of the incessant ringing there.

  Ebba propped onto her elbow, blinking in a stupor, and watched, still immobilized from the first blast, as a wooden barrel rolled through the castle doors.

  A barrel. Filled with what?

  The answer came to her.

  “Cover!” she yelled. Or meant to. She couldn’t hear her voice, only the faint hum underneath the whining in her ears.

  Throwing her hands over her head, Ebba curled into a ball against the balustrade, shouting wordlessly as the barrel of gunpowder went off with a soul-shaking boom. The grand stairway they huddled upon lurched, and Ebba reached for the ankle of the person behind her. They had to get off the staircase. It was going to go.

  Ebba slid down the steps, digging in her heels to help move her body downward. She didn’t trust herself to stand when her head didn’t know which way north was. She let go of the person’s ankle once she was happy they were following her lead.

  The high crackle of fire licking the decorated walls of the lobby was accompanied by pain-filled screams. Ebba turned to peek through the balustrade and swallowed at the pirate below, who was missing his body from the waist down. A burning corpse lay beside him, the pirate already dead.

  The stairs lurched again, and Ebba dug her heels in, ignoring the stone scraping away the skin on her back. The bottom was in sight.

  “Nearly there,” she said thickly.

  Someone answered her. A rich, deep voice, maybe Caspian’s. Ebba glanced back and saw the others were all following. Blood trickled from a wound on Sierra’s temple, but she was still moving.

  Ebba stomach dropped with the stonework on the third lurch. The stairs were going. Ebba didn’t waste a moment, throwing herself down the remaining steps. Her shoulder blade struck the edge of the last step, and she sucked in a harsh breath, rolling several times at the bottom before coming to a halt.

  A body landed on top of her. A floral scent mixed with smoke. Princess.

  Another body landed on top of the princess. Sandalwood and shoe polish. Prince. The final crack of the stone overrode even the roaring fire surrounding them.

  “Oof,” Ebba wheezed as a third body, another princess presumably, landed on top of her.

  Her eyes watered from the smoke. Breathing was hard enough with the steadily building fire in here without two princesses and an heir suffocating her. Ebba whacked weakly at the closest leg, which turned out not to be a leg, but Caspian’s stomach. A rather firm stomach. Interesting.

  Ebba lay still, unable to do a thing about what might be around them. Her head lolled toward the entrance.

  And a smile curved her lips.

  “Where is she, ye spineless bastards?” roared Stubby from where he stood, one foot raised on the smoldering remains of a destroyed castle door.

  He waved two pistols in the air, and the air lodged in her throat as Plank, Locks, and Grubby appeared on either side of him.

  “Stubby.” She coughed.

  Caspian rolled off, and his sisters followed suit, lying beside Ebba. All four of them peered to the pirates in the doorway, two of them recognizing help had arrived, and two likely wondering if the pirates there would murder them in the next five seconds.

  Ebba gathered her breath and bellowed over the anarchy. “Stubby!”

  All four of her fathers’ heads turned. And then Plank and Grubby were bearing down on them. They ignored the others and grabbed a wrist each to haul her from the rubble onto her feet. She wavered, leaning heavily against Grubby as dizziness assaulted her. Dragging in thin breaths, she pointed at the princesses. “Grab the others.”

  One of her fathers let off a pistol shot behind her, and she heard a muffled yell from the pirate it struck.

  When she’d found her legs, she gently pushed Grubby toward the princesses, too.

  “They be my fathers,” she told the wide-eyed girls. “They’re here to help.” And nearly killed us.

  Ebba patted her front. The dynami was still secure. She glanced at Sierra and saw the bulge of the healing cylinder still apparent.

  The sword? Where was the sword? Caspian was a step ahead of her, picking his way across the rubble of the stairs to collect the veritas, which stuck upright from amidst the collapsed stairwell.

  “We need to get out o’ here,” she shouted.

  Caspian shook his head. “I need to free my people.”

  “Ye can’t do that if ye’re dead,” she retorted angrily. They had not come this far for him to act the hero.

  Plank gripped his arm as he returned from the rubble. “Yer people were marched down the hill an hour ago. We don’t be knowin’ where, but Ebba’s right. Ye can’t help them if yer dead, and by the looks o’ it, ye be halfway there.”

  Caspian closed his eyes as if in physical pain, but allowed her father to tug him out of the destroyed entranceway.

  Ebba coughed again, eyes streaming, though most of the smoke was escaping into the sky. She glanced farther into the castle, but if anyone had survived being so close to the explosion, then they were unconscious or making themselves scarce. She valued her own gullet more than theirs.

  They reached Stubby and Locks outside. Sally drifted down to their level, her light flickering. Ebba held out her palm, and the sprite threw her a grateful look as she landed. Ebba tucked her at the back of her neck. Sally grabbed a dread in each hand, like they were bloody reins.

  “There be other smoke about,” Locks said, glancing up. “But we’ve made a mighty black signal to let everyone know all ain’t well at the castle.”

  Aye, a signal that might bring any other tainted pirates running to check.

  Stubby pulled Ebba into a tight hug, and she blinked, feeling the way he was trembling.

  “Aye,” he croaked, pulling away, eyes shining. “We best get away from here smart-like.”

  They moved in a pained, hobbling semblance of a run down the crumbling
steps from the entrance and back through the long stretch of the rectangular courtyard, which was filled with small carriages similar to the one she’d arrived in.

  Not a soul was in sight, and Ebba cast an inquiring look at Plank.

  “Most o’ the pirates escorted the court down the hill, but they left their gunpowder at the top.” He shrugged. “Seemed a shame not to make use o’ it. We rolled a barrel under the portcullis and took out the pirates they’d left as guards.”

  Make use of it, they had. The portcullis ahead was gone. In fact, the entire middle section of the wall had been blown to Davy Jones’ and lay gaping wide open for anyone to enter and exit.

  Ebba scolded them. “What if all the pirates inside had raced out here after hearin’? There only be four o’ ye.”

  “We’d hoped they would. A mite annoyin’ that they didn’t. We’d set up a nice trap for when they raced out,” Locks said smugly. “Ye ran through it halfway down the courtyard.”

  She frowned and glanced back, looking at the carriages they’d sprinted between. “Gunpowder in the carriages?” Ebba held her left arm stiff so as not to jostle the shoulder blade she’d landed on. The throbbing there was worsening.

  “Aye,” Locks said.

  Impressive. She’d tuck that ploy away for another time.

  “The pirates either didn’t hear or didn’t oblige,” Stubby wheezed as they jogged. “We had to get creative-like.”

  Grubby grinned, showing his missing teeth.

  They’d reached the cobbled gray path that led downhill. She’d taken it twice in shackles, once in a ballgown, and now a fourth time in what used to be a ballgown.

  “I need to be out o’ this dress,” she said, stopping. “I can’t stand it any longer. Cut it off.”

  Caspian immediately moved to the laces at the back of her dress but was shoved aside by Locks, who drew out a knife and sliced it upright through the tight confines of the dress.

  “Ye already took her to a ball,” Locks growled at the prince. “That’s all ye’ll be doin’.”

  Ebba groaned as she shoved off the dress and felt as though she’d lost twenty bags of sand in the doing. The corset would remain, and the billowing garment that covered her from the bottom of the corset to the knee. Marigold had called them underwear, but Ebba thought they looked almost like slops, if a little thinner and shorter than the pirate trousers she was accustomed to.