Ariana thought her heart would stop. In one moment, she went from being hustled along hallways of the palace to being pushed through a window, and she tried to shout something to the wizard but no words came out. Wind rushed by her ears with such a roar she could not have heard herself if she had been able to speak.
Olivia could not fly. Even if she were a fully trained wizard, she would not be able to fly. She needed to, for although the Citadel section of the palace was surrounded by a moat on three sides, the window she had fallen through was directly above a gate and through the swirling flames roiling out the window behind them, she could see the drawbridge was still partly down! If they hit the sturdy drawbridge after falling three stories, both girls would be bashed senseless and likely killed. Without thinking what she was doing, Olivia willed herself to miss the drawbridge and she was rewarded by a hard shove against her back, knocking the breath out of her. Seeing she would fall into the moat, she let go of the princess and pushed the other girl away. Ariana hit the water with her backside first while Olivia awkwardly windmilled her arms to avoid hitting the water face-first as pushing the princess away had thrown Olivia terribly off balance. There was wrenching pain as she fell into the water on her left side and her neck nearly snapped from the force of impact.
The two guards posted to stand watch by the east gate had received orders to go back through the gate and secure it behind them, leaving Cully Runnet all alone in the inner courtyard as far as he could see. Two other gates in view had also been closed and secured with an ominous clanging sound, sending a chill of panic up Cully’s spine. Was he supposed to be there at all? The pair of guards had not gestured for him to come with them, but they had been busy and may have assumed Cully was someone else’s responsibility. Suddenly frightened that he would get in trouble for doing something wrong, he looked up to guards on top of the castle’s thick wall and weakly waved to them. They either ignored the servant boy, or shook their heads. Did that mean he should not move from where he was, or that he should move? He didn’t know! Oh, why had he taken a shortcut through the inner courtyard, he lamented to himself.
If he did move away from the fire box, where would he go? All the gates he could see had been closed and he couldn’t see himself simply going up to the heavy iron-clad gates and rapping on them with his knuckles. Where else? Across the inner courtyard there was the Citadel, but the solid iron gate there was closed, and the drawbridge that spanned the moat was just now being pulled up-
He was rocked back on his heels and nearly fell into the open firebox, catching himself by grabbing the side of the wood box and earning a splinter in his left thumb. A window on the fourth floor of the Citadel tower had exploded, a gout of angry orange flame shooting through the window into the air. The fire was incredible by itself, but what made Cully’s mouth gape open in shock was the figures of two girls who were blown through the window just ahead of the flames! As the girls plummeted down, Cully realized with a shock that one of them was the crown princess, for he recognized the light blue dress she had worn while reviewing the changing of the guard ceremony that morning. Before he could wrest himself free of the fire box, he saw the girls were going to hit the drawbridge, when an unseen gust of wind that affected nothing else caught the two girls, and blew them just clear of the drawbridge. They hit the moat with a pair of splashes that threw water up onto the cobblestones of the courtyard.
Cully was up and running before he knew he had moved, his muddy shoes pounding on the cobblestones toward the moat. Though the fire had burned itself out after the initial explosion, burning pieces of wood from the window casing still floated down and worse, stones from around the window were tumbling to hit the water of the moat with tremendous splashes. As Cully ran, more stones began to fall as the structure grew weaker with the loss of each stone. He kept one terrified eye on the large lintel stone straddling the top of the window opening for if that shook loose, the impact might kill anyone in the moat below.
Again without thinking what he was doing, he reached the lip of the moat and, with only a glance at the water, flung himself over the edge. Two girls had fallen but only one was visible to Cully so he leaped in toward her. It was the girl with the light blue dress he believed was the princess. As he fell in feet-first, he could see the girl had her head above the water but her face and hair were so plastered with green algae he could not tell who she was, or even if she were a girl at all.
Hitting the water, he fanned out his arms to stop from plunging in too far, for he knew the water to be only a dozen feet deep, with sharp rocks at the bottom. After a dry summer, the level of water must have been shallower because one of his shoes hit something and he recoiled in fright. To his surprise, he bobbed to the surface right beside the girl, who was faintly gasping for air, her mouth opening and closing in spasms. “I’ve got you!” He assured the girl, wrapping an arm across her chest and realizing too late his forearm had touched where he shouldn’t have touched any girl, let alone the future monarch of Tarador. He was about to babble an apology when a heavy stone fell into the water behind them and he wisely concentrated on swimming strongly away from the drawbridge, using one arm to hold the girl’s head above the water and pulling hard against the murky water with the other arm. He feet kicked frantically as he mentally kicked himself for not taking his shoes off, the waterlogged leather was weighting him down and making him swim slower than he wanted.
In moments that felt like an eternity, Cully reached the lip of a pipe that carried water into the moat. The bottom of the pipe was slick with scum and algae, so he lifted one of the girl’s hands- He lifted one of the princess’s hands, for he now could see that underneath the streaks of algae was surely the crown princess, Regent and ruler of his nation. He lifted her left hand until her elbow was draped over the top of the pipe. “Can you hold on here, Your Highness?” He asked, the first words the servant boy had ever spoken directly to the princess.
She nodded once, her eyes unfocused. At Cully’s intently questioning stare, she nodded again. “Yes,” she managed to say.
“Who was with you?”
“What?”
“The girl!” He forgot all propriety and shook the princess. “The other girl who fell with you!”
“Oh. Olivia.”
Olivia! Cully felt a shock. “Lady Doopers?” He released the princess and spun around, searching the surface of the moat for any sign of the young wizard. She had been wearing a red robe, he remembered. Nothing he could see was red, the water in the moat was dirty green or green algae. Where could she be? Taking a breath and ducking his head under the water, he opened his eyes to see that he could see almost nothing.
The wizard could not have gone far from where she had fallen into the water, and that was near the drawbridge. Back above the water, he swam to the drawbridge, took a deep breath and dove down, down as far as he could, nearly bumping his head on a sharp rock at the bottom. Nothing! He could barely see his hand in front of his face, and was about to go up to breathe when his right hand brushed against something soft that was not a rock.
Then a hand grasped his forearm! With a mixture of embarrassment and panic, he felt along an arm and then reached down for a leg. Her soaked, billowing robe was in his way and he was beginning to feel an urgent need for air when his hands felt her foot and a stone. One of her feet was wedged between a rock on the bottom of the moat and a stone that had fallen from the crumbling window frame.
With no way to communicate, Cully knelt on the sharp rocks, cradled his hands under the stone, and lifted. The stone did not budge as it too, was wedged solidly against the rocks. His lungs begged for air and there was a roaring in his ears but the girl’s hand on his shoulder squeezed him only weakly. He could not fail her. Shifting his knees to get better leverage, sharp rocks sliced into his knees and shins. He ignored that pain, interlaced his fingers, and lifted with all his might, feeling something pop in his lower back.
The stone shifted, and the girl pulled her foot free. The ha
nd let go of his shoulder and Cully wasted no time pulling for the surface himself, coming above the algae-slick surface of the moat to gasp raggedly. Next to him, the young wizard was doing the same, her face nearly blue. Somehow, with strength he did not know he had, Cully took hold of her right arm and pulled her toward the side of the moat. As his fingers touched the rough stone, he turned back to see normal color returning to her skin. “Hold on-”
His own head was bashed against the side of the moat as three large stones fell into the water, throwing up a violent wave. Pain exploded in his head then he felt nothing as he blacked out, slipping beneath the surface.
Ariana clung to the slimy pipe, regaining strength as she was again able to breathe regularly. She heard splashing behind her and turned around to see the boy towing Olivia toward the wall of the moat. The wizard did not look good, she was not able to help the boy pull her toward the wall and as her fingers touched, three stones fell with a tremendous splash and the boy’s head was battered against the rock wall of the moat. He spun toward Ariana, face bloody, then lost his grip on the wizard and fell backwards with a grunt, disappearing beneath the mats of sticky green algae. “No!” Ariana tried to shout, only to have her words choked off by a coughing fit. Still coughing uncontrollably, she let go of the pipe and pulled herself along the wall stone by stone, trying to reach Olivia before the wizard went under the water again. Awkwardly, the princess grasped the wizard by the first thing she could reach; the girl’s blonde hair.
“Ow!” Olivia gasped, which Ariana took as a good sign the wizard was regaining her wits. The princess got a good grip on Olivia’s robe and struggled to hold both of their faces above the water, her other fingers kept slipping on the stones of the moat.
“Help,” the words threw Ariana into another convulsion of coughing. Where were her guards? Where was anyone? The crown princess and a wizard were blown through a window into a moat, and their only rescue was a servant boy? “Help!” She shouted without choking.
There was the sound of boots pounding on cobblestones and the faces of two men appeared atop the moat wall, staring down at her. There was a flash of relief on their faces when they saw she was not dead below the water. “Your Highness!
“The boy! Help that boy first,” she insisted, gesturing with what strength she possessed.
“But Your Highness,” the two guards hesitated.
“That is an order!” She demanded as she glared at the men, and to the credit of the royal guard force there was no further hesitation. Both men kicked off their boots, having discarded their helmets, sword belts and chain mail armor during their headlong race across the courtyard. Without another word, they leapt into the water, one on either side of the servant boy who was floating facedown. One of them rolled Cully over, and the boy spat up water when the guard squeezed his chest. Then, orders or not, the other guard swam over to Ariana to see to her safety. “Hold Lady Dupres, please, I don’t have the strength,” Ariana admitted, and was relieved when the guard put an arm under the wizard’s back, holding her up.
Cully was choking up water, Olivia was nodding and waved appreciation as she recovered her strength, and Ariana clung to the moat wall, fearfully looking up at the crumbling stones around where the window used to be in the Citadel. “We should move away from the drawbridge,” the princess suggested, and led the way, half swimming and half clinging to the slick stones. Moments later, the faces of more guards appeared above the moat, and ropes were lowered down.
Cully was barely aware of being lifted out of the moat and half carried, half dragged across the courtyard and into a storeroom. A guard shook him gently and gave him a canteen of water to drink, though Cully took a mouthful and searched for a place to rinse his mouth out. In a panic, he tried to hold the water in as he could not possibly spit on the floor in front of the crown princess!
Except that was exactly what the crown princess was doing with the water from her own canteen. “Oooh, I do not want to know what is in my mouth,” Ariana spat repeatedly to clear the nasty taste of algae and other things. Seeing Cully’s distress, she smiled. “Rinse out your mouth, kind sir, I would not wish you to fall ill by swallowing that moat water.”
“I already,” Cully nodded to guard who took pity on him and gave him an empty bucket to spit in, “swallowed too much.” His face went white again as he remembered who he had spoken too. “I mean, Your Highness,” he bowed deeply, which threw him into a coughing fit that brought him to his knees and brought more water spewing from his mouth. “Sorry.”
Ariana had no time to reply, for the storeroom door swung open to admit the chief of the palace guard. The man secured the door behind him and dropped to one knee, taking off his helmet. “Your Highness,” he said as tears streamed down his face, “I have failed you.”
“As I am alive,” Ariana pulled algae-matted hair away from her face, “your guards have not failed me, Captain Temmas. What happened?”
Temmas almost reluctantly regained his feet. “It appears there was some sort of device behind the door leading to the most secure area of the Citadel, Your Highness. I would appreciate anything you can tell me about the incident, for none of the guards who were with you survived. How did you survive?”
“Olivia threw me out a window,” Ariana covered her mouth and laughed, she couldn’t help herself despite the serious situation.
“I didn’t throw you,” Olivia protested and had to laugh also. “I fell out the window too, if you remember.”
Temmas looked at the storeroom ceiling, a questioning look on his face. “Your Ladyship,” he addressed the wizard, “that window is directly above the drawbridge, how did you not strike the bridge when you fell?”
“I saw that!” Cully exclaimed, forgetting the high-ranking people he was speaking to. “The wind blew you aside, but,” he shuddered and fearfully glanced at the young lady wizard, “that wasn’t wind, was it?”
“No, it wasn’t wind. It was magic,” Olivia explained. “Captain Temmas, how did that assassin get inside the palace?” She stamped a foot.
“Lady Dupres,” Temmas stammered, “we do not know as yet. It appears the assassin came from beneath the palace, we are searching the tunnels now. What I do not understand is what the enemy hoped to gain, surely the assassin must have known he could not get past all our guards, to the princess. Why did the assassin attack in broad daylight? Surely if he had waited for nightfall-”
“Waiting for the cover of night would have gained him nothing,” Olivia replied. “You have just as many guards on duty in the palace after sunset?”
“More,” Temmas assured the wizard.
Olivia nodded. “Then the assassin would have just as much opposition to get past, and at night the princess would be behind wards in the residence, where no assassin could hope to catch her unawares. By attacking in daylight while she was receiving visitors in her office, the princess was more vulnerable than if she were in the residence,” Olivia mused, partly to herself. “Captain Temmas, what is your procedure if the royals are threatened while in their offices?”
Horrified understanding dawned on the chief guard’s face. “We bring the princess to the Citadel,” he answered in a hoarse whisper. His shoulders slumped. “Lady Dupres, it is your belief the assassin’s true purpose was for Princess Ariana to be brought to the Citadel?”
“Who knows your procedures?”
“Too many people know. Such knowledge would not be difficult to obtain,” Temmas mused. “It is standard procedure for the guard force, even the servants,” he glanced at Cully with irritation, “know it. We train for it often. The Citadel had been used for the purpose of safeguarding the royal family since ancient times, it is no secret. So,” the man pulled at his beard in fierce concentration, “the enemy’s intention was for Ariana to go into the Citadel. That means the enemy had prior access to the inner chamber of the Citadel, even though access there is restricted to only the most trusted members of the guard force. I will need to question each one of-”
/> “It was magic, Captain,” Olivia stated with a shake of her head. “None of your guards could have been responsible. I felt the presence of dark magic, just before a guard opened the door. I shouted to stop him, but it was too late. That is why I took you out through the window, Your Highness,” she automatically bent a knee as a curtsey toward the future monarch. “It was the only way to protect you.”
“I thank you, Lady Dupres,” Ariana said with a frown, wishing the wizard would use her first name. She resented the distance forced between them by formality and tradition.
“The question then is, how?” Temmas growled. “How did the enemy get a magical weapon into the Citadel?”
“To answer that question, you will need a wizard,” Olivia answered wearily while wiping her dirty hands on her even filthier robes. “I must go to the Citadel first, to learn what I can there.” No! She thought. What was needed was a real, fully-trained wizard, as Olivia had been insisting while everyone ignored her.
The chief guard blanched at the idea of the young wizard wandering around the palace. He would need to assign guards to protect her, that would hurt his force’s ability to scour the large building from top to bottom against the possibility of more assassins lurking in wait. “Please, Lady Dupres, remain here a while longer, as this is the only room in the palace I can be certain of to be safe at the moment,” the man said with a pleading expression. “First, my people are sweeping the residence, for Her Highness cannot spend the night here in a storeroom,” he grimaced.
While the princess, wizard and chief guard had been talking, Cully had been shuffling his feet, edging toward the door. When his hand touched the door handle, the princess spun toward him. “Where are you going, Mister, um,” she was embarrassed that she did not know the servant boy’s name. One of his parents worked in the royal hospital, she vaguely remembered.
Deceptions (Ascendant Book 3) Page 10