I gasped for air. “I don’t know what you’re—” breathe “—talking about.”
“You don’t, do you?” He stepped on my foot, hard, and pushed me down, my sword slipping out of my hands.
The crowd gasped with surprise and wonder.
I stumbled to my feet and grabbed Stefan’s sword. When I looked up, Alex was glowering at me, jaw clenched.
He had stepped on the foot Stefan had broken and I hadn’t so much as flinched.
He came at me fast and strong, and it took everything I had just to keep him at bay. Each blow burned my arm as I deflected; the courtyard filled with the sounds of clanging metal.
“Fight me,” Alex said through his teeth, so low I barely heard.
Clang.
“I am,” I growled.
He shook his head, arching out of the way of my jab. “Mean it,” he said. His expression was hard; the green in his eyes shone with something brilliant and threatening.
The wind rustled through the courtyard again, lifting my cloak.
I thought of Fleck. I thought of his fear and how much he depended on me, and how powerless I was to help him, how powerless I’d always been. And then I thought of Alex. How much I had cared about him—still cared about him—and how much he kept hurting me.
My thoughts flashed through me in a split second, and the next breeze that rolled through the courtyard filled me with rage.
Sweat dripped down Alex’s temples as he avoided my blows, countering them.
“That’s it,” Alex whispered as we spun around each other.
He was breathing heavily now, but there was satisfaction in his eyes. He was helping me win. He wanted me to win, but he wouldn’t just let me. I had to earn it as an equal.
Round and round we danced, our swords ringing throughout the courtyard, strong and true.
He stared into my eyes, then, as if he saw me as me—not Stefan. It was in that moment he hesitated, and it was all I needed.
I kicked his sword from his hand, held mine at his throat, and he raised his arms in surrender.
The crowd gasped and cheered, but Alex didn’t react. He continued holding my gaze, until at last his lips pulled up into a grin and my heart fluttered.
He looked away, retrieved his sword, and shoved it back in its sheath. I turned around and caught a glimpse of Lord Commodus and the headmaster, standing off to the side of the courtyard, watching me. No sooner had I made eye contact than they turned and left.
I handed my sword back to Alex. He was studying me, his features tight and sharp.
“Were they watching the whole time?” I asked.
He took the sword from my hands. “They’re always watching.” He held my gaze a moment longer, and then he walked away.
I found Thad, grabbed his arm, and pulled him through the courtyard.
“I need to show you something,” I said.
“Can’t it wait?” Thad asked, glancing at the clock tower.
“No.” I pushed through the doors, back inside the castle walls.
“Oh, come on! I’m supposed to be making a guest appearance at the ladies’ brunch!”
I faked remorse. “I guess they’ll have to endure without you, then.”
The halls were busier now, as people had begun waking.
“Mind telling me what this is about?” Thad asked with Egan trailing behind us.
“Not yet.”
Thad was pretty good about not putting up a fight. Well, right until we started down the steps that led to the lower library.
“Oh, no,” Thad said, planting his feet at the top of the stairs while Egan whimpered beside him.
“What do you mean, ‘oh, no?’”
“I’m not going down there.”
Egan’s tail swept the stone floor, and I put my hands on my hips. “Why not?”
“That place is creepy.”
“Thad. It’s a lib-rar-y.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
I grunted and stepped down.
“Seriously, Rook, you know what’s in there?”
I made a face. “Books?”
“‘Books,’ she says.” He shook his head.
“Look,” I said, annoyed, “I need to talk to you and it’s the only place I know no one goes—I was down there for hours all by myself, remember?”
He studied me a moment, rolling a fresh piece of dried grass between his lips as Egan rubbed his nose against my leg.
Finally, Thad took a step down. He followed me all the way down, through the long, dark torch-lined corridor, and we stopped before the door of the lower library. A draft of cool air breathed over my skin and was gone, and Thad watched the shadows, wary.
I tried the door; it was locked. I tried again.
“Huh.” I let go of the iron ring. “It wasn’t locked before.”
Energy pulsed from Thad; the air around us shuddered and faded.
“No, it’s not locked,” Thad said quietly, dusting his hands. “It’s been sealed.”
Egan whimpered and wiggled between my feet.
“Sealed?” I asked.
“With magic.”
I stared at the iron dragon’s head holding the iron ring in its teeth. “It wasn’t sealed when I came down here with Sir Armand.”
“Well, it is now, and I can’t break it. Only the person who made it can, so—” he turned to me “—looks like you’ll have to just talk to me in this cold, dark, creepy tunnel.”
Cold air tickled my neck and I shivered.
“Unless you can think of some place warmer?” Thad offered.
“No…” I glanced down the dark corridor. The hall was empty. There was no sense of life or emotions except the amusement coming from Thad. This was as safe and private as I would get. “There’s a portrait in there,” I whispered.
“Wait.” Thad’s brows knit together. “You wanted to bring me to a library to show me a painting.”
I watched the shadows. I didn’t like them.
Quit being paranoid; there’s no one down here except you two.
“I found it, when I was in there picking thorns,” I said.
“Great. Don’t tell me King Darius stole the Mona Lisa and locked it behind that door.”
“Wait, how do you know about the Mona Lisa?”
Thad looked at me as if I’d grown a third arm and was picking my nose with it. “Uh, because Leonardo da Vinci’s mother was originally from the Arborenne? Come on, Rook. No one from Earth has a fraction of that imagination in their genes.”
Seriously? “Anyways,” I continued, “the man looked just like my dad, but his name was Eris Mordryck…I didn’t catch the last name, but it began with an ‘R’.”
The grass between Thad’s lips stopped moving, but he recovered quickly with a smirk. “And you don’t think the fact he looks just like your dad has something to do with it? Maybe it was taken when your dad was young? Probably just some misprint—”
“No.” I shook my head. “He looks like him, but he’s different. I can’t explain it, really, and then I overheard Lord Commodus and the headmaster talking about him, and then Tran said he was dead…”
“He is dead,” Thad whispered.
A cool waft of air carried his whisper away, deeper into the shadows.
“You knew about him? So why did you act like—”
“Rook.” He pushed himself from the wall and looked past me. “When—” he swallowed “—Eris died, the king wanted his memory dead, too. Every relic, every possession, every portrait…burned. Even mentioning his name was considered an act of treason.”
That sounded a little extreme, and also sounded exactly like the king. “But why did he…”
“Eris was his son.”
Wait…what?
Eris was…his son? “You’re serious.”
Thad scratched Egan between his droopy, frightened ears.
“As in my dad’s brother?” I asked.
“As in your uncle, has the same mother as your father…” He waved off th
e rest.
My dad had a brother. I had an uncle. Well, a deceased one. “Wait, so does my dad know about this?” I asked.
Thad scrunched his nose. “Pretty sure he does.”
My anger flared. “Does Stefan know about this?”
“Not that I know of. Our generation was left in the dark about that one.”
“So how do you know about him?” I asked.
“Come on, Rook. I know everything.” He winked.
My dad had a brother.
Strange. Why hadn’t he ever said anything? “When did he die?”
“Oh, almost nineteen years ago.”
Right around the time I was born. Right around the time my mother had died. Well, no wonder my dad had a difficult time talking about that period in his life. And maybe that was why I’d never heard about an uncle.
“How did he die?” I asked.
Thad chewed on the piece of grass and messed with his rolled-up shirtsleeve. “Not sure,” he said. “Information’s limited, you know, but rumor is he had been experimenting with dark magic and it killed him.”
“So the king just decided to try to get rid of his memory because he was experimenting?”
Thad shrugged. “Just what I’ve heard. But—” he stood tall “—he’s dead, though, so it doesn’t matter.”
The man in the fields, the one I’d seen back at my home in Fresno. It was the same, and he wasn’t a vision or a replica—he had been real. He had materialized in front of me. My skin scrawled, seeing his haunted face, reliving his horrible memory.
I glanced back at the menacing shadows. “What if he’s not dead?”
I thought I saw the shadows move.
“Well, that’s the dumbest—” Thad started.
The torches at the end of the hall went out.
I stared at the darkness. “Did you?’ I whispered to Thad.
“No,” he whispered back.
Cold air blew over my skin, and I felt it. Burning like ice, seductive and terrifying, ravenous with an appetite of thousands.
Something was down here, with us, waiting in the shadows.
Chapter 14
The Keeper’s Flame
The next torch went out as though swallowed by a living black cloud. A cloud that was moving closer, toward us. It filled the spaces in the hall, the darkness palpable as it devoured the next torch…and the next.
I couldn’t move. I wanted to run, but my legs were like lead, stuck to the stone floor. Cold air burned my nose and lungs, turning colder by the moment.
It was almost upon us, now.
Air and darkness swirled around us in a maelstrom, screaming in a chorus of horrible otherworldly voices.
I wanted to scream but my body was frozen as though possessed by an unnatural force, while cold fingers twisted my insides, making them burn.
And then it was gone.
The darkness, the cold, the terror—all of it.
The torches burned as though they’d never stopped burning; the hall was empty and quiet as though it’d never been disturbed.
Thad stood beside me, wide-eyed, with his hair standing out on all ends.
“What was that?” I gasped.
Thad started backing away, towards the staircase. “Our cue to leave, I think.”
I swallowed, looking back down the hall. “But did you hear that?”
Thad tilted his head. “Hear what?”
“That…screaming.”
Thad arched a brow and studied the torches mistrustfully. “No, and I’m not about to wait around for it.”
We all but ran up the staircase and didn’t stop running through the halls—ignoring annoyed stares—until we felt we were safely out of reach. We passed the corridor that led to the assembly hall when Thad grabbed my arm and jerked me back against the wall.
A group of guards walked past, faces heavy and distressed, and they were carrying something between them.
Bodies.
There were two, lying on a stretcher with a blanket draped over them. An ashen hand slipped from beneath one, hanging lifeless from the stretcher. The hand was wrinkled like a raisin, as if everything inside had been sucked out. Like the guard I’d seen lying dead on the floor.
One of the guards hurried to conceal the hand, and my stomach turned.
The people in the hall moved to the side as they walked, whispering to each other, afraid.
“Get back!” yelled one of the guards, shooing them off.
“What happened?” A woman’s voice trembled.
The guards didn’t answer her.
“Prince Stefan.” It was Sir Armand. “I was just on my way to your father.”
He stopped before me. The lines in his face were deep, especially around his sunken eyes. He looked as though he hadn’t slept in weeks.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
He glanced after the group, jaw clenched. “Two of the scouts I sent to the East Ridge after the dark rider.”
“The dark rider, he…” I nodded towards the group.
Sir Armand removed his hat and wiped his hair from his forehead. “He’s here. I don’t know where”—he glanced at the walls as though the dark rider were hiding inside of them—“but best pray we find him soon. We can’t keep this from the people much longer.”
“Where are you taking them?” I glanced after the guards.
“The headmaster. I hope he has answers because I’ve never seen anything like this, and until we know how he’s doing it, I’m afraid it won’t be the last.”
****
I reached the hallway to my room and stopped.
There were no guards. Cicero and Sonya were discussing something outside of my room, and they were extremely worried.
Sonya glanced up and noticed me; Cicero caught sight of me right after.
“Stefan,” Sonya said, motioning for me to hurry toward them.
Slowly, I walked forward. “What’s going on?”
“Your sister…she won’t wake.” Sonya’s warm eyes watched the door.
“Where’s—”
“He’s in there with her and he’s brought Gaius.”
Gaius? I wanted to ask her who this Gaius was, but she’d said it like I should already know, so instead I nodded. “Can I go in?”
“Of course,” she said.
I walked to my door and hesitated; I didn’t hear any voices on the other side. With a deep breath, I pushed the door in, stepped inside and closed it behind me.
Stefan was fast asleep on my bed and snoring loudly. An older gentleman huddled over him, feeling around on Stefan’s forehead as my dad paced the floor behind them. He glanced up when we entered.
“She won’t wake up,” he said.
Good, at least the medic hadn’t discovered anything.
Yet.
I walked to Stefan, who was clutching my pillow and mumbling something about wanting pink flowers in his room, and then he went back to snoring.
The older gentleman’s back was to me while he fumbled through a rather large cloth bag. He muttered something to himself, scratched his short white hair, and then glanced back at me.
My breath caught.
Tran.
I wouldn’t have recognized him if it wasn’t for the blue eyes. His beard was gone and his white mustache was neat and groomed, and his usual long and thick white hair had been reduced to the sides of his head, leaving a large patch of splotchy skin on top. A small pair of bifocals rested on the end of his nose and they moved when he smiled.
“Prince Stefan.” Even his voice sounded different. Weaker and more frail. He glanced back at my dad. “Seems our dear Sleeping Beauty is under a spell, also known as a strong analgesic mixed with faerie wine. You don’t know who, perhaps, gave this to her?”
I walked toward them, past my mirror, and froze. It was my reflection—my true reflection—staring back. I caught Tran’s warning gaze and quickly stepped aside.
Dad didn’t notice.
“When will it wear off?” My dad stop
ped pacing and turned his red face towards Tran.
Tran went back to rummaging through his bag. “Hard to say, exactly.” He pulled out a pink flower and stuck it behind Stefan’s ear. “Perhaps tomorrow morning; perhaps six months.”
Dad and I both gasped and said, “Six months?” in unison.
Tran patted Dad’s shoulder. “It will be fine, my prince, but I must be off. I’ll return this evening to check her progress.”
“Is there nothing you can do to wake her?” Dad asked.
Tran scratched his short mustache. “I’m afraid not. Faerie wine is quite sticky and coats the stomach like tar, and that drug is mixed with it. Be thankful it isn’t worse.”
Dad studied Stefan while I worked hard on keeping a straight face.
“If the king finds out she can’t attend the ceremony tonight…” Dad started.
“The king doesn’t have a choice in the matter. If it helps, I’ll stay with her during the ceremony. While her absence must be excused, I’m afraid neither of yours will be.” Tran’s disappointed gaze fixed on me, and I suddenly felt guilty.
He’d known exactly what I’d planned.
“Would you?” Dad asked. “I can’t leave her alone like this.”
Tran nodded once. “Then consider it done. I’ll return before the ceremony and make sure no one disturbs her while you’re gone.”
Dad sighed. “Thank you, Gaius.”
I was beginning to wonder if there was a hat Tran didn’t wear.
“It is my pleasure.” Tran bowed his head.
Dad glanced up at me. “Will you stay with your sister until I get you for the ceremony?”
Stefan choked on a snore, and I couldn’t help but think his snoring alone should’ve given me away. No woman in the world could snore like that.
“Sure,” I said.
Dad brushed the hair back from Stefan’s forehead, kissed it gently, and paused at the door. “I’ll be back in a few hours. I need to warn the king.” He hesitated, took one last glance at Stefan, and then left.
Tran stared at me through his small, round bifocals.
“When did you find out?” I asked, embarrassed.
He arched a bushy white brow. “The moment you left with Thaddeus.”
“But how?“
“Child,” Tran sighed, “Grool would notice a speck of dust out of place on that bookshelf.” He regarded me a moment, then turned back to his bag.
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