Cloaked

by Taylor Hobbs

  “Mmmmm,” he groaned, vibrating from deep inside his chest.

  He must be dreaming about something else. Dreaming about Josephine. Tears stung her eyes at how incredible and safe she felt in his arms, contrasted with the pain it also caused to be so close to him while his heart belonged to someone else.

  “Charlotte,” he sighed, so softly she almost missed it. Wait, he’s dreaming about me?

  Under ordinary circumstances, Fawkes would have known the instant she awoke, thanks to the Cloaked Shadow’s heightened senses. But Fawkes had been up for days at a time, injured, and had finally let his emotional wall crack last night. There was no way he would have purposely chosen to do this with Charlotte. He probably has no idea what he’s doing, Charlotte realized.

  He would be mortified if he awoke to find them in such a compromising position, and Charlotte didn’t want to pile on any more reasons for him to feel guilty. Before steeling herself for the hardest, most selfless act of her life, she relaxed for a few more stolen moments against him. She let herself fantasize about what it would be like to wake up with him like that every day, but in a real house with a real bed. In a home they built together, in a new country, after escaping the traumas of their past. A fresh start. No violence, no blood, no pain. That was what she wanted for him. For them. But because they could never have that, she would have to settle for easing whatever pain she could now, and that meant preventing Fawkes from waking up the same way she did.

  Filling her lungs with his scent, she carefully lifted Fawkes’ arm off of her body and sat up, twisted away as she set it on her now-empty side of the bedroll. Praying that his exhaustion would keep him asleep just a little longer, she slowly slid out from under the blanket and into the frozen world.

  “Don’t tell him,” she whispered to Ghost, the one witness to their unusual sleeping arrangement.

  Ghost snorted at her, his breath rising up in clouds above his head. He appeared to be the only one completely unperturbed by the weather. The sweat had frozen on Charlotte’s skin, and she looked back at Fawkes longingly.

  Fawkes, feeling a gaze upon him, awoke with a start. He sat up and looked around for Charlotte frantically, his shoulders finally slumping with relief when he saw her standing next to Ghost.

  As if reading Charlotte’s mind, he scrambled to explain the situation. “I—ah—should apologize for this,” he said, “but you were so cold last night. Your teeth were chattering in your sleep, and your lips were turning blue. It was the only way to keep you warm once the snow started falling.” He cleared his throat. “I hope I didn’t do anything to make you uncomfortable.”

  That was the most comfortable I’ve been in my entire life, Charlotte wanted to tell him. But it was clear he did not remember saying her name, or clutching her to him as if he was drowning and she was the only one who could save him.

  “No,” she said, turning away. “Nothing that made me uncomfortable.”

  ****

  Their footprints left clear tracks in the snow, but Fawkes said that it couldn’t be helped. They pushed farther that day than any distance they had attempted before. Charlotte, having been declared ready for the mission, didn’t need to stop at midday to train. There was nothing to do but push southward.

  As they skirted a small farming community, Charlotte’s thoughts jumped to Henry and the rest of the rebels, wondering if they were still in Croantis or if they had made the journey to Algonia already.

  “Do you know what the rebels were planning?” she asked Fawkes.

  “No. But once Josie is free, I have a mind to join them. That bastard of a king took my wife from me. He will pay.”

  If only Robin had known what it would take to get the Cloaked Shadow to fight for his cause, Charlotte mused. It would have saved him a lot of trouble. If the revolution had such a powerful ally, it would be nearly unstoppable. As it stood with Fawkes’ rage, she almost expected him to try and assassinate King Otan himself once they rescued Josephine.

  “You would go back to the rebels? Work with them?”

  “Would you join me?” Fawkes asked. “Go back to your brother?”

  “I don’t know if I could.” She tried to picture what a rag-tag family they would make— Henry, Charlotte, the man she loved but couldn’t be with, and his newly rescued wife, all fighting for a cause she wasn’t sure she supported. “All of this is dependent on whether or not we make it out of this alive. I guess I’ll decide what I want to do if I make it out.”

  Fawkes stopped walking. “You do not have to do this. I never asked for your help.”

  “But you need it. I’m ready for this.”

  “Good. Because we will be in Numencaster in three days.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Numencaster Castle was unlike any castle Charlotte had ever seen. Its fortifications were visible even from a distance. She had vowed to stay by Fawkes’ side through it all, but the longer she stared at the massive structure, the more she doubted their odds of success.

  “How on earth did you get in the first time?” Charlotte asked her mentor, awed.

  “I took a page from your book.” He favored Charlotte with a small smile, the first he had cracked in the past three days of relentless travel. “I entered in through the sewer.” She blushed, filled with pride that the legendary Cloaked Shadow had used her method.

  The castle was more than twice the size of Duke Belaq’s castle, with a wide moat encircling the outer wall. Turrets climbed upward into the clouds, while archers paced back and forth across thick parapets. The drawbridge was down, but at least fifty armed men guarded the entrance, and were in the process of thoroughly examining anyone who braved crossing into the fortress. No wonder Fawkes had gone in through the sewers. There is no other weak point anywhere.

  From Charlotte’s vantage point on top of a small hill, the town sprawled in front of the castle, surprisingly quiet due to the recent snowfall. A few citizens braved the wet and muddy trek, but the streets looked almost solely occupied by additional soldiers.

  “King Otan has gotten even more paranoid,” Fawkes said. “I gather he was not pleased with Stefan’s departure.”

  “Do you think he knows the rebels are planning something?”

  “He knows now that the rebels are organized enough to snatch a captive from his royal dungeons and not get caught. This frightens him. His Majesty resides under the same roof. I believe he has been sleeping with one eye open.”

  “Will we still enter through the sewers?”

  Fawkes rubbed his stubble thoughtfully. “No. The king will expect it this time. I will have to create another plan.”

  “Well, Josephine isn’t even being held in the dungeons, so they aren’t our target location anyway. Where do you think she would be held captive? Not only will we have to break in, but we need to find her as well. We won’t have time to search the whole castle before getting caught,” she pointed out.

  Breaking into dungeons to rescue prisoners they already knew were there was one thing. Trying to deduce where a mystery prisoner was being held, within the entirety of the castle, was another challenge altogether. She would have preferred the dungeons. At least that was familiar territory.

  “She might be inside one of the towers,” Fawkes said, mostly to himself. “Her existence has been kept a secret for many years. It would make sense if she was locked up, out of the way. But the question is, which one?”

  “Well, which side of the castle is the dungeon under?”

  “The back of the castle, on the south side.”

  “If Josephine is brought down secretly to question prisoners in the dungeon without anyone seeing her, then she is probably smuggled through a nearby passageway. They keep her far enough out of the way so she is hidden, but close enough to use her when they need her. It has to be the turret on the right, at the back of the castle.”

  Fawkes began to pace. “Deductions aren’t enough to go on. We need someone with first-hand information. We will only have one chance at this.
We cannot waste it.”

  Charlotte touched his shoulder with a gentle hand, forcing him to still. He seemed painfully thin for his normally strong build. The stresses of their journey combined with his injury had taken a disturbing toll.

  He looked at her with blue eyes that swallowed his face in the single-minded, wide-eyed panic of a trapped animal. “I should have known she was there the first time,” he said. “I should have saved her weeks ago. How did I not know?”

  “Stop punishing yourself. You barely escaped with your life after rescuing Stefan. There wasn’t time to go wandering around the castle looking for her, even if you had known she was there.”

  “With all this extra security now, getting to her will be close to impossible.” His voice was wracked with guilt.

  “You have me this time. We’ll get to her,” Charlotte promised. Taking a chance, she stepped forward and wrapped her arms around his waist in a comforting embrace. She felt him sag against her, allowing himself a moment of peace. It wasn’t a romantic embrace, and nothing like how Charlotte felt when she woke up in his arms in her bedroll. This was simply a symbol of human connection, a promise to be by his side no matter what they faced. “We made it here. Now we watch and wait, and come up with a plan, together,” she said.

  ****

  It was easier said than done. Charlotte and Fawkes observed the activity in town and around the castle for two days, and were nowhere closer to formulating a plan of attack. They searched for a hole in the defenses, but the security around the castle was ironclad. As Charlotte wished for a way inside, she never expected that their chance would come at such a cost. It started at midnight with the first explosion.

  Fawkes had been keeping watch while Charlotte slept. Both of them had been on high alert so close to the castle, trading off sleeping while the other kept a close eye out for wandering villagers or possible rebel forces. Thus far they had remained undetected within a few miles of the town.

  Charlotte heard the boom as it wrenched her from a dead sleep. She was up and at Fawkes’ side in an instant. “What was that?” she asked, ears ringing. His gaze was fixed toward the town, where an orange fireball lit up the night.

  “Something caught fire. Something big.”

  The edge of town was burning. The wind picked up, and the screams of the townspeople reached Charlotte’s ears. The fire licked the night sky as it gathered fuel, feeding itself as the wind tossed it higher.

  “Was it the granary?” Charlotte asked.

  “Could be. It was on that side of town.”

  “How could a granary explode like that?”

  The smell of scorched material invaded her nose, tickling the tip with the acrid scent of something she couldn’t quite place. “Cannon powder,” Fawkes said, answering her unasked question. “I haven’t smelled it since I was halfway around the world. Years ago. It is so rare…” He tapered off, confused.

  Charlotte looked at him, horrified. “The rebels? Is this their doing?”

  “This was not an accident.”

  As if in agreement with him, a second explosion rocked the village, this time in the center. “They’re attacking the people!” Charlotte said.

  “This is our opening,” Fawkes said calmly. All of the stress Charlotte had seen in his face during the last few days was gone and replaced with a controlled certainty. The Cloaked Shadow finally had a plan.

  In a whirl, the black cloak was on, covering his face as he prepared to ride into the chaos. Charlotte swallowed back her fear and leaped up onto Ghost’s back, settling in behind her mentor. As they galloped toward the flaming village, cries of agony and terror welcomed them. People swarmed the streets, running around in pure panic. The more level-headed were trying to drag the critically wounded out of harm’s way, and others tried to put out the fire with ineffective buckets of water. Children shrieked and babies screamed while mothers frantically called their names. Still the fire spread, pushing everyone back as they fled from the scorching heat and the blinding smoke.

  Fawkes urged Ghost faster through the streets, dodging the inferno. As they made their way deeper into the town, Charlotte saw soldiers charging from the castle, ready to protect their king’s property at any cost. Fixated on the two fires consuming the town, the armored men ran past the horse without stopping. Charlotte watched as a badly scorched woman reached out to clutch a soldier’s arm, but he shook her off and kept going. The woman fell to the ground and didn’t get up.

  We should help them, she thought, wondering how she could be in the midst of this tragedy and not do something to help the people. Who had she become? So many of them were going to die, but Fawkes depended on her to push aside the guilt. The fact that she and Fawkes were using an act of terrorism to their advantage made her ill.

  With a sharp turn, Fawkes steered into an alley and dismounted, motioning for Charlotte to stay put. With his back up against a wall, he pulled out his dagger and waited until a confused soldier ran past. In a blur, Fawkes jumped on the unsuspecting man from behind and slit his throat in one fluid motion. Fawkes was off the soldier before the body hit the ground, dragging him by the feet back to where Charlotte waited.

  This was the first time she witnessed him kill in cold blood, and she felt the Fawkes she thought she knew slip further away. He cared about nothing else other than Josephine’s life. Everyone else was expendable, including himself.

  Fawkes must have seen the shock on her face, but he chose to ignore it. “Strip the armor and put it on,” he ordered. In a daze at all the blood and violence around her, Charlotte felt like she was in a dream. This is what it takes, she reminded herself. You made a promise.

  If she was going to survive tonight, she needed to channel her own inner Cloaked Shadow and push her humanity away. Holding back her revulsion, her surprisingly steady fingers began unbuckling the heavy chain mail from the sweat-soaked body. By the time she finished, Fawkes had killed a second soldier and was stripping off another set of armor next to her.

  “Get dressed. Hurry,” he urged. The metal clothing weighed a thousand pounds as Charlotte did her best to put it on correctly. If not for her newly-strengthened muscles, the mail sheet alone would have buckled her knees. The helmet was wet inside, and the armor stank with fear from its previous owner.

  Feeling like she was trying to move through water, Charlotte clumsily remounted Ghost. The steed held steady as Fawkes did the same, his cloak tucked up underneath his arm as he took on the guise of a captain in the king’s army.

  Ghost dodged bodies and debris as they made their way toward the castle. Once the trio approached the drawbridge, both riders dismounted. Fawkes whispered into Ghost’s ear, then gave him a slap on the rump. The horse headed in the opposite direction from the fires, and Charlotte hoped he had been told to run far away and stay out of harm’s way.

  The stereotype of military obedience and calm control was nowhere to be found outside the castle. Soldiers screamed orders that were barely heard above the turmoil as they scrambled to get organized against an enemy they couldn’t see, much less fight directly.

  One captain was at the center of it all, standing at the edge of the drawbridge. “Cavalry, stay with me! Infantry, down into the streets! Contain the fire; lead the people to safety at the church. These are King Otan’s people, and we will protect them! We will protect Algonia! The rest of you, circle the castle. No harm will befall the king.” He caught sight of Fawkes and Charlotte approaching. “Oi, you! Get down to the village! That’s an order!”

  Charlotte felt her skin blister before she heard the blast. She was thrown forward onto the bridge as a wave of heat washed over her, and then a boom rendered her temporarily deaf. With ears ringing and soot clouding her eyes, her hands scrambled to find Fawkes. His body lay prone on the ground, almost on top of the knight who had just been shouting at them. She grabbed his shoulder and flipped him over to check his breathing. His chest still moved, and his pulse was strong. If it hadn’t been for their helmets, Charlotte shudde
red to think what would have happened.

  She risked a glance behind her and found the origin of the blast. A wagon filled with hay used to occupy the space where a blazing fire now reigned. It had been placed innocently close to the moat, and then detonated in front of the dispatching army.

  A warning to the residents of the castle of what is to come. The rebels want to send a message, and blowing up the king’s front yard shouts their intentions loud and clear. The wood beneath her began to rumble. They’re raising the drawbridge, she realized, horrified. “Fawkes!” she shouted, though her own ears were still ringing so loudly she couldn’t hear her own words. She took off his helmet and slapped his face. “Get up! We need to move!”

  Pain flickered across his face, and he grabbed his injured shoulder. Charlotte saw the red stain spreading underneath the chain mail. The blast and the fall had torn it open once again. There was no time to assess the damage, though, because they were about to be unceremoniously dumped off the bridge.

  Charlotte caught Fawkes’ cloak just as it came close to sliding into the moat, while using her free hand to haul him to his feet. They limped their way inside the castle as the drawbridge rose behind them. The army’s focus was over the wall and assessing the damage, so two wounded impostor soldiers did nothing to draw their attention. Charlotte moved slowly and purposefully, keeping her helmet on and her eyes down as she helped Fawkes past the throng of soldiers awaiting orders in the courtyard.

  Once she steered them into a shadowed hallway, the two of them slumped against a wall to catch their breath. “Help me get this off,” Fawkes grunted. “I can’t breathe.”

  “But our disguises—”