by Taylor Hobbs
That left Charlotte, alone with mere minutes to come up with a plan to save them. The barren room around them held no answers, and she bit her tongue to keep from letting out a frustrated scream. She paced their small confines, looking for anything that might help. She approached the single window and looked down from their dizzying height. The moat, she realized. It’s right below us.
The tower jutted out just enough over the water below, its depth a mystery. Standing at the window made her knees tremble and her palms sweat, and she couldn’t look down for long.
The clinking echo of armor and steel grew louder, and Charlotte was out of time to doubt herself. Pulling the knife from her boot, she gripped the hilt confidently and smashed the thick blade into the center of the window. The shock of the impact reverberated up her arm, but the glass held.
Cursing, she dropped the knife and shook her arm to get the feeling back. Small cracks spider-webbed out from the origin of the impact on the window, giving Charlotte hope that with enough force, she could shatter the glass altogether. She repositioned for another assault, briefly wishing she held Fawkes’ dagger instead of her knife, but she couldn’t bear to pull the dagger from Josephine’s chest. Plus, Fawkes would kill her for attempting it.
Aiming her second strike at the same place as her first, the glass cracked audibly. After a third strike, the window had no chance. The glass shattered and fell, most of it falling into the moat below, but a good portion landed on Charlotte. Fragments sliced her clothes and any skin that was exposed, making shallow cuts that dripped and stung.
She hardly felt the damage, though, as she strode over to where Fawkes still lay on the ground with Josephine. “Fawkes, we need to leave. Right now. You have to say goodbye to her.” Charlotte wished she could offer more words of sympathy, but it would have to wait until they weren’t in the middle of enemy territory.
He looked right through Charlotte. His face was void of any feeling, like he had completely closed himself off from the outside world. His grief had turned him into a hollow shell as the past repeated itself.
But from that grief, the Cloaked Shadow had been born. Charlotte needed to tap into that, find the part of Fawkes who had created the Cloaked Shadow out of necessity, and access it immediately. No amount of shouting, slapping, or pleading would do it. She needed to reach the primal place inside of him that could still feel something, and nothing was more primal than fear. Fear for someone he cared about, who was still alive.
Fear for her. Which meant she had to force herself to face her own greatest fear and hope that it would be enough for Fawkes to remember what she meant to him. Or had meant to him, at one point. It was a literal leap of faith, one which could bring Fawkes out of his shock but also provided the only means of escaping the tower. But Charlotte couldn’t just push him out; he wouldn’t survive a fall in his catatonic state.
“Fawkes,” she coaxed. “Look at me. You need to follow me.” His once-unfocused gaze sharpened on her as she walked backward to the broken window, as if sensing the danger in her actions. Charlotte backed up until she felt a breeze whip through the gaping hole, sending shivers up her spine. Every nerve in her body screamed at her to run back to safety, to take her chances fighting the army coming up the stairs. Anything was better than inching closer to a deadly drop.
Charlotte turned and braced one foot on the ledge, her vision threatening to tunnel. Her stomach clenched and her entire body trembled violently. She glanced back over her shoulder, but whether it was to see if her plan was working, or silently beg Fawkes to stop her from jumping, she didn’t know. Fawkes had let go of Josephine’s body, but still remained squatted next to it. Charlotte’s danger had produced a subconscious reaction in him, but he still looked lost.
The young woman gulped, tongue heavy and thick as she tried to form the words that might be her last. She meant to tell him to come after her, or that they needed to get out right now. All other words died on her lips as she struggled to reach deep inside of him. “I love you.”
Then she jumped.
Chapter Sixteen
Once her legs propelled her off the ledge, Charlotte didn’t have time to wonder if Fawkes followed. Suspended in the open air, she surrendered herself to fear and let it flood through her. The singular emotion raced through her veins, pushing out all other thought as it filled her. She accepted its presence—there was nothing within her power to do anything otherwise. She embraced it, and it no longer held the power to paralyze her. Her fear could be remolded, repurposed. So she turned it into pure adrenaline, and took ownership of her body again.
Time slowed during the fall as Charlotte took in every detail around her. There was peace in her weightlessness, and the closest she would ever come to flying. Why had she let her fear of heights rule her? She almost wished she could fall forever, to revel in the wind on her skin and the grace of her floating limbs dancing. She had never felt anything like it before. What if her greatest fear had masked her deepest desire—a way to achieve absolute freedom of body and mind?
There was simplicity in having only two options—she would either survive the impact, or she wouldn’t. If she didn’t survive, then she wouldn’t be alive for it to matter. She heard a voice scream, “Charlotte!” above her, and decided that she would much rather live.
She snapped her legs together, tightening every muscle in her body as she hit the water at an angle. Her feet entered first, slicing through the water like the dagger had sliced through Josephine’s heart. The water hardly slowed her down as she rocketed toward the bottom of the moat, bracing herself for the inevitable impact that could break her legs.
Instead, her feet touched nothing, and the water buoyed her back to the surface. With lungs already starting to burn, Charlotte forced her numb legs to kick as she crawled with desperate strokes for the surface. Everything ached, her body too battered and bruised to register the extent of her injuries.
With a gasp, Charlotte filled her lungs with smoky air. The nearby blaze assaulted her senses, which had been in the blissful dark and quiet of the moat just moments before. She was almost pulled under the water again as a dark figure plunged into the moat next to her.
Fawkes. He had jumped for her. He had left death behind and come after Charlotte. His fighter’s heart had found reasons worth staying alive, turning him away from the temptation of joining Josephine in death.
But Fawkes was still badly injured, and Charlotte didn’t intend to save him from certain death in the tower only to watch him drown instead. She took a deep breath and dived back under the surface, groping blindly for his body.
She stretched her arms out as she kicked downward, wondering why he hadn’t started floating to the surface yet. Then she realized, horrified, that he still had his cloak on. If Fawkes had been knocked unconscious upon impact, combined with heavy, waterlogged fabric, there was a very good chance he was at the bottom of the moat.
Panic seized her, and she almost inhaled a lungful of rank water. It was going to be impossible to find him in the cloudy, dark sludge. Charlotte forced her body still, though every part of her mind urged her to move, to act, to do something while Fawkes was drowning.
Her own heartbeat echoed in her ears, and she tried to channel the instinct that Fawkes always told her to listen to. Your body feeds you information constantly, his voice rang in her ears, a memory from a lesson during their journey back to Algonia. You have to empty your thoughts and listen to what it is telling you. Do not try to analyze it, just use it.
Charlotte felt a tingle in her left fingertips. Without questioning it, she lunged that direction and caught a fistful of fabric. Relief quickly turned to fear as she tried to pull him to the surface, and he dragged her down farther.
Almost out of air by this point, Charlotte used a few more precious seconds to locate Fawkes’ neck. With a yank, she released the clasp and the weight fell away from his body. Her mentor’s identity and legacy, stripped and lost forever.
Charlotte grabbed a limp h
and and struggled for the surface. Spots pricked her vision, urging her to give in to unconsciousness. Her kicks grew weaker, and her strokes were ineffective, treading water instead of moving upward. It never occurred to her to cut the dead weight of Fawkes loose. Just as her body started to shut down, the wrist she still gripped twitched. Then she blacked out.
****
Blue. Charlotte was drowning in blue. An attempt at inhalation resulted in a hacking cough, followed by a stream of vomit, before Charlotte realized the blue she was drowning in was Fawkes’ concerned gaze and not the brackish water.
He helped her roll to her side and up onto hands and knees as she threw up the contents of her lungs and stomach again and again. When she finally caught her breath, she collapsed with a moan back onto the ground. Charlotte could hardly believe that the solid ground underneath her was real. After taunting death with her aerial leap and then again under water, she never wanted to leave the earth again.
“Can you sit up?” Fawkes’ voice sounded far away.
“No,” she answered, groaning.
“It is not safe here. We have to move.”
“I can’t.” Charlotte’s body didn’t even feel like her own anymore. She had never been in this much physical pain. Her body rebelled against her for pushing it too far.
A hand reached down to stroke her forehead, and Fawkes’ face appeared above her once more. She fought back tears at the sweet, simple gesture of comfort. I just want to rest. Don’t make me do any more.
But the man staring at her wouldn’t allow her to give into weakness. “My arm,” Fawkes said. “I can support you, but I can’t carry you.” He looked distraught, but Charlotte couldn’t tell if it was a reaction to her own dire condition or the memory of his wife’s suicide. It had to be the suicide.
Charlotte closed her eyes and let out a resigned sigh. “Slowly,” Fawkes ordered. He positioned his hands behind her head and helped ease her up into a seated position. Charlotte realized they were still on the banks of the moat. The town still blazed, heating her when she should have been shivering from her ordeal. The uncontrollable fires shielded the two outlaws from discovery, but their position was still vulnerable. Thankfully, there were no soldiers nearby, as Charlotte debated whether she could even crawl away, much less fight.
Fawkes, careful not to jar her, looped his hands under her armpits and hauled his apprentice to her feet. She swayed unsteadily and braced against him. “I have you,” he assured her. Wrapping his uninjured arm around her, the battered couple staggered across the castle grounds. The movement helped to clear Charlotte’s head, and she grew stronger with each step. By the time they reached the edge of the gardens, they were leaning on each other for mutual support. It was as much an emotional need as a physical one as they both tried not to think about the nightmare they had just witnessed.
The sound of the village grew fainter behind them as they retreated from the castle. Charlotte allowed herself a moment of awe that they were both still alive. But she left the castle a different person than she was when they entered, and Fawkes, she feared, would never be the same again.
Everything had gone so much worse than any scenario they had planned ahead of time. Josephine’s suicide flashed through her mind every time her eyes flickered with exhaustion. She had wanted Fawkes to be happy, that was all. Charlotte accepted her role in causing Fawkes’ pain, knowing that no amount of regret would encourage his forgiveness. He was all hers now, but broken in ways she couldn’t fix.
They pushed onward until Fawkes stopped, looking around for something only he could see. Charlotte tensed, trying to ready herself for a fight, but that action alone sent her head spinning again. Fawkes winced as he moved the fingers on his injured arm to his lips and whistled low and clear.
Ghost burst forth from his hiding place in the trees, galloping toward his master. The horse slowed as it approached them, sensing that the riders were not interested in leaping onto his back. His velvet nose nudged between them and he let out a concerned whinny.
“We will be okay, ol’ boy,” Fawkes murmured, and Charlotte dared to hope that maybe Fawkes was not as far gone as she feared. Turning to Charlotte, he gestured for her to mount first. He helped as well as he could, but Charlotte had a feeling his shoulder injury was worse than he let on.
Once on top of Ghost, Charlotte swallowed the urge to throw up. The rocking motion as Ghost fidgeted did nothing beneficial to her stomach. Fawkes mounted up behind her, stifling a groan of pain. “Away,” he ordered the horse. Ghost took off in the opposite direction of the castle.
“Where are we going?” Charlotte asked.
“Anywhere but here.”
****
Charlotte must have fallen asleep astride Ghost, because when she opened her eyes, nothing looked familiar. “Are we heading for the border?”
“No.”
The arms around her were cold and clammy, accompanied by a blood soaked sleeve. “We need to stop,” Charlotte said. “I have to take a look at your arm. We can’t go much farther like this.”
“I am fine.”
“No, you aren’t. I can tell, and I’m not even looking at you.” The body against her back shivered, proving Charlotte’s point. “I didn’t drag your arse from the bottom of a moat to watch you die slowly from blood poisoning.”
There was no answer behind her for a while, until he whispered, “You should have let me die there with her.”
So that’s it. We are going to have it out, right here. If Fawkes was determined to fight with Charlotte before taking care of himself, so be it. But the sooner they got everything out in the open, the better chance she had of breaking through to Fawkes.
The conversation needed to be face to face, so Charlotte halted Ghost and slid off the horse. The ground rose up to meet her much sooner than she was expecting, and she stumbled. Without a moment’s pause, Fawkes was off his mount and at her side, steadying her.
“I’m so sorry, Fawkes,” Charlotte started. “I never imagined…If I had known…” The right words wouldn’t come, and tears filled her eyes. “Josephine was incredible. Strong. Ferocious. And I could see how much she loved you.”
“I had the power to save her while she was suffering. But I failed to search to the end of the world for her. I gave up on her. And then I didn’t get to her in time,” Fawkes ranted. “Now the woman I loved was torn from me. Not once, but twice.”
“You brought her back to herself in the end,” Charlotte said in a soothing tone. She winced, realizing how her words sounded trite and condescending.
“How could she leave me when we found each other again?” The look in his eyes begged Charlotte for answers she couldn’t give. A glassy sheen of sweat coated his skin, two bright spots burning in his cheeks. Illness already ravaged through Fawkes’ body, and he wasn’t in his right mind to process the events of tonight. “Why couldn’t I stop her?”
“It was her choice, Fawkes. And she decided she couldn’t live the rest of her life haunted by what she had done. She thought it was her way to happiness, her way to redemption. You brought her peace.”
“I brought her death!” he exploded.
“It was what she needed,” Charlotte shot back. “A way to escape, to set the time-line of her existence right. I don’t think she was supposed to survive that fire, and she knew it. The very fact that she still lived, upsetting the natural order of the world, drove her mad. She was forced to use her gift against her will, with no means of escape until you came for her. I think she was truly dead when you mourned her, when you rebuilt yourself from her ashes. The woman you loved disappeared five years ago, and you were never meant to get her back.” At those words, Charlotte sucked in a gasp. She had gone too far, and she knew it.
His eyes widened with hurt, and he whirled around and started walking away. “Fawkes,” she pleaded, “you wanted to live. You made a choice, and you chose to jump.”
“You forced my hand.”
“You wanted to save me. There is a par
t of you that lives for the fight, and I need to you keep fighting that battle inside. Josephine sacrificed herself, to fulfill her own destiny and yours. You did not belong together anymore, and she knew it. You both had different paths to redemption.”
“I am on the path of revenge, not redemption.”
Charlotte chased after him, jumping in front to block his stride. “Were you even listening to her? Josephine didn’t want this for you!”
“We were happy,” he choked out. “And they took her away, locked her up, and used her. The king will pay for what he has done. I cannot rest until then.”
“Josephine begged you to save people, not kill them.”
“But King Otan as good as killed my wife himself. The rebels have their wish. I will no longer stand idly by.”
The word ‘rebel’ suddenly brought to mind Henry’s face, coated in soot as flames danced in his eyes. Charlotte’s baby brother as a part of the hellish attack on the city. While pushing her humanity aside to survive the night, she had refused to put a face to the rebels who had senselessly murdered countless innocent people.
Had Henry actually plotted to commit mass murder? Her instincts told her that Henry wasn’t capable of that. But I ignored the people dying around me to get inside the castle. By focusing only on the mission, I lost sight of myself. Who was this girl who ignored the suffering of children? Had the same thing happened to Henry? Was Charlotte in any place to judge both Fawkes and Henry for their actions? Her own morality walked a knife edge as she made more and more allowances, excuses, and justifications for the men she loved.
Now Fawkes was talking about joining the rebels, a path that led to aiding and encouraging these acts of terror. What he was talking about went beyond seeking revenge for his wife. Charlotte needed to redefine her own boundaries of right and wrong and figure out if she could stand by Fawkes through it all. Deep down, she was scared she was fast approaching a point of no return, or if she had indeed already crossed a line along their journey together.