by Taylor Hobbs
How on earth did the rebel leader expect to smuggle powder-filled kegs into a guarded castle? Did he have someone on the inside, a member of the duke’s staff to help him? It would be a logistical nightmare.
Or maybe, the voice of reason whispered, Robin intends to blow up the village again, just like last time. There are no kegs in the castle. Charlotte needed to talk to Fawkes before explaining her theory to Henry, which would be about as effective as banging her head against a wall.
“If you aren’t going to help stop this, Henry, will you do one thing for me, as I am your sister?”
“What is it?”
She noticed he didn’t agree right away. Promises between family were no longer unconditional. “Don’t tell Robin that Fawkes and I are here.”
Her brother furrowed his brow, considering his own terms. “I won’t tell him if you don’t try to stop us.”
“We won’t go to the castle,” she lied, “but we will be in the village. I don’t trust Robin with our people.”
Her false promise assuaged him, and even appeared to alleviate some of his guilt at participating in another attack. Her obvious distrust of Robin finally brought out some of Henry’s insecurities about the rebel leader. “You really think he would do that?”
She nodded. “Don’t tell Robin we are here, and we will make sure he doesn’t attack the village. When they come for you, we will follow you to where the rebels are.”
“But don’t interfere with the attack on the castle,” he warned.
Lying through her teeth, Charlotte said, “Of course.”
“Then I won’t tell them you’re here. I want to do right by our family, Charlotte. This is for us. Being back here, knowing what we’ve lost because of the duke, it makes me so angry. Do you understand?”
“More than you know,” Charlotte answered. Henry seemed determined to finish what he had started with the duke back in Croantis, and beating Belaq within an inch of his life still wasn’t enough retaliation for killing their mother. At least some of Henry’s conscience remains, she thought. He wants to protect the lives of innocent people. But his desire for the duke’s death overshadows the voice within him warning against blind trust in Robin. Henry’s willingness to forgive the rebel leader for Numencaster proved his naïve desire for vengeance without collateral.
Now, Charlotte needed Henry’s naïveté to work in her favor to get herself and Fawkes in a position to defeat Robin. “We will be right behind you tomorrow,” she promised. “Just don’t look back. Don’t tell them anything. Wait on the edge of the forest until they come for you.”
“Robin wouldn’t lie to me,” Henry mumbled, as Charlotte turned around to head back to Fawkes.
“Goodbye, Henry.”
****
When dawn broke, both Fawkes and Charlotte waited, hidden, for the rebels to come and retrieve Henry. Ghost remained back at their campsite, as they decided on stealth on foot versus speed through the village. They watched as Henry paced nervously, just outside the tree line. For the thousandth time in her life, Charlotte prayed for her brother to keep his mouth shut.
Robin himself did not journey to the forest, which did not surprise Charlotte. Instead, two other rebels that she vaguely recognized exchanged quick words with Henry. After a conversation that was too low for her to overhear, they flanked Henry and headed for the village.
“Wait a while longer,” Fawkes cautioned. “Their trail will be easy enough to follow. We can’t risk being seen, or they might start the attack early.” Fawkes had agreed with her plan when Charlotte burst into the campsite the night before, so frantic to share crucial information that he thought they were being attacked. After whirling around and finding no threat, he calmed down enough to hear the details of their first real lead. However, he had voiced his doubts about trusting Henry, and Charlotte was sadly inclined to agree with him.
Charlotte’s first instinct was to tie Henry up in the forest and prevent him from being involved at all, but she couldn’t make her brother’s choices for him. He was entitled to a certain amount of sovereignty, even though she just wanted to protect him from the world. It wouldn’t be fair to Henry, and it certainly wouldn’t be right for Charlotte to take on that role. Just as she forged her own path in life, so must he. These past few months had hardened her brother, changed him in ways Charlotte would have never imagined. She chastised herself for always underestimating him. She just hoped he wouldn’t let her down this time.
So with a hood pulled down low over her face and Fawkes at her side, Charlotte made her way to the village. There was a role reversal this time, with Charlotte remaining disguised while Fawkes was brazenly uncovered. No one would spare him a second glance, other than innocently assuming he was a traveling stranger. The benefits of a secret identity, Charlotte thought, as she gripped the brown fabric.
Charlotte’s heart ached at the familiar sights and sounds of her village stirring and preparing for the day. It was like stepping back in time to observe a younger version of herself. The idea that all she had known as a child was going to be blown sky high, possibly in mere hours, made her panic.
Fawkes, sensing her discomfort, gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “It looks different from the last time I was here,” he said.
“I was thinking the opposite. It feels the same; it is me who feels different.”
“When I was here last, it was just another contract. Just another mission standing between me and payment. But now I see it as the place you grew up, the place that gave me you. Lands that are owned by such an evil man somehow produced the person I have been yearning for without knowing it. It brought us together.”
Charlotte sighed. “Growing up, I never thought I’d leave here. Once I left, I never thought I’d be able to return. I never thought I would want to come back, especially after my mother.” Conflicting emotions rolled inside her, and she felt pulled in countless different directions. Ghosts of her past, memories, alternative futures…everything surrounded her, the what-ifs threatening to drown her.
“You are no longer that person, Charlotte,” he told her, as they crept through the quiet streets. “You fought long and hard to be the person you are today. Nothing can take that away from you.”
She couldn’t respond as her heart rate quickened, realizing the familiar route they walked. Through the twists and turns of the rebels’ trail, they had ended up in the last place Charlotte would have expected Robin to hide out. Henry couldn’t have led them here, could he? Fawkes and Charlotte had turned onto the street that her old house still stood, and watched as Henry ducked in through the doorway of their childhood home.
All at once, Charlotte felt grossly violated. She heard Fawkes’ intake of breath next to her, as though he too couldn’t believe what he was seeing. These murdering intruders were no better than the soldiers who had dragged her mother from that very home. But just as the streets were washed clean of her mother’s blood, there was no hint on the outside of Charlotte’s simple wooden home tying it to anything sinister within.
Her brother must have offered up their dwelling as a meeting place for the rebels. He knew, and he didn’t tell me. Charlotte saw red as she struggled to keep from bursting inside and dragging Henry out by his ears. She wondered what other crucial information he had kept from her for fear of how she would react.
“They are gathering,” Fawkes whispered, eyeing the house from their hiding place. “It is happening soon, possibly tonight.”
Over the next hour, Charlotte watched from her vantage point as a dozen other men slipped from the alleyways and into her childhood home. How they all fit inside, she had no idea, but there had to be a good reason to convene in such an uncomfortable space.
She saw the occasional soldier patrolling the streets, but Duke Belaq had not increased his security like she assumed he would. After such a brutal attack on the king’s town, and Belaq’s bad blood with the rebels, he has to know that he could be next. Even the village residents seemed uneasy, as though they
felt it in the air that something was wrong. Citizens spoke with muted tones, shuffling outside only to throw glances over their shoulders and return home again.
Where is the duke’s army?
Charlotte shivered, muscles aching from remaining in one position for so long. “Do we approach?” she asked.
Fawkes also sensed that something wasn’t right, but he was waiting for the last piece for it all to come together and make sense. “They are all inside,” he murmured, thinking out loud. “That means everything is already in place. Why risk a meeting? Unless something has gone wrong. This is not a replicate attack. The duke has not increased his forces.” They reached the same conclusion together. The duke is waiting for the rebels to make the first move, for them to show their hand before he shows his.
“There’s Robin,” Charlotte pointed out. “And Henry.” Her little brother trailed after the redhead leader, looking distraught. The rest of the men poured out of the house and scattered quickly, running in all directions to different parts of the village. “They’re going to do it now?” she asked, confused. Attacking the village in broad daylight was risky.
“Something has them spooked,” Fawkes said, eyes never leaving Robin as the rebel pushed Henry into the same alley Charlotte’s mother had been dumped in. Robin appeared to be fed up with Henry’s blubbering, and laid a slap onto his face. Shocked, Henry immediately stopped crying. Charlotte watched as Robin laid an encouraging hand on Henry’s shoulder, speaking earnestly to the impressionable young man. Henry’s shoulders slumped as he bowed his head, scuffing the dirt with his feet. The boy nodded as Robin spoke, before meekly following him out of the alley and down the main street.
“That’s not the way to the castle,” Charlotte said. “There are definitely no bombs in the castle, are there? Robin lied to Henry.”
“Yes,” Fawkes agreed. “Robin does not have the ability to get into a castle as heavily guarded as the duke’s. I believe the only powder kegs are placed throughout the village. Robin intends to attack the people again.”
“We have to stop it!”
“Robin will die before he gives up the locations of the bombs. Henry knows nothing. We have to go after the other men and see if they will lead us to all the other storage places.”
“I can’t just let my brother go along with this madman.”
“I know. That is why you will follow Robin and Henry to their location, and I will track down the others. One of them will talk. I will move as fast as I can to disable the kegs. Do you know how to render cannon powder useless?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“Get it wet,” he instructed. “Do not let anyone with oil or flame get near it.” He pulled her to his chest in a rough embrace. “Be cautious,” he said. “I have a feeling stopping the attack is not our only objective today.”
“I love you, Fawkes. Be safe.”
He raised one eyebrow and favored her with a grin, looking almost giddy in the face of such dangerous odds. Charlotte knew that feeling now herself, the rush of adrenaline before combat. “The Cloaked Shadow has been preparing his whole life for this moment,” Fawkes said. Then he kissed her hard and left.
Chapter Twenty
While tailing Robin, Charlotte almost lost him a few times before catching a glimpse of his shocking red hair. His sneaky movements evolved into bold strides through the village streets, as though the time for caution had passed. He grew more reckless with each step. His frenzied movements told of a man unconcerned for his own life. His first plan had gone off without a hitch right in the king’s front yard, and he had walked away unscathed. Charlotte wished she knew what it was to feel that invincible.
A yet unknown factor had spooked Robin into moving up the time line, but the air of confidence surrounding him suggested that minor inconveniences could be overlooked. One of those inconveniences came in the form of a very reluctant young man trailing behind him, trying to keep up.
Henry hadn’t tried to reason with Robin, as far as Charlotte could tell, since the slap laid on him in the alley. He stayed on Robin’s heels, but his head remained on a swivel, as if trying to find anyone who could help him stop it. He’s looking for me to save him. Again.
She followed the pair until they ducked into the blacksmith’s shop on Market Street. A horrible thought struck her. A bomb in there would cause the most damage to the village. The rebels had a limited supply of cannon powder. The smithy was the perfect central location and provided the most volatile environment. Fawkes would hopefully stop the other bombs from going off, but she knew that they would only be the smaller, less devastating ones.
Charlotte crept up to the shop. Peeking in through the window, she saw Henry lunge for a hammer while Robin busied himself lighting one of the forges. Her brother was about to do something stupid and get himself killed. There was no time to lose and no time to formulate anything more than a basic plan as she vaulted through the window.
Somersaulting on the ground, she was on her feet in an instant, standing between her brother and the power-hungry rebel leader. Robin spun around in surprise to face a furious Charlotte alongside a hammer-wielding, former rebel. “Traitor!” he spat at Henry, ignoring Charlotte’s presence.
“I’m the one you should be worried about, Robin,” she told him calmly, redirecting his attention.
“What, you think you’re going to stop this? Nobody stands a chance against me. I am on the side of the righteous. The will of the people is with me.”
“The same people you’re going to blow up?” Charlotte had been waiting for this confrontation since the rebel attack at Numencaster. She desperately needed to understand how Robin justified an attack on his own countrymen. He was a coward, willing to blow up the guiltless and hide in the shadows, running away before he could be fought face-to-face.
“They need to know that their king is weak! He cannot protect them, therefore he cannot lead them. The nation will crumble without strong men, like our revolutionary men.”
“And you believe you deserve this power? After everything you have done?”
He shrugged. “A small sacrifice for the greater good of the country.”
“Well, how about I sacrifice you for the greater good of the country?” Charlotte took a step closer to his grinning face, the whites of his eyes revealing his madness. Charlotte was astounded at his logic. He thinks he is saving his homeland by murdering it.
His sudden cackle made her jump. “Oh, I would like to see you try. I knew you would be trouble; I knew you were hiding something. If only I knew you had such a close relationship with the Cloaked Shadow, or should I say, Fawkes, I could have put you to much better use. There’s nothing like a little external motivation to get employees to do what you want.”
“Don’t you dare threaten my sister!” Charlotte felt Henry move behind her, and her arm shot out to catch his, keeping him in place.
“Henry,” Robin sighed. “What happened to you? You were my most promising young revolutionary. You have more reason than anyone to punish the duke. He doesn’t deserve his life of privilege and power, Henry. He is not a protector of his people. I can make you the new duke. But we have to do it my way.”
“By setting off powder kegs all around the village?” Henry’s voice shook with rage and hurt, finally glimpsing the truth under Robin’s charismatic visage. The man he had looked up to and trusted had betrayed him with his lies, and was now threatening his only surviving family.
Robin looked at Henry with pity. “You haven’t figured it out by now? I had hoped the one I picked for my protégé would have had a sharper mind.”
Charlotte looked back and forth between them in confusion. She needed the complete story before she launched her attack. What had she missed?
“This is the only bomb, Henry,” Robin continued, eyes glittering. “The others were just decoys. It should keep Belaq distracted for long enough. He wants the powder. His men have been searching for it all over the village. He thinks we don’t know, that he was
so clever to dress them in plain clothes. He doesn’t realize that we have been trained to spot a military man through any disguise. They will be sorely disappointed to find kegs of dirt to haul back to their psychotic master.”
Charlotte felt like her throat was being squeezed. “So why hasn’t he killed you yet?” she asked.
“If he did, he would never be able to find the largest stash of the most powerful weapon in the kingdom. It has taken years to collect, smuggle, and bribe our way to build this great symbol of our revolution. No, he would rather risk the attack in order to get his hands on my cannon powder. And while he is looking in all the wrong places, I am about to show him that power we wield is greater than his.”
That means Fawkes is looking in all the wrong places, too. It also left Charlotte, alone, to face a crazed revolutionary and a violent duke who would probably show up any minute. Charlotte needed to find the powder and disable it before either Robin or the duke could get to it. Otherwise, this battle of wills between Belaq and Robin was going to have an explosive ending.
The whole thing made her head spin. Belaq knew about the impending attack. Robin knew that the duke knew, and yet everything had been allowed to get this far. The fate of an entire village was the stake in their game. Everything was coming to a head, and the smallest spark would ignite what had been building for years. This was beyond a political statement, and it would only get more personal when Fawkes showed up. Charlotte was positive Fawkes would find them, once he figured out that there was no real cannon powder in the first location.
“You are going to tell me where the powder is hidden in here, Robin,” Charlotte said, voice low and menacing.
“I think the time for conversation is over,” Robin said, slowly walking backward. “Clever girl, to keep me talking. Make me waste precious time. If only your brother was half as clever as you.”
Charlotte needed to get Robin out of the smithy and away from wherever the powder was hidden. One wrong move and they could all go up. He would not go down without a fight, though, and Charlotte couldn’t risk accidentally setting off the explosion.