A Trial of Sparks & Kindling (Fall of the Mantle Book 2)

by Yolandie Horak

  Chapter 9

  Pointy waited in the courtyard beneath Carabelle’s window until well after dark, but again, there was no movement within.

  A week, and nobody had seen her. Nobody knew how she was. Some of the staff even debated if she ate. Malak came into the kitchen, gathered food, and took it to the princess’s suite, but the plate always came back minus only a spoonful or two.

  A constant fluttering in Pointy’s stomach had also caused him to miss his share of meals.

  Rumour suggested Carabelle was sick, but none of the stories agreed upon the ailment. The people gossiped, and he’d only had to start some of the rumours. Yet, none of the rumours involved ethirin.

  One would think in a castle this big, at least someone would know about the plot Jeanita and Varda had overheard: Frank forced a drug on his own sister, kept her prisoner in that room. Yet, all gossip remained in the realm of fiction.

  To make matters stranger, Pointy had asked about the whereabouts of his extended family, and everyone had given him the same answer: they’d all died in service of the old king. All of them.

  The network had been taken over by someone ‘loyal to the crown’, someone ‘chosen by the former director himself’, kept in action until a Du Pont returned to take the reins. And praise the Creator he’d finally come, and why wasn’t he in control of the network already?

  Most likely, he’d say, because the network had been taken over by an old spider who’d meticulously hunted down and killed every Du Pont, then went to a great deal of trouble to convince the remaining agents of her loyalty and chosen status. The people didn’t like hearing that.

  At least Pointy gained support.

  Not even the Dvarans seemed to know what had been happening, which meant Varda hadn’t discussed the matter with her mother. To what end? Did she plan to remain loyal to Frank, despite the truth? If that was the case, Jeanita’s advances meant nothing, and Pointy would have to go directly to Vendla.

  Meanwhile, was Carabelle in that room, high and shaking? Pointy shuddered and tried to shove the image of high and shivering Nathaniel out of his mind. No, it was too soon for her to be the addict Nathaniel had been in the end. She might be mentally addicted by now, but the physical aspect would follow later.

  To break a mental addiction was harder than a physical addiction. The idea of his queen suffering in such a way drove him mad. Everything inside Pointy shrieked. He couldn’t sketch her like he’d sketched Nathaniel. He couldn’t add another artwork of an addict to his gallery.

  Pointy had to get her out of there. Had to.

  But how?

  The guard outside her door changed daily, as did the watchers. Some were no more than children, and they rotated so frequently that he hadn’t yet seen the same face twice. Perhaps his mind played tricks on him, and some of the people he’d had pegged as watchers hadn’t been watchers at all. Either way, he couldn’t get a count on them, and couldn’t get close to her door before the guard worked him out of the hall.

  No matter how Pointy had tried, how he’d cajoled, how he’d bribed and threatened and pleaded, nobody could get him in to see her.

  Despite knowing what Frank planned for him, Pointy had risked the passages twice. He’d been forced out on both occasions, violently the second time. His ribs still hurt where they’d hit him. Jeanita and the apprentices hadn’t been able to enter the passages either, which told him one thing: a passage to Carabelle’s suite had been opened.

  No such way had existed before, when he’d studied the maps of Collinefort. He needed to get in there and map out the new passages, but how, when they kept on pushing him out?

  Pointy studied the stonework up to Carabelle’s window for the umpteenth time. Not an impossible climb, but if he made it up, how would he get her down? Besides, the entire keep would have a front-row seat if he scaled the wall. Nothing clandestine in that.

  No use worrying about it here, in the cold. He popped his knuckles then left.

  Foul, salty scents reeked behind him, and he blended with the shadows.

  Four men carried an enormous crate of fish on top of two poles towards the tent village.

  Faults aside, Frank took care of the Dvaran bears. According to Marcell, supplies such as these came in once every three weeks from fishing villages by the coast.

  The regular outposts and supply channels were beneficial to the resistance but would be a problem once Pointy managed to free Carabelle and leave this godless place. Just one more concern added to his list.

  How were his children? Was Tatienne coping with her younger siblings, or was Madeleine causing trouble? Had Lucien spoken, or had his separation from Pointy caused an even greater delay in speech? Had the new baby been born? Pointy shouldn’t be so concerned with the new one, chances were he’d never see that baby.

  If nothing else, let them all remain safe from rot. But of course, they were. The Du Pont estate would remain untouched, even if the whole family had to move into the underground and wait out the epidemic like moles. His mother would take care of the kids, his brothers would take over the network if his father couldn’t keep working, and Angeline would keep up moral. He couldn’t allow himself to be so distracted, not while danger stalked him from various vantages.

  Light leaked from every window in yellow lines on the cobbles. Small cottages stood in crooked rows in this part of the keep. Many of these buildings were inhabited by the weaponsmiths and armourers of Collinefort, but serving staff also resided here. Some cottages lacked windows, but most of them looked like merry little dwellings for merry little people.

  Nathaniel had been moved to a windowless cottage. Small and square, and nicely out of Frank’s sight.

  The wind howled, and lightning highlighted the bellies of far-off clouds. More rain incoming. Great.

  Behind Pointy, a hushed noise sounded. A foot on the cobbles? The spot between his shoulder blades itched, but he kept up his pace, didn’t look back. A shadowy reflection in a window revealed his stalker a split-second before a body was upon him.

  “Oof.” A fist landed on his side, and flickers of light sparked at the edges of his vision.

  Pointy punched blindly and connected with something soft. A figure sank to the ground, but another took its place before Pointy could recover. Pain flared on his chin and blood welled in his mouth. A split lip?

  The stomach-turning shlick of a knife cutting through flesh filled his ears. Agony hit a moment later. The side of his thigh was on fire, and tongues of flame licked up and down his leg.

  Pointy was unarmed. He hadn’t wanted Frank to be able to accuse him of anything, so had left his weapons belt with Jeanita. Not his smartest move, considering he’d known he’d be attacked, but he was so damn distracted. Kind of his attacker to lend him a blade. This was going to hurt.

  He smacked the second attacker across the cheek, then yanked the blade free from his leg and smashed it into the attacker’s neck. A crunch and another sickening squelch sounded, while blood rained on Pointy, hot and pungent.

  He wiped as much of it as he could from his eyes and blocked just as the first attacker was back on their feet. The attacker punched twice, but Pointy absorbed the blows on his crossed arms. The moons glinted on the attacker’s blade.

  Their daggers clanged in the dark. Pointy punched with his left hand, and the attacker grunted, but came at Pointy again. Their blade shaved off the tip of Pointy’s goatee, and pale slivers of hair glittered as it fell.

  Pointy slammed his knee into the attacker’s groin, then sliced open their throat. Waves of blood washed over his trousers, and was that— Urine. The poor soul—a man, it turned out—had soiled himself upon death.

  With a wheeze, Pointy shifted out of the growing puddle.

  Two bodies on the cobbles. Two slit throats. So much blood. How the hell was he going to clear this up?

  The door across from him opened, and an enormous woman exited a cottage in a waft of wine and garlic. An ugly scar wormed down one of her eyes and ended o
n her chin, and the light from within created a halo around her head and reddish blond hair.

  “You’re Du Pont,” she said in a strange dialect of Mordian.

  “I am,” he said.

  “I saw them attack you.”

  He sniffed. “Thanks for the help.”

  She shrugged. “You’re Du Pont. If you couldn’t take them, you don’t deserve that name.”

  Pointy laughed.

  “I know a place we can leave them. There’s an empty well on the other side of the wall.”

  She helped him dispose of the bodies in said well, then helped him clear the blood with buckets of water from a pump close to her cottage.

  Pointy limped heavily by the time they were done, his muscles spasming in protest.

  “I hear there’s something wrong with the princess,” the woman said.

  “I know there is.”

  “I’m from Monteils, just outside of Arles. Name’s Amelie Sauvageon.”

  Arles was a Du Pont duchy, and the Sauvageon family slaves who’d been granted their freedom by one of Pointy’s ancestors.

  “That’s why you’re helping me,” Pointy said.

  She gave a nod. “Whatever you want, I’m there.”

  “And your king?”

  She frowned and lowered her voice. “Kill me if this is treason, but something’s wrong with him. Why is he treating you this way? Why has nobody seen the princess for days? I know the men who attacked you—Intelligence. Why would they do that? This is your bloody stronghold. What the hell is going on?”

  “That’s the question, isn’t it?”

  “I don’t know much, but I know this isn’t right.”

  “I agree.” Pointy extended a hand. “Thanks for the help.”

  “Anytime.”

  “I might have use for you again. Would you be willing?”

  She nodded. “Whatever you need.”

  He waved and walked away as quietly as he could with his shouting injury.

  ***

  Pointy entered the basement room.

  Nathaniel prepared ingredients for Jeanita, who was hunched over her table.

  “—but just like we use certain weeds,” she said, “hallucinogenic or not, for their pain-dulling properties, ethirin was used to thin blood. Just in small quantities. Aimee used it.”

  Claude’s sister was not a person Pointy wanted Jeanita thinking about. Aimee was Lucien’s mother, and if Jeanita found out about that, she’d murder Pointy. He shut the door a bit harder than was necessary, but neither had the common decency to look up.

  “Thing is, like almost everything, ethirin isn’t all bad,” Jeanita continued. “In this case it is, but you understand what I’m trying to say?”

  Nathaniel’s lips were a tight line. His nod was severe, jerky.

  Pointy wiped the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand then tutted. “So rude.”

  “What do you want, Du Pont?” Jeanita scribbled in her notebook.

  “Sutures, if you wouldn’t mind too much, apothecary.” Creator, how he wore out Jeanita’s codename.

  Nathaniel paled when he met Pointy’s gaze, then jumped up and grabbed a stool. “What the hell happened?”

  “I fell into a rosebush.”

  “Where are you hurt?” Jeanita exchanged the pencil she’d been using for a needle and ointment and came closer. “Whose blood is this? And, Creator, you stink.”

  “My leg,” Pointy said. “And the blood belongs to the agents who attacked me. One pissed when he died, hence the smell.”

  Nathaniel paused then set down the stool next to Pointy. “You killed them?”

  “It was them or me.” Pointy sat with a groan.

  Nathaniel closed his eyes and exhaled.

  What was that about?

  Jeanita pulled Pointy back up. “You have to take off your trousers first, idiot.”

  “You usually ask me nicely.” Pointy loosened his belt and let the trousers slip to the ground.

  She sat him back down then dabbed on alcohol to clean the wound. Pointy winced, that stuff burned about as much as when the dagger went in, but at least covered the strange ammoniac smell of urine.

  Nathaniel worked on the cut on Pointy’s lip.

  Once his injuries were sutured and treated, Pointy stood gingerly. “Just so we’re all on the same page—I was never here. Apothecary, I trust you’ll come up with a suitable tale. You’re about to be flooded with questions.”

  Jeanita patted his cheek. “You know, Du Pont, this isn’t my first time around the schoolyard. I know what to do.”

  “Good,” Pointy said. “Because I’ll be taking a short vacation. As in, I won’t go far, but don’t wait up.”

  “Where will you go?” Nathaniel asked.

  Where indeed? Wasn’t it fun to be the one people relied upon for answers, when he usually had no idea how to proceed? For once, it would be such a relief to be told what to do and where to go, instead of figuring it out as he went along.

  Not that being told what to do was fated for the director of Mordian Intelligence. The woe-is-me attitude he’d developed since leaving Aelland had to go, and fast. If he didn’t focus, he wouldn’t save Carabelle or return to his children. Those had to be his priorities.

  He put on his brightest, most confident smile. “Oh, here and there.”

  Chapter 10

  Cara waited for about a minute after Malak had locked her in for the night, then slipped from her bed and spat out the medicine.

  She donned her gloves and coat, took a deep breath, then pressed down the stone next to the painting and slipped into the darkness beyond. She took the passage to the right. Up.

  After a day of speculating what would be the best course, she’d decided to return to the topmost room, to find out if it was still empty. Then she’d figure out how to open the door and see what was inside. She needed to know how to open and close the entrances to the passages—she couldn’t leave the way to her room ajar every time she left. The risk was too great. To practise on the entrance to her own room would be stupid. What if she locked herself in the passages?

  The information was vital, and she had to practise somewhere. It wouldn’t mean much if she found a passage out of the castle, then got stuck in a dead end because she couldn’t open the door.

  Cara counted the steps as she went. She didn’t have paper or writing tools with which to draw a map. She’d have to memorise the way, which was difficult in her sleep-deprived state, but remained safer than the alternative. What would happen if Malak found her map of the passages? They’d drug her food and probably seal the entrance to the tunnels for good.

  Sometimes, she imagined she heard sounds, so distant only the forgotten echoes ever reached her. How many Intelligence people were in here? Also, was her presence revealed to them in the same manner?

  She lowered her feet toe to heel, toe to heel, slow, quiet, but every move she made—her every breath—sounded like gunfire in the hush of these passages. Don’t think about it.

  Not an easy feat. The more she tried to be silent, the faster she breathed, and the echoes joined and morphed into a creature of whispers that ran along the walls. What if someone heard?

  Calm. She needed calm.

  Cara stopped and struggled with it for a few moments. Her skin tingled, and cold sweat ran down her spine, but she shook out her arms and drew a deep breath. She could be invisible. That was easy, she’d done it millions of times before. She gave a step, then another, and another.

  The air smelled of cold: a crisp, yet sharp aroma that froze in her nostrils. The darkness was oily; so thick her stretched-out hand disappeared. The other hand, trailing on the wall, was only a dim shadow. Did she see it because her eyes had grown so accustomed to the dark, or did she imagine she saw it because she knew she was there?

  No problem. The dark would also hinder anyone else in the passage.

  The draft remained her only companion, sticking its icy fangs into her neck and sucking all warmth from her. She s
hivered. Such an image did little to relieve fear. Still, she kept going.

  Once Cara reached the room at the top, her focus had returned. She pressed her ear to the wall. Silence on the other end. She allowed herself a small smile. She patted around in the pitch black. If this door were like the one in her room, there would be a stone to depress. Cara pushed down as many stones as she could find, but none of them gave way beneath her fingers. Maybe a latch? If there were one to be found, she missed it. What about the roof of the passage? The floor?

  She reached up but was too short to touch her fingertips to the top of the passage. Could she risk jumping to determine how high it was? Better not. A loud sound would travel too far.

  She crouched and searched the ground. One of the stones gave way once she touched it, and her heart quietened. A low click sounded. She’d done it. The door didn’t spring open like the painting in her room. Something had clicked, so the way had to be open, but why had the door remained in place?

  Cara pushed against the door, but it didn’t shift. There was nowhere she could grip to pull it open. Maybe it slid? Her hands placed flat on the surface, she pushed to one side. Nothing. The other? The door moved open, but the way remained dark. She reached out and her gloves stuck to rough, musty-smelling fabric. A tapestry?

  Cara pushed aside the fabric and entered a dark room, almost as cold as the passage. A row of boxes stacked as high as her shoulders barred her way.

  The moons shone in through the single window. Illuna hung just higher than Lusina, a pair of half-open eyes peeking through a layer of fine, misty clouds. The soft light illuminated heaps and heaps of clutter. A storage room, perhaps.

  She turned to study the door. A wooden panel painted to resemble stone had slid out of the way on a groove in the floor. The groove was almost impossible to detect when the wooden panel was in its place, and the stone surface painted on the wood was so well executed that it had dimension and matched perfectly with the surrounding stones.

  A tapestry of some distant king covered the opening, and probably helped conceal the sounds and cold from the passages.

  The twin of the stone Cara had depressed to enter the room sat on the inside of the doorway. If the ways in and out of this room were the same, perhaps the switch in her room also had a twin in the passage. She’d check when she went back.