A line of men standing at attention. All dressed in black tunics, silver buttons up the front. Black boots. Long firearms slanted across their chest.
A tent with the flap raised. I could see men moving around inside, black tunics, black boots.
There, and there, and there, more men in those black tunics. They were all over the place, polishing boots, fiddling with weapons, exercising, talking in groups, relaxing on mats, sitting at fold-out tables and eating, drinking.
Some sort of old world vehicle with enormous rubber wheels and a sleek, iron body. Rows of vehicles, all shapes and sizes. A few of them had long, thick spears sticking up from the front but they weren’t spears, I knew that. I’d never seen these things before, vehicles operated by power cells, weapons that shot bullets and volleyed exploding fireballs, but it wasn’t hard to get a sense of what I was looking at.
I lowered the binoculars and turned to Nathanial.
“They know the shield is there,” he said to me. “But that hasn’t sent them away.”
“They’re waiting?”
He blew out a shallow breath. “It’s as if they know if they wait long enough, it will come down.”
“How?”
He didn’t have the answer. Apparently we didn’t have any answers and we couldn’t get within shouting distance of them without being shot down.
“We don’t have the numbers,” he said. “We don’t have the weapons. We cannot fight them.”
He put his back to a tree and pulled one knee up, looked at me an age before he went on. “When Devon first fled to the mountain and I attacked, my heart was never in it. General Sunderland convinced me I had to make a stand or I’d appear weak, and he was right. But, after that, I was content to leave you and Devon alone and let the shield come down.”
“Then this army arrived on our doorstep,” I sighed. We didn’t have the numbers or weapons to match theirs. We couldn’t fight them. “I have to reset the shield. It’s what my father would have done. You should have brought him here, Nathanial. You should have showed him what you showed me.”
Nathanial chuckled, a dry, weary sound. “I did bring him here.”
“And he refused?”
“To use his words…” He ran a hand around the back of his neck, looked at me through hooded, weighted eyes. “This is on your father’s head, lad, remember that. Sorry, I cannot help.”
“He wouldn’t— He wasn’t petty. He never held a grudge against you.”
“It had nothing to do with me, Rose. This was all about avenging the demons of his past. His need for revenge against my father and to honour your mother’s memory outweighed the life of every man, woman and child in this kingdom. That’s the way I see it. I don’t know how to see it any other way.”
“That just… That isn’t my father.” Was it?
“He also knew something about this army. He said something about ‘The Quadrant.’ Does that mean anything to you?”
I shook my head. “What did he say about them?”
“Nothing, it was just something he muttered when he saw them and when I pressed him, he either didn’t know anymore or he wouldn’t say.”
“I’ve never heard of ‘The Quadrant.’” I looked out over the camp, feeling as close as I’d ever come to complete and utter devastation.
I was my father’s daughter and I’d always been proud of it. But standing here at the end, was this really the sum of who he was? A stubborn old fool? I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t believe it.
And we weren’t at the end.
Not yet.
- 24 -
Nathanial took me to the shield chamber—that’s what he called it—as soon as we returned from our hike. I insisted.
He climbed the marble stairway to our rooms and I followed in a somewhat muted daze, my father’s words drumming inside my skull. This is on your father’s head, lad, remember that.
The army out there knew about the shield, and my father knew something about them. The Quadrant. I’d never heard of it. What could he have meant? The Quadrant. It didn’t sound like the name of a place or people or society. This is on your father’s head, lad, remember that. If there’d been any doubt about that army’s hostile intentions, that chilling admission wiped it clear away. My father knew that army was here to go to war on us. He knew we were in no position to fight them. He knew he’d condemned this kingdom to slaughter when he’d walked away and I wouldn’t be able to sleep or eat, I wouldn’t be able to breathe easily until I’d reset the shield and put right this incomprehensible wrong of his.
Nathanial slipped inside his room to fetch some key, then he led the way to unlock and open a door at the end of the passage.
The room was a tomb. That was my overwhelming first impression. No windows. The air was stale and tickled my nose. When Nathanial flicked the light switch, a yellow bulb cast a weak glow over the shadows. Bookshelves crammed with leather and hardback volumes lined the walls and filled the floor space in long rows with narrow aisles between.
“The royal archives,” Nathanial explained without me having to ask.
My natural curiosity was roused, but it would have to wait. Nathanial reached behind a shelf of books on the wall and moments later a door-like portion of the shelf swung silently outward. I wasn’t taken by complete surprise. The castle was rumoured to have secret tunnels and hideaways that had inspired many of my childhood explorations.
Nathanial took my hand, drawing me toward the opening. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I wasn’t nervous or excited. I was a little numb. I was determined. “Let’s just do this.”
He flicked another switch that lit up a drop of stone-hewn steps that seemed to have no bottom.
The steps were narrow and uneven, no guiding rail, and after a short flight they turned into a spiral that was well-lit with electric light, but took us down and down and down. “How far does this go?”
“A hundred feet below the castle.”
“Then why not put the entrance on the ground floor?” I muttered.
Nathanial laughed and kept spiralling downward until we eventually reached a damp, claustrophobic hollow that was pretty much a man-carved cave. I felt right at home. A single bulb dangled over the squat stone pedestal that supported a rectangular box.
Nathanial nudged his chin at it. “There she is, the shield chamber.”
At first I thought the box was made of steel, but as I got closer the entire container appeared luminous, as if lit from inside. Gingerly, I touched a finger to the smooth surface, expecting it to be warm. It was as cold as any other metal. No seams where it could open.
I looked at Nathanial. “Please tell me you don’t think I know what to do now.”
“I was here the last time Devon reset the shield,” he said, stepping around to face me from across the shield chamber. “I’ll talk you through it.”
He placed his hands on either side of it, pressed, and the top separated, slowly lifting, slowly revealing the shallow glass bed indented with the outline of a handprint. I’d welcomed the absence of nerves and excitement, but now I appreciated the tingle running down my spine. I should be feeling something. I should be feeling everything.
My breath caught on the display of numbers along the inner hinge, electric numbers lit by red light. 00351216. Old world technology. Movement flashed. I blinked, and I could have sworn the number at the end had changed.
“That’s the countdown timer,” Nathanial said, peering inside over the lid. “Thirty-five days, twelve hours and sixteen minutes.”
“Where’s the power cell?”
“Housed in the stone pedestal.”
I glanced down at the stone block. “Does it draw energy from the solar sheets?”
“This device interfaces with the shield,” he said patiently. “Both operate on geothermal energy drawn from deep within the earth and that’s about as far as my expertise extends.”
He looked at me, smiled reassuringly, as if he knew I was stallin
g and the reason why. As if he’d already figured out what had only just occurred to me. What if my handprint didn’t work? My father had never intended for me to open this lock, that was crystal clear. What if he’d never imprinted my DNA?
There’s only one way to find out. The outline of the handprint was too large, but I placed my hand to fit as best as possible.
“You’ll feel a small prick in your middle finger for the blood sample but don’t pull away,” Nathanial said. “Don’t move your hand until the number display turns green. That indicates the lock is open.”
I tensed, prepared myself for a needle jab, but in truth I almost didn’t feel the pinprick. Long seconds went by. I felt Nathanial’s eyes on me, flashed him a quick glance, my entire being focused on those red numbers that… Yes! The red blinked to grassy green.
“You can take your hand away,” Nathanial said.
As soon as I did, the glass bed started to slowly lift, exactly as the lid had done.
“The button isn’t a button,” Nathanial said as we watched the excruciatingly slow process. “It’s another handprint that you’ll press down on and that’s it. The timer will reset and…”
He trailed off as we became aware there was more than a hand-shaped outline in the cavity beneath. A folded note rested on top of a chubby leather-bound book just big enough to cover the handprint I assumed it lay on.
“That’s not supposed to be there,” Nathanial said quietly. “I was here the whole time, I watched Devon relock the chamber and that wasn’t there.”
“I’m sure it’s okay.” I hadn’t been worried, but his tone told me I should be. I picked up the note, unfolded it, and everything inside me stilled as I read.
Dear Rose,
If you’re reading this, it means I have failed you.
You have been coerced into returning to the castle, drawn into the King’s politics, and I’m not here to protect you.
I have failed your mother, myself, but most importantly I have failed you.
Forgive me.
Your loving father.
“What does it say?” Nathanial demanded. “Rose?”
My hands trembled with emotion. I started to hand the note over to him, then changed my mind. “It’s from my father.”
“What does it say?” he asked again.
I shook my head at him as I refolded the note. This was private. My father’s ghost reaching out from beyond the grave. I looked down at the chubby book. Some kind of journal? I flipped it open in the middle and saw it was a journal of sorts, but the pages were yellowed and brittle, too ancient to be my father’s.
I slipped the note inside the book and lifted it to hold against my chest, and that’s when we saw it. The handprint was a mess of smashed glass. Not shards and splinters like normal glass, but dented in the centre where it looked like a hammer had struck, strands of glass torn partially loose and pointing out like a ragged blossom.
Nathanial cursed, a string of raw, guttural curses ripped from his throat.
I stared, and stared. My father had done this. He’d destroyed our only hope.
“The bastard,” Nathanial swore through gritted teeth. “If he weren’t already dead, I’d strangle him with my bare hands.”
I didn’t smile.
There was nothing to smile about.
My father had still condemned us, all of us, but he hadn’t done so knowingly. It felt as if a dark shadow was untethering from my soul. He’d told Nathanial he couldn’t help because he genuinely couldn’t. He’d destroyed the means to do that long before he’d known this army would arrive. He must have returned here after my mother’s death, perhaps just before he’d killed the old King, his heart and mind in shatters from grief and betrayal and trickery.
I clutched the journal to my chest, my gaze seeking out Nathanial. “What do we do now?”
He shoved a hand through his hair, his eyes glinting silver as he looked at me. “We fight and die.”
He looked like a man torn from limb to bone on the inside. Every emotion I’d ever accused him of not possessing showed in his face. Torment. Grief. Fury. Defeat. He was bowed from all the blood that stained his hands, the blood already shed in his name and the river of blood that would soon flow.
“You sound like we’ve already lost this war.” I held his gaze, my heart softening, my spine stiffening with the resilience my father had trained into me. “That is not the man I know.”
And I did know Nathanial. I’d always known him. He didn’t have ice water flowing in his veins. All the things he’d had to do ate away at him. All the decisions he’d made were tough choices he carried with him. I couldn’t forgive him, I wished I could, but I did know him. And I knew the lengths both him and I would go to, to save this kingdom.
We stood there, looking into each other’s eyes, acknowledging the strengths and faults in each other, understanding who we were.
We would fight, and some of us would die, but some of us would live.
From the Author
Thank you, Dear Reader, for coming along for the ride.
This is the first book in my Kings and Traitors series and I hope you enjoyed it and are eagerly awaiting the next instalment, The King’s Hand.
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The Traitor's Daughter Page 23