Fight for the Crown

by Emilie MacCauley

  “Too late,” Lola finishes up glamouring herself after Melani. She looks completely drained. There is no way she will be able to perform a different glamour on her. “We need to be quick. If we get split up the mission is still to find Shadow, but to also get out of there before the glamour wears off and we’re discovered as Dakra infiltrators.”

  Her palms start to sweat as they inch closer to the castle gates where guards stand valiantly with their hands on their swords ready for any type of trouble. Their straight faces quickly turn to shock as Rowan steps into view with both Melani and Lola at her sides.

  One of the guards steps forward with his hand crossed over his armored chest. “Princess Rowan! Someone alert the King!”

  “No need to alert my father,” Rowan holds her palm to halt them. “I will go see him myself.”

  “We shall escort you to—”

  “I don’t need to be escorted. I have my chambermaids with me and they will escort me to my father. He will not like it if half of you leave the castle gates. What if there is an attack? It will be all your fault because you had to escort me to my father. I am capable. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” With her chin raised like royalty she pushes passed the guard as the others open the gate for her.

  Walking through the castle brings back many memories for Rowan. The place feels foreign and causes the hair on her arms to stick up. There’s something strange about Rowan being back, an uneasy feeling. The inside is fashioned with white marble and blue banners hanging that bear King Syro’s crest. The floors are so polished that the three of them can see their reflections.

  Along the main foyer are dozens of guards with their backs to the wall, heads straight, and intense focus as they await orders or an invasion. They don’t blink as they walk past them up the main stairs to join their journey through the maze of corridors it takes to reach the dungeon.

  Lola and Melani follow behind Rowan as she leads the way. The clicking noise of their shoes on the marble flooring echoes off the high ceiling. Rowan has only been down near the dungeons once or twice, she has a general idea of where the dungeon is located, but the castle is a maze and other than that she doesn’t technically know how to get there.

  She thought being inside the castle would spark her memory, but nothing feels familiar. In fact, all the corridors look the same. Rowan’s seventeen years in the castle consisted of the same few routes, her bedroom to the dining hall, her bedroom to the foyer, her bedroom to the ballroom, and the ballroom to the backyard. The palace has hundreds of corridors leading to hundreds of unoccupied rooms—or if they are occupied she has no idea what they are used for.

  What she distinctly remembers is that in one of the corridors there are black double doors that lead down into the dungeon. The entrance into the dungeon is usually guarded and if they do get past the one guard, there are even more guards down there watching over the prisoners.

  “I heard you were back,” a voice rings from behind them. Rowan turns to see it is one of her brothers, Morris.

  “Yes,” she clears her throat thinking of ways to get him to leave them alone.

  “Where are you going?” He crosses his arms. “You’re never in this part of the castle. Dad is in the throne room.”

  “Actually, we were looking for you,” Lola says, surprising both Rowan and Morris. She strides toward him swaying her hips. “She mentioned you were handsome, but I didn’t know you were this handsome.”

  Morris looks shocked but his eyes are too busy being fixated on Lola and her glamoured Shevka beauty. Rowan wants to intervene, her brothers can be violent but she knows Lola can handle herself. Lola gives her a quick nod that tells them to keep going.

  Then there were two.

  Rowan grabs Melani’s hand and they rush quickly through corridor after corridor unlike she fears that they have been walking in circles. Everything looks familiar, but every corridor looks the same. Except that black guarded door. Think. Rowan tries to remember anything about the time her brothers stole her from her room and brought her down to the dungeon to scare her.

  “Do you think Lola is okay?” Melani bites her bottom lip nervously.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Rowan says not so certainly. “Lola is strong and I bet she used a sleeping spell on him,” she hopes. Lola looked pretty drained after she used the three glamour spells earlier.

  “Do you think my brother is okay?” Melani whispers.

  “Let’s hope so,” Rowan pats her back.

  “You don’t know where we’re going...do you?” She sighs as they turn into another corridor.

  “I thought I did. I thought it would be easier than this. I guess I never realized how much of this castle I don’t know,” Rowan rubs at her forehead frustratedly. “Wait,” she turns to stare at the painting on the wall. It’s of a male with long brown hair sitting in a chair and looking straight ahead. His piercing green eyes follow you wherever you move. She remembers this painting. She remembers looking at it while she was hurled over one of her brother’s shoulders.

  “Follow me!” She exclaims as it all comes back to her.

  Two lefts and a right later, the corridor just around the corner has the door leading down into the dungeon. A palace guard standing at attention right in front of it. Rowan holds Melani back from turning the corner so they can come up with a plan.

  “Well you’re a princess, can’t you just tell him to leave?”

  “Even if he lets me through, he’ll still have to notify the king.”

  “Won’t we have Mikah broken out by then? In and out, right?”

  “I don’t know if it’ll be that easy,” Rowan admits.

  “We have to at least try!” Her voice raises and Rowan shushes her.

  “And we will, but we have to be smart about this. We can’t just rush into this.”

  While Rowan is distracted with coming up with a plan, Melani decides to take control of the situation. She walks up to the guard who is a foot taller than her. She looks nervous as she starts to wring her fingers and rock on her heels. The guard merely raises an eyebrow not seeing her as any kind of threat.

  “I just saw a Dakra in the corridor over there,” she points down the hallway. He was asking me questions like where the king is, he had a knife.”

  The guard widens his eyes but doesn’t seem to move.

  “What are you doing standing here?! The king is in danger!” Melani screeches. That causes the guard to run toward the false danger. “And that’s how it’s done,” Melani smirks to Rowan.

  Was it really that easy? She doesn’t want to stick around to find out. In and out.

  They open the dark doors descending straight into darkness. Rowan snaps her fingers to light a flame on her fingertip. Melani clutches her arm, trepidation fills her expression as they carefully make their way down each step. The stone on the steps are gray and crumbling, cobwebs and dust make the air hard to breath and the smell is unbearable reeking of bodily fluids, dirt, and mold.

  When they are close to the bottom she realizes that there are no guards. Not bothering to ponder on their incredible luck, she drags Melani down the rest of the stairs in a hurry. She grabs the key hanging on a hoop at the end of the stairs as they start their search for Shadow.

  A few prisoners in their cells are murmuring to themselves as though they’ve lost their minds. Most have long gray hair which tells Rowan they’ve been down here a while. They walk deeper into the corridor, the faint sound of dripping getting louder. She lights her flame brighter as darkness completely surrounds them.

  “Mikah!” Melani screams clutching onto the bars of one of the cells. The male doesn’t move.

  Rowan brings her fire closer to see if it truly is Shadow. She gasps when she sees his strong jawline is rounded looking swollen. His eyes are puffy and he’s unable to open them. His face is bloody and bruised and Melani cries out unable to look at her brother like this. Rowan opens the cell door and crouches in front of him.

  “Shadow,” she whispers sweetly desp
ite him not being able to hear or read his lips.

  She touches his cheek lightly rubbing her thumb across the skin. He puts his hands on top of hers and she swears he starts to tear up.

  “Am I dreaming?” He asks.

  She leans in and presses a soft kiss against his cut lip.

  “Roe?” His voice cracks. “Rowan is that you?” The hope in his tone makes her heart break.

  Had he been hoping she would come? Had he hoped that she would see through all the deception and know that he has always been who she thought he was?

  Kind. Selfless. Brave. Noble. Caring.

  “It’s me,” she replies anyways. Her breath kissing the shell of his ear.

  He breathes in deeply inhaling her scent. His hands roam through her hair and down her body as if he’s trying to read her. He lets out a strangled sob, “It is you. I didn’t mean to do it,” he shakes his head. “My father, he made me. I never meant to. I never meant to,” he repeats hysterically.

  She places her hand over his heart. I know.

  “I never meant to hurt you…” he puts his forehead against hers.

  Melani walks over and sits at her brothers side. She places her hand on his shoulder. He turns his face in her direction, his hand feeling her face and through her hair. “I would know this hair anywhere. Melani.”

  She kisses his hand.

  “Can we get him out?” She grabs the chains looking for a keyhole.

  “You could, but you would never make it out of the castle,” Arlo is standing in the threshold of Shadow’s cell.

  Rowan’s hands fist his shirt tighter. She doesn’t want to leave him. She refuses to leave without him. Shadow senses something is happening as his grip gets tighter on her shoulders. “Save yourselves,” he whispers.

  Arlo grabs Rowan pulling her out of the cell and locking Melani and Shadow in together. Before she can react to anything that’s happening, Arlo places two metal cuffs around her wrists identical to the collar on her throat.

  “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you like this, sister,” he says the word mockingly.

  She wills her fire to burn Arlo and allow her time to break Shadow and Melani out and escape—but nothing happens. She tries again only for her to fail.

  Arlo laughs. “They’re magical cuffs. Any magic you try, goes straight to the cuffs snuffing out every ounce of fire you try and throw at me.”

  Her magic is seemingly gone. She’s powerless once again.

  “I’ve been waiting a long time for this moment and I’m so glad you’re going to be here to see this.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Shadow may be deaf and he may be blind at the moment, but he knows in his heart that was Roe in his cell. He could smell her vanilla scent, feel her silky straight hair, and taste her on his lips. She came for him. He doesn’t know why or how she found out, but she wasn’t there out of malice, she was there out of love. She was there because she believed that the male he was manipulated into being, wasn’t really him.

  Now she’s gone. The atmosphere had changed around them and he felt her hands tighten not out of longing but out of fear. He didn’t want her to go, he doesn’t know why she had to go, but she left. Hopefully to save herself.

  A hand on his shoulder tells him his sister is still beside him. He checks the cell to see the door is shut and locked. He has the worst feeling that something bad has happened to Roe. Melani holds him tight probably scared herself. He feels her hands on his face until their foreheads and pressed together. She plants a vision in his mind, a memory that took place just moments prior.

  He can see everything clearly, Roe on her knees in front of him. He looks horrible and she looks sad to see him so. She strokes his face and kisses his lips. They embrace each other like lovers do. Prince Arlo shows up stealing her away. He wants to shout at him to stop, he wants to be the one who stops him. He is fuming as he watches the prince put cuffs on her wrist. She looks frightened and he hates that he can’t help. He hates how powerless he feels locked in his cell.

  He is thrust out of the vision and he feels Melani slumps beside him weak from using too much of her energy. He strokes her hair and starts talking to her. He can sense that she is scared and nervous. Despite being those things himself, he tries his best to make her know everything will be okay. He has always been there for her trying to cheer her up and build her confidence. He always tried to make her smile with gifts, dresses, books, anything she ever wanted. She loved talking to him and he loved talking to her. So, he talks to her because even if he can’t hear or watch her respond back, he knows that his voice will soothe and calm her.

  Something brushes against his chin, he touches it thinking he’s imagined something. He can still feel his sisters arms wrapped around him. He feels the brush again thinking it’s a bug until he reaches out and someone grips his hands yanking him toward the bars. Someone holds him there while another set of hands touch his swollen eyes. He winces in pain until he feels the pain slowly disappear until, he blinks and finally he can see. It’s dark except for a single lantern lit and held by Lola. He can see through her glamour. The spell weak and starting to fade. He smiles, it’s never been so good to see her face.

  The male who healed his eyes is Shevka, but not any Shevka, it’s one of the princes. Shadow can tell because all seven of them have the same pompous and imperious stature. Also, he’s wearing a silver crown.

  “We came to break you out,” her eyes dart over to Melani who is resting against the cell wall. “Where is Roe?”

  “Prince Arlo took her,” he frowns. “What are you doing with him?”

  “This is Prince Morris. He’s here to help us,” she smiles and discreetly grabs his arm which doesn’t go unnoticed by Shadow.

  “And how do you know we can trust him?”

  “Do you trust me?”

  “Well yeah but—”

  “Then trust me that we can trust him,” she smiles.

  On the very short list of people he trusts, she is definitely at the top. So, despite his distrust for the royal family, he trusts that Lola knows what she’s doing.

  He gives her the benefit of the doubt. Lola is one of the strongest females he has ever met. She is strong-willed and has a mind of her own. She quick-witted when it comes to solving problems so if anyone was going to get them out of this mess, it’s Lola. He’s always admired her persistence, along with her independence and power. He’s glad she’s on his side, she’s definitely not an enemy you’d want to make and after the whole Lottie situation, he feared making an enemy of all of them.

  “Great,” Lola claps her hands together. “Now to come up with a plan.”

  “You don’t have a plan?”

  “Well I was hoping Roe was here and I was also hoping there would be some kind of key down here. My powers are shot, I have no energy to cast a spell on the lock.”

  “Is there anything you can do? These cuffs inhibit my shadows.”

  “I’m not sure,” she frowns. “Shadow, there’s something we have to know. The truth about what happened to Lottie.”

  “I killed her,” admitting it is like a punch to his stomach.

  “But you didn’t mean to,” she continues.

  He nods his head. “I never meant to hurt anyone.”

  “There was always a part of her that believed you were good. It’s like she was fighting with herself while Blade and Knot put lies in her head. She was heartbroken and I don’t ever want to see her like that again, understand?” She warns him like a mother would.

  He smiles at her promising that if he ever gets out of here and becomes free from his collar, he will make her the happiest female in the realm.

  “I haven’t been exactly truthful with my intention,” he admits to her. “There are things regarding you that you don’t even know and I feel it’s my obligation to make things right. Your lover and your baby they are alive.”

  She looks as though he slapped her across the face. “They’re dead,
Shadow a-and how do you know this? I never told anyone except…Roe! Roe told you!?”

  “No!” He shakes his head. “They are alive. He has been at Cirvka all this time. I’m not sure where your baby ended up, but it’s alive. You’ve been lied to.”

  Just as Lola is about to speak a dark wave washes over her. She’s gasps as Prince Morris unsheathes his dagger to try and fight off the force.

  Shadow tugs at his restraints. There’s got to be something he can do.

  * * *

  Prince Arlo knew he would find Rowan in the dungeon. A guard alerted him that the princess was back. At first he wondered how his sister could be so stupid as to return to the castle after he tried to kill her. Then, it hit him, she came back for Shadow. Which means, she knows Knot, Blade, and The Overseer lied. Which means, their plan is now in motion.

  It was months ago when The Overseer sought Arlo out to tell him the truth about his sister. That his sister is not his sister. That his sister is Dakra—but not just any Dakra. His sister is the Lost Heir of King Bren. He’s heard stories that were supposed to be just folklore. Queen Etna was pregnant when Syro attacked the castle and that she had escaped and later gave birth to an heir prophesied to one day take their revenge on his father. The Overseer made a deal with Arlo that he could not resist. A deal that ensures him the throne and ensures it sooner like he’d always hope.

  “What do you want with me, Arlo?” Rowan says with gritted teeth.

  “I think you know what I want with you,” he spits. “I told you that night you thought I was trying to kill you. It seems out of all our siblings, you are the biggest threat.” Rowan doesn’t respond, waiting for him to continue. “Because out of all my siblings, we both seem to have claim to the throne.”

  “Only I’m the rightful heir. You’re just the son of the male who took it,” she barks.

  He snarls, curling his lip and clenching his fists as she gets under his skin. This isn’t the sister he remembers. The sister he remembers was a coward, meek, and unable to stand up or defend herself. It looks like she finally grew some confidence for herself, or should he say she finally got some fire in her.