by L. J. Stock
“Anything with a south facing window has been altered very little. We used the cameras to see from their vantage points, so there are shelves still full of books, and furniture still in view, but only what was there before,” Alec said, nodding his head.
As interesting as that was, there was still something they weren't saying. Whether they were keeping silent for our safety or not was irrelevant. We needed to know. There was always a chance things wouldn't quite work out the way we'd planned them. There was also a chance that the latros and veneficus would know to expect the unexpected. All of this was too circular to count the variables, yet they were still leading us into the situation partially blind. I respected every one of these men, and I trusted them with my life, but I wasn't sure I agreed with them leading us into this without all the information at hand.
I looked between my father and our guards, my eyes meeting with Damon's as I tried to decide whether or not he knew what they were keeping a lid on. His hazel eyes met mine for only a second and I knew that he was aware of this extra situation. I could also see that he felt guilty for keeping these unspoken plans from me. It didn’t stop my annoyance from tugging at the hems of my mind, though.
“What aren't you saying?” I asked, brushing my hair back and looking each of them in the eye. The leaders were obvious. They were grouped together as the others hung back and stood at ease, looking just as uncomfortable about the secrets they’d been sworn to keep. I couldn't help the sting of betrayal as it snaked through me.
“Princess...” Alec was the one to address me—my father’s trusted guard and leader of the Regius Custos. Annoyance flashed through me and I felt the sharp edge of my anger flare as he tried to appease me.
“Don't you dare princess me!” I seethed. “We need to know what's going on. If something changes, we need to understand the dangers. We need to know what to look for.”
“We don’t—” Alec started, but Damon shook his head and stepped forward.
“We're going to lock them in and set fire to the palace,” Damon answered, finally meeting my eyes and holding them.
I could feel the frown furrowing lines on my forehead as I processed the words. The palace burned? It was emptied of anything of value, but the building was still a monument in its own right. More than that, setting it alight was a useless gesture. I'd seen what Grigori could do with fire when we were in the dungeons. The effect was close to translocation, using fire as a door, but it was created with magic rather than the elements surrounding us.
“What's the point of that?” I finally asked, then directed a question to Grigori. “I thought they could use magic to conjure fire to move between two points?”
The room fell silent, and all eyes fell on Grigori. I could tell he'd failed to mention that small detail to them. I could see suspicion rising in some of the guards who didn't know him well, but I never once doubted him. I didn’t have it in me.
“That fire is not real,” he said quietly, stepping toward me. “We're able to make portals between two places, but it has nothing to do with fire. The fire is a smokescreen, an illusion to scare people. The magic is more... direct.”
“I'm not sure I understand.”
Grigori smiled at me and tilted his head to the side before offering me his hand. I took it without question as the rest of the group looked on curiously. As I approached him, he took my other hand and turned me to face him.
“Magic is all about illusions, sleight of hand, timing and in extreme cases, luck,” he said, loud enough for all to hear. “Thánatos has dark magic. It’s a twisted version of the elemental magics and he can do things many of us can't. It's said because he sold his soul to Hades for the power, he is not able to share that with us. So we have the very basic levels. Banishing elements is one of them, but that, as you know, is nymph magic, or white magic. The rest is very easy and not nearly as impressive as it may seem.”
“Show me,” I pleaded quietly, and he nodded in response.
“Think of your chamber,” he said, releasing my hands. “It is four walls made of stone.”
I nodded and visualized my room—the four walls, the two doors, and the small windows that looked out to the fields letting in light through the panes.
“Now see the door to your room. Not in your room, but in front of you now. Reach for the handle and feel it, the coolness of the iron, the heaviness of the wooden door. When you feel it, grasp the handle and push the door open.”
I did as he asked and visualized the door in front of me. I reached for the cast iron hardware and almost felt it in my hand. I pushed forward and took a step, gasped, and found myself standing in my room. There were no longer guards around me, my father was not by my side and Grigori was no longer standing in front of me. I gave out a little yelp of surprise as I looked around the empty chamber.
Knowing it would freak them all out. I visualized the door to the castra's war room in front of me and reached for the handle, pushing it open as I stepped forward and into the room filled with wide eyes and open mouths.
“Is that how they travel?” I asked, skipping forward and looking around.
“No, it only works over a short distance. You couldn’t travel beyond the palace walls.”
“But Dullhurt...” I tapered off, knowing exactly what I had missed. No one had realized that Thánatos had a stronghold so close. “How close? Where was it?”
“Less than a mile from the town. From the outside it looked like a small, insignificant farm dwelling. The compound was all underground. Natural light was filtered in through grates hidden by the long grass, small enough to not be noticed. You were almost six floors underground where no one would sense you.”
“We sent earth vis liberi in there,” Damon said, stepping forward. “All we found were a couple dozen underground nymphs. They checked every cell.”
“That was only the second level of the stronghold. Cass and her companions were held further under the earth in a formation of rocks that we had dug into. We knew the elemental magic would be stifled down there. It was too deep in the ground to call air, fire and earth were out of reach because of the rock, and water, even the condensation was controlled by the same spell used when they attack.”
“But they must have known what we were looking for. That was... Oh, may the Gods forgive us,” Damon said, his voice cracking as his eyes moved to me.
I sank my teeth into my lip, knowing he'd just made the connection in his mind. The attack on the enemy camp had happened the same day as our escape for a reason. He could see how close he'd come to getting us all killed. His eyes turned dark as he took two unsteady steps toward me, his face crestfallen and filled with pain. He looked like he wanted to hold me, to pull me against him and make sure I was real. The horror was written in every small crease of his skin. I watched as he stopped, unsure of what to do or how to react now I was so close to him.
“We could have gotten you all killed.”
“You almost did,” Grigori said gravely with his eyebrow raised. There was no admonishment in his voice, just cold, hard facts. He wasn’t trying to make Damon feel worse, but I could see in Damon’s eyes that the confirmation didn’t help.
“But you didn't,” I emphasized with a small shake of my head at Grigori. I hoped he understood what I was trying to communicate with him. I didn't want Damon to feel guilty for saving the lives of the nymphs. They deserved their freedom. They'd already lived their servitude, and they needed liberating, too. “You saved lives.”
Damon closed the space between us and folded his arms around me, pulling me so close it was impossible to know where he began and I ended. I could hear him whispering into my hair but the words were indecipherable and I didn't know how to soothe him. I ran my hands up and down his back gently in an attempt to comfort him as he held me to him.
“You could have been killed.”
“Damon,” I said into his neck, my hands still moving as the room around us went silent. “You saved a lot of lives that night. It kicked
things into action and got us home faster. If you—”
“If you hadn't had Grigori, you would have been attacked several times over.”
He was right, and I knew he was, but we did have Gori. Whether or not he realized what they'd done at the time, it was too late for regrets and it all worked out in the end. There was no changing the past now, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted to. We had lived, we were here, together, and that was what mattered now.
“You can't think like that.”
“Cass,” he whispered, holding me tighter.
I knew there was nothing I could say that would make him feel any different. The only choice I had was to change the subject back to the one we'd been discussing. Still held against his chest like something precious, I turned my head to catch Grigori in my sights.
“Now we know how that magic works, how are you planning on stopping it?” I asked, my hands coming to rest on Damon’s shoulders.
“Take away the doors,” Gori said matter-of-factly, trying to avoid looking at our embrace.
“Physically or metaphorically speaking?” I asked.
“Physically, then I can secure any outside door with a ward or chains that will stop them being able to pass through them.”
“There are hundreds of doors in the palace, Gori,” I cried, which had Damon placating me with his hands smoothing down my hair. “How will any of this be done in time?”
“Most have already been removed. The rest will be destroyed while the fake ball is in progress. We'll have more people here than they'll know what to do with, so it will be executed quickly while they’re distracted. They'll expect the crowd, but they won't expect them all to be soldiers.”
“Dad?” I said gently, my eyes moving to him. He'd grown up in the palace. All of our ancestors had grown up and lived here as well, and his brother had died here. I knew he couldn't be flippant about burning the place to the ground as though it meant nothing. There were so many memories embedded in the walls.
The king shifted awkwardly on his feet and looked at me. I was still flush against Damon's chest and I could hear him breathing. He was calmer and more level headed—I could tell by the steady thump of his heart in my ear, but I was disinclined to move.
“It is but stone and mortar. The memories created here are in our hearts, minds and histories. No one can take that away from us. They asked me about the possibility of this, and I agreed in advance.”
It seemed like such a waste. The palace had always been this mystic beauty to me. It stood in the middle of the fields, tall and proud. You could see it as you broke through the trees on the dirt roads that came from the four corners. The first time I'd been to Dullhurt to set up the experiment, I'd relished in the sound of the carriages running from the dirt to the gravel drive. I'd hung from the windows of the carriage as the palace grew larger ahead of us.
When I'd been running, I'd break through the trees and smile as the stone rose before me with each pounding step. It had become my home. I'd come to think of it as my solace and now it would be the tomb of our enemy. There was so much history within the walls, not just mine but of kings and queens past. King Layland had lived here when he fought against his brother.
I closed my eyes and tried to think of it as a material possession but it was so much more. Knowing I would have to say goodbye to it saddened me.
“Your Highnesses, you must start getting ready. They need to see you do one last walk through in your attire so they don't suspect anything. Time is of the essence.”
It was like they'd dropped a bucket of ice-cold water on me. My time for nostalgia was over. If I'd known sooner, I would have spent more of my last days exploring the areas I'd never seen. I would have memorized each of the passages where Damon and I had stolen kisses or touches. I would have imprinted the lives of those we'd lost in the last battle in my mind. Instead, I swore that one day I would return, and I would make the shell of this place a monument to all those who had lost their lives trying to protect me. It would be a reminder of the battles we had fought to gain the freedom we would hopefully have. It wouldn't be an abandoned relic stood against the backdrop of this civilization's history.
I left the room stoically. I knew every man inside realized how upset I was, but I didn't blame them for what they had to do. I knew it was the only way to show them what we were capable of, but I couldn't find the words to express how I felt. I wasn't going to let my emotions get the last word either, so I took a deep breath and walked away with Alexa and Shannon at my side.
I tried to take in everything I could on the silent walk to my chambers. I knew my two friends understood the weight of what was going to happen and they left me alone with my thoughts as I walked with my fingers trailing along the centuries old stone walls. It wasn't until I was in my chambers, roughly pulling up my hair into a messy knot, that either of them found their voices.
“Cass?” Alexa asked gently, crouching in front of me. “Are you alright? I mean I know you're not. We were there in the room with you, but I guess what I'm asking is…are you still alright to do this?”
“I will be,” I admitted, meeting her eyes. “I have to be. It's just... I wish I'd had the chance to say goodbye to the place. I wish I'd paid more attention before things started moving so quickly. So much has happened here in the short time I've lived within its walls. It's become home to me.”
Shannon and Alexa looked at one another in question before looking back at me with sympathetic eyes. I knew that Alexa had pretty much gone through the same thing when the farmhouse had burned down. I’d been heartbroken about that, too. It was just far more difficult to lose this palace than I'd anticipated; even I hadn’t realized my attachment. Maybe once the initial shock wore off it would be a little easier to accept. At that moment, it just felt like I was losing another dear friend.
“I know, hun, but it's the only way to send them a message. Thánatos needs to understand that we won't be taken down without a fight, and sacrificing this place is the only way we can hit their numbers that hard. You need to get your face on now, though, then slip on this impressive looking dress and meet your fiancé at the bottom of the stairs for a walk through and say your goodbyes. We only have an hour before the shit hits the fan.”
“You're so eloquent, Lex.” Shannon laughed, twisting a lipstick so the red was exposed. It seemed only fitting that this dress was red. In fact, it was almost the same shade as the last one I’d worn.
“You're one to speak.” Alexa snorted, stretching to her full height. “I live for the moment you start yelling at people. You mix words together that I never would.”
“It's a gift.” Shannon grinned, shrugging. “When you live with the enemy as long as I did, you have to be creative enough to get their attention and hit them where it hurts.”
“I hadn't thought about that. You and I need to discuss these insults. They may come in handy in the future.”
“Let’s get dressed first.” I laughed, standing up. “Then we'll rock this fake ball down to the foundations and give the place a well deserved goodbye.”
“Now you're talking.” Alexa cheered, pulling open the near empty closet. All that hung in there were our three dresses, and they would be accompanying us to the new palace, care of translocation.
I did the best I could with my make up as Shannon and Alexa dressed. I missed Melody and her ability to make me look like a princess as I growled at the mascara. My attempt was nothing close to the magic she could perform. With one final glance at my reflection, I switched places with the other two and put my tennis shoes on under the gown. It felt weird, but you couldn't see the difference. The gown hit the floor as it always did, covering the shoes I was wearing.
Alexa handed me a couple of daggers to slide into the folds of the dress Melody had designed specifically for this kind of occasion, and when I checked to see whether they could be seen, I shook my head in amazement.
“That woman deserves a huge raise and an official title,” I said, turning from side
to side, as both Alexa and Shannon attached their own weapons. “You can't see them at all.”
“She's worth her weight in gold.”
Shannon, stood behind us, kicked out her leg at an imaginary target. “Genius.”
“You ready to put on a show?” Alexa asked once we were all ready and had done a last few adjustments. “First stop, the window on the stairs where we're going to be completely giggly and girly for the audience. You're just afloat about meeting your fiancé at the bottom of the stairs.”
“Oh, but I am.” I grinned. “You've never seen him in his dress uniform.”
The three of us headed down the stairs slowly, all smiles and floating as though we hadn't a care in the world. As we passed the stairs, Alexa tugged me back with a joyous fake laugh and fiddled with my hair, while Shannon and I giggled and I slapped away Alexa's hand. I double checked my hair with my hands and smiled up at her, tugging her down the stairs behind me until we were out of view of the window. I let myself relax and smile genuinely for a second as the levity of it all settled in.
“Am I the only one who feels ridiculous?” I asked, spotting Damon in full dress uniform. “When have we ever acted like that before?”
“Window seat.” Alexa shrugged.
“Library,” Shannon sang.
They were right. The day I'd asked them to be bridesmaids was the same day that the enemy had started arriving. We'd been sat in the library window, hugging and giggling like schoolgirls. I shook my head and danced down the rest of the stairs, falling into character as I sprang into Damon's arms. There was yet another window we would be seen from so I swooned over him appropriately while the other two giggled.
“This is ridiculous.” Damon laughed, contradicting his words, his lips brushing mine briefly in indulgence. “Since when have you ever fallen into my arms?”
“Library,” Shannon and Alexa sang, leaning into one another like lifelong friends and giggling. Damon watched them briefly before raising an eyebrow at me in question. It really was weird seeing them act that way.