The Fallen (Hades Castle Trilogy Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

  Better put that down. As gently as possible, I lowered it to the floor, then slid it across the room.

  As I stepped back across the floorboards, one of them sounded hollow. I crouched down, frowning at a board that was slightly raised. Slowly, I lifted it up, shocked to find a gun hidden beneath it. Wow, Finn. Seemed one of my childhood friends had a bit of a dark side.

  I lowered the board again.

  Sighing, I crawled onto Finn’s bed and picked up his sketchbook. When I opened it, I found an exquisite drawing of a sparrow.

  I went through one page after another, trying to block out the terror under the surface.

  Because in only a few hours, I would be undertaking the most dangerous stealth mission of my life. I was putting all my superstitious faith in the ghosts of Dovren’s murdered wolves, and a dead Raven King.

  Perhaps I had completely lost my mind.

  42

  Lila

  I stood in the shadows at the base of the tower, my body vibrating with anticipation.

  One thing I hadn’t considered when I was planning with Finn was that I’d be scaling the fortress walls with the briefcase, and I needed two hands to scale the wall. It wasn’t until I was just about to leave Finn’s apartment that I realized the problem this posed.

  Before leaving, I’d rummaged around the flat until I found something I could use—one of Finn’s leather belts. I poked an extra hole through the leather so that I could strap the case to me as tight as possible.

  In the shadows, I pressed the briefcase against my chest, my heart stuttering. What if I pulled it too tight? What if I triggered the switch?

  And now I had to actually strap the briefcase to my chest.

  I was no longer feeling as confident about this plan. Closing my eyes, I called to mind that photograph—the image that had brought me here.

  I was doing this for Alice.

  I leaned forward and knocked on the stone wall for luck.

  “Okay Raven King,” I whispered. “I can do this.”

  I lifted the briefcase to my chest, then tucked it under my chin to keep it in place. I felt like my knees were about to go weak.

  Oh fuck, oh fuck.

  My mind flashed with images of the briefcase dropping, the explosives ripping through my body. My blood and bone mingling with the old Dovren stones, burying me under rubble. A moment of cascading fear stole my thoughts, and I nearly let the briefcase drop.

  Get a grip, Lila.

  This was for Alice, and all the future Alices that I could save.

  With the case still tucked under my chin, I wrapped the leather belt around my waist. I threaded the briefcase through the loop, whispering the whole time about the Raven King. When I was able to press one of my hands against the case, I let out a long, shaky breath. Now I could keep it in place with something other than my chin. Not too tight, though—too tight meant death.

  At last, I secured it through the loops, and belted it to me. I looked up at the wall looming above me. How many times had I scaled Dovren’s walls? Hundreds, at least. And yet with a bomb strapped to me, the wall seemed to stretch on forever, up into the night sky.

  Best get on with it.

  I clenched my jaw, and started to wedge my fingers between the rocks, hoisting myself up. I’d picked the most discreet tower wall, the northwestern corner. Here, I was completely in shadow.

  With every breath, every heartbeat, I felt like I was only seconds away from accidentally slipping and slamming against the wall. As my thighs shifted, they jostled the briefcase. Careful, Lila.

  And as I got closer to the top, a new problem occurred to me: hoisting myself over the top of the wall would be extremely difficult without banging the briefcase against the stone.

  Memories flitted through my mind: Alice leading me up to a rooftop, where she pointed out the stars and told me their names. The nights when Mum worked late, and it was just Alice and me, and the endless stories of Albia’s past—some legends, some history, some our own inventions.

  When Samael brought his blade down through her neck, he probably didn’t know a thing about her. Didn’t care. She’d always had a ruthless side, but she was loyal to those she loved. When we were kids, and two larger boys down the road threatened to drown me in the Dark River, she broke their arms. And when an old neighborhood pervert cornered me, she smashed him in the head with an iron pan. Then, she told his wife.

  Samael didn’t care that she sang at the top of her lungs. He didn’t care that Alice used to laugh so hard she snorted, or that she could imitate Mr. Wentworth so well it once made me literally piss myself with laughter.

  I’d always thought I would see her again. Even when I found her charm necklace in the room, the dried blood on the windows. Somehow I still felt like she was alive.

  Because her death was unthinkable. And how could she have died without me feeling it, without me knowing? We’d always been two sides of the same coin. Alice in the light, a fierce center of attention. Me in her shadow—and happy to be there. And we were bound by the same love for this old city, the history under the ground.

  She once told me she’d be a queen, and it occurred to me that even as an adult I’d kind of believed it. She was meant to be queen.

  Samael just saw a mortal, the chaos of man. He was born to kill, and that was all that mattered to him.

  Here, in this moment of quiet, it hurt me like I’d been the one cut. Her loss was like a severed limb.

  My arms and legs started shaking again, but I was almost near the top.

  The fear coursing through my nerves felt like a sort of poison, corroding me from the inside out. And with it, a piercing loneliness. Whatever happened next, I would be leaving behind the life I’d always known.

  When I reached the top of the parapet, I used all the strength in my arms to keep my body at a distance from the wall as I slowly pushed myself up. At last, I was able to hook my leg over the edge of the crenellation. Wind tearing at my hair, I carefully climbed over onto a walkway.

  As soon as I had both feet on solid ground, I took a moment to catch my breath, to try to compose myself. My body was buzzing, electrified with nerves. I was desperate to get the bloody briefcase off, but it wasn’t time yet. Not until I was inside the castle itself. Most of the outer walls were connected by a parapet, so I could move along here until I got to the tower closest to the armory window.

  Keeping close to the wall, head down, I started moving fast over the parapet. Luckily, there were no soldiers up here. I had only the sound of the whistling wind to accompany me.

  Once I moved closer to the river, I'd be able to take a stairwell down to the ground. Then I’d have the shortest route across to the castle itself. I was a little awkward with the briefcase strapped to my chest, but I could still move fast enough, gliding along high above the ground.

  But as I made my way south, movement below turned my head—soldiers. Five of them, in the gap between the two walls. Their weapons glinted in the darkness.

  Bollocks. I’d have to be very careful to go unnoticed.

  At last, I reached one of the towers closer to the river, not far from the Tower of Bones. Quietly, I crossed inside and pressed my ear to the stone. I listened for sounds of movement, but it felt abandoned in here, still as a grave. With the angels here, the castle and its surroundings felt only half alive, instead of the vibrant palace it had once been.

  I heard nothing, no vibrations through the stone, so I started making my descent. As I moved down the stairs, I peered through narrow windows, spying out onto the walkway carved between the two towering walls.

  Still more movement than I wanted out there, but it wasn’t exactly going to get easier if I waited longer.

  It was now or never.

  43

  Lila

  I rushed the rest of the way down the stairs, trying to formulate a plan. Scaling the wall below the armory window would not be easy to do unnoticed, with all these people patrolling.

  Before I got to the
very bottom, I peered through one of the windows. From here, I could see the soldiers had a sort of order to how they were patrolling. In groups of five, they moved between the two towering walls. Through one of the archways in the interior wall, I could just about see into the courtyard, and the castle itself, nestled on the hill.

  More movement there. Soldiers moving around the inner wall. They gripped rifles, occasionally moving them from one shoulder to another in unison. The dark army of the angels, and I was sure they were on the hunt for me.

  Bollocks. There were too many of them. I turned, peering out an arrow slit that gave a view of the city outside. And there was a line of soldiers marching out the front gate. My throat went dry. Some of them seemed to be heading for East Dovren.

  Samael was unleashing the entire army to search for me. Just because of a dream, he was going to tear the city apart.

  To my horror, I heard the sound of footfalls on the walkway above. They were going to search the towers—including this one. My blood went cold. Voices were coming from above.

  I took the last few steps down to the ground floor. I’d need to get out into the courtyard at exactly the right time, blend into the shadows. That was my skill—going unnoticed. And I’d better hope tonight of all nights I was particularly amazing at it.

  At the bottom of the stairwell, I peered out into the walkway between the walls. Fuck. There was a patrol of five moving around the corner right now, and they’d see me if I came out. I slid back into the doorway, waiting for them to pass. I listened closely for the sound of voices moving closer from above.

  My heart was beating so hard I thought it could set off the bomb.

  Calm down, Lila.

  Panic wasn’t going to get me through this.

  Mentally, I tried to form a plan. If I timed it right, I could make it from here to an opening in the inner wall. It wasn’t far from me, nearly opposite where I stood now.

  From there, I could move between the arches until I got closer to the river. When I got to the wall beneath the armory, I’d have to scale it faster than I’d ever climbed before, and just pray I was in shadow.

  And I had the Raven King on my side, didn’t I?

  The voices in the stairwell were so close now, but the patrol hadn’t yet passed. Any moment, I could end up trapped between the two sets of soldiers. I wondered if they’d simply shoot me on sight, blowing us all up.

  While I kept my back pressed to the wall, making myself small, I listened as the ground patrol passed by the door.

  The others in the stairwell above were nearly here. My heart thundered, slamming against my ribs, making the briefcase vibrate.

  Raven King, give me strength.

  I felt like his spirit flowed through me, from the stones on up. The buried power in the soil …

  Alice’s voice whispered in the dark hollows of my mind: Maybe the Albian kings were tyrants. But they were our tyrants.

  Silently, I dashed outside behind the soldiers, and moved to the archway in the next wall.

  I made it safely before the next group of patrols rounded the corner. Tucked in the darkness, I flattened myself against the stone. When I glanced to my right, I saw the group of soldiers leaving the tower where I’d been hiding, heading for the next one. To my left, I had a view of the courtyard.

  Bloody hell. It would not be as easy to move across the courtyard.

  My mind started to whirr with calculations, trying to come up with an alternate plan, but there weren’t many options. I could, perhaps, stash the bomb somewhere, then pretend I’d fallen asleep for the entire day. “Whoops! Drunk again.”

  But the fact that this looked like a military operation in pursuit of an enemy told me maybe I was all out of chances to blag my way out of things by pretending to be an idiot. My chances of charming them were done. This was full-on war.

  In the dark, it was hard to see the groups of patrols distinctly. But as one group started to pass me, I slunk back and pressed myself against the wall to stay hidden. I noticed they walked in a very precise formation—eyes forward, moving their rifles from one shoulder to the other in a rhythm.

  And that gave me an idea. If I could sneak up behind one group, then walk quietly behind them, they might not notice. Their heads always faced forward. From the vantage point of the other soldiers in the distance, I’d blend in, just one of the crowd.

  And lucky for me, the skies were clouding over, darkness billowing over the moon.

  I whispered my silent prayer. In the archway, I waited for the next group of five to come through. And when they did, I took my chance. I slipped out behind them, silent as night. Close enough to them to blend in from afar, not close enough that they’d feel me breathing on their necks.

  I paced each one of my footfalls in time with theirs, my steps in sync so they wouldn’t hear me. We were moving exactly where I needed to go, closer to the castle, to the armory wall.

  The biggest risk would be when I had to branch off from them and rush across the courtyard, but I thought I could do it when we got close enough.

  I glanced above. The storm was moving fast, almost like the sky itself was helping me cloak myself in total darkness.

  At least, until lighting struck, touching down on one of the castle towers. The boom rumbled over the landscape, deafening.

  And worst of all, it seemed one of the soldiers in front of me was terrified of lightning. He leapt back out of his formation, shrieking. When he fell back into me, my heart nearly stopped. I froze for a moment, waiting to see if the bomb was going to go off. I stared down at the briefcase, my chest heaving.

  The other soldiers whirled, eyes landing on me.

  Oh, bollocks.

  Fear coursed through my veins, and I took a step back. Already, I had five bayonets pointed at me, and they were shouting in Clovian.

  I swallowed hard and held up my hands. “You’re not going to want to shoot me right now.”

  They didn’t seem to hear me over their shouting, because one of them started jabbing me with the bayonet, dangerously hard into the briefcase strapped to my chest.

  I took another step back, only to feel more bayonets at my back.

  Panic slid through my bones. “Careful!” I shouted.

  But my cry was drowned out.

  One of them lowered his gun, and I started to stammer an explanation. “You need to know that I have a—”

  Before I could get the word “bomb” out of my mouth, someone kicked me hard in the back. I fell forward, onto my hands and knees. My heart skipped a beat, and I stared at the ground.

  My mind was working a million miles a minute. I always had a way out. Always had a scam, a bluff, a distraction. And yet right now, I could hardly think straight through the screaming.

  They were yelling at me—mostly in Clovian. But one managed Albian, and I understood him perfectly.

  He wanted to shoot me.

  I looked up to see a trigger slowly squeezing, and my mind went blank.

  44

  Lila

  Raven King, give me strength.

  My fingers dug into the dirt, into the roots and plants, the ancient soil.

  The deadly nightshade bloomed around my fingers, and God, if only I had a way to cram all that nightshade into their mouths and put them all to sleep.

  At that moment, time seemed to slow down, their voices stretching out, movements slowed. Something was happening to me—something I didn’t understand.

  Anger was starting to vibrate through my body, trembling from my fingertips up my wrists and arms, circling around between my ribs.

  Samael had killed the person I loved most, and I would have my revenge.

  Something dark was coursing through my veins along with the anger—something I couldn’t quite explain. I could see Alice’s eyes twinkling blue; I could hear her laughter. Her sharp, dark eyebrows, the pale hair …

  Wrath was snaking through my body, my mind. A ruthlessness worthy of Alice. I would avenge her, and it would be Samael’s blo
od on the stones. A voice rose from the most ancient part of my mind—a voice that sounded both familiar and strange at the same time.

  Angel of Death, you will feel my wrath. You will tremble before me and beg forgiveness. I am not what you imagined.

  My fingers dug deeper into the ground, where long ago they’d buried the head of my king. I didn’t know what was happening to me, only that a power was overtaking me.

  This wasn’t over. I tuned out the sound of the shouting, and dug my fingers deeper into the earth. I felt a song rising around me.

  Down by the river, the Tower of Bones

  If you’re lost, Dovren is home

  The lions are gone; the ravens are dead

  The clouds up above, a storm ahead

  I could hear it—the most beautiful music snaking around me, music sent by the Raven King himself. But it wasn’t just his power thrumming through my bones, now. It felt like I had my own magic, buried deep inside me. Why? I had no idea. I just knew that as my fingers gripped the soil, I was starting to summon it. The soldiers seemed immobilized, entranced.

  I stared, my eyes wide with wonder as the nightshade around me bloomed larger, stretching up higher. Then, before my eyes, the nightshade blossoms started to crumble, to turn into a purple dust. The violet motes rose into the air, and a cloud rose around me. A poisonous mist.

  The soldiers started coughing, lowering their guns. The shouting grew quieter, until they were mumbling. They stumbled away from me.

  Somehow, the toxic air wasn’t affecting me like it was them. On my hands and knees, I breathed in deeply, but I was staying perfectly alert, unaffected.

  All around me, the soldiers started to slump, eyes closing. A gunshot rang out, but it was an accidental discharge, straight into the ground. The rifles fell to the earth.

  I caught my breath, staring in amazement. Bloody hell. I’d just done … magic. Or the Raven King’s ghost had done magic through me.