No answer.
Something moved near the light, as if she had disturbed it, and skittered away too fast for her to make out anything.
With cautious steps, she followed the light, pulling her dagger as she moved along the doorless wall. The temperature had dropped, making her shiver in her sleeveless gown, and the stone under her fingers became slippery.
Cold. So cold. She was sure her breath had turned into puffs of haze before her face could she see it.
She could bear it no longer. What was this place?
The light she had seen didn’t seem to come any closer even when she continued walking for a minute until her breath hurt in her lungs.
She had to turn around—get out before she would freeze alive down here.
With heavy legs, she made the turn, hilt of her dagger threatening to stick to her hand from the glacial cold. Her steps were slow. Slower even now that her path was uphill. And no matter how much she pushed herself, her legs were growing heavier with each step. As if they were made of lead.
Her breathing was shallow when the temperature rose slightly as she made it to a sharp left turn she couldn’t remember taking before. But she didn’t stop. Anything but going back into the freezing cold.
One step after the other. Up and up. Until her knees buckled and it was all she could do to creep forward, away from the ice behind her.
She made a mental note to tell Nehelon what a bastard he was to send her into this hell. If she ever got out of there. Vala help her, she was on her hands and knees, dragging her skirts through the dust as she forced herself to keep going.
And then, the darkness lifted like a veil, and a breeze of warmth touched her shoulders and back. Her eyes adjusted, and she noticed footsteps nearby. Right behind the wall beside her. The door beside her.
She lifted one weak hand to the rusty knob above her head and turned.
Addie Blackwood’s heart almost stopped when the wall beside her opened and a dirty, female shape slumped into the corridor, right where she had been about to set her next steps, with a groan.
She wasn’t one to be startled easily. Vala knew, she was used to surprises—bad ones mostly. Her time in the mountain prison in the north had most certainly taught her that no matter how bad things got, it could always get worse.
“Are you all right, Miss?” She set down her bucket and knelt by the young woman whose eyes were blinking as if she was struggling to keep her focus. In her hand, she was clutching a dagger.
Addie tried not to shy away from the blade and touched a hand to the woman’s forehead. Cold. That woman needed help.
And her lips were an unhealthy shade of blue, as if someone had pushed her out into the snow the way the guards had done to her in the north. The most northern point of Neredyn, even beyond Lands End, where a solid blanket of ice and snow-covered the mountain ranges.
The woman didn’t speak but instead rolled to the side and braced herself on her hands and knees, crawling forward until her feet had made it out of the doorway.
Addie peeked through the door, catching a glimpse of dim light and gray rock.
“Don’t,” the girl said through gritted teeth and kicked—with what seemed like her last strength—the door shut.
Addie watched it melt into the polished stone wall of the corridor she had been following, leaving nothing but smooth surface and no hint of the door the girl had just crept through.
She was tempted to run her hand over the stone to ascertain herself she hadn’t dreamt, but the girl had cowered over her knees beside her and was shivering uncontrollably, her shoulders and arms left bare by the elegant gown she was wearing.
“Come,” Addie took the girl by the arm and pulled her up with a force that made her muscles scream and picked up her bucket. “We need to get you somewhere warm.” The girl let Addie tug her along, stumbling beside her as she led her toward the servants’ kitchen where a flame was always kept alive in the oven in case any of the courtiers fancied a late meal. “How ever did you get there?” She asked as she dragged the quiet girl down the stairs and into the familiar space that smelled of herbs and bread and stale bothenia ale.
While the nobles had been dancing, every servant who could spare a minute had cheered to Demea’s blessing that the young lord had ensured by killing the wolf. Her heart picked up pace at the thought of him. Even if he had never noticed her in the shadows of Lady Linniue’s chambers, she had been there when he visited. It happened rarely but often enough for Addie to notice how handsome his face was from up close, how his hair looked like molten honey when it trickled out of his ponytail.
“We’re almost there,” she reassured the girl and wrapped one arm around her cold, shaking shoulders.
The heat hit Gandrett like a blow in the face.
“You’ll be fine, Miss,” the servant girl kept repeating as she led her into the empty kitchen, her light-blue eyes spilling worry as she spoke. “You’ll be fine.”
She sat Gandrett down on a three-legged chair, which she had pulled up to the stove where a pot of something hearty was steaming along.
Gandrett tucked her dagger between the folds of her skirt, wrapped her arms around her torso, and watched the fog rise. “Thank you.”
The girl started but smoothed over her expression fast. She hadn’t commented on the weapon nor attempted to take it away. “Maybe you should eat something,” she suggested, eyes still a little nervous.
Gandrett scanned her head to toe. She wasn’t wearing anything better than rags sewn together into a dress. She hadn’t spotted a servant in the Brenheran household or here who was dressed like that. “You’re probably right,” she said to the girl, waiting for her reaction, which was similar to when she had thanked her.
Shaking her surprise, the girl hurried to a cupboard and pulled out a bowl then picked a spoon from a drawer.
“Here,” she handed her the bowl after filling it up just enough that it didn’t spill in Gandrett’s shaking hands. “This will help.”
Something in the girl’s eyes told Gandrett she knew exactly what she was talking about.
She eyed the girl over her bowl as the hot scent of Sivesian spices and bothenia stew filled her nose, easing some of the shudders.
“It’s not the fish they serve upstairs.”
For a fraction of a second, Gandrett was tempted to tell the stranger that she had no interest in the fish they served upstairs. That it still sat in her stomach like a salty lump that had frozen in the tunnels.
“What was that?” she asked eventually, deciding she’d let the girl reveal what she knew first.
The girl shifted her weight, exposing poorly made boots under the hem of her skirts. “I have never noticed a door there.” She looked to the ground as if following Gandrett’s gaze. “It disappeared right after you closed it. As if it was never there.”
They both kept silent for a while, Gandrett stirring her stew and sipping from the spoon in regular intervals as the girl stood, pretending she wasn’t there at all.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Gandrett mused.
The girl remained silent.
“What’s your name?”
“Addie.” Her voice was low as if she didn’t want to speak.
Gandrett asked anyway, her limbs slowly warming by the stove, “Who else knows about those corridors?”
“If anyone knew, they would surely not tell me.” Addie averted her gaze, scanning the polished surfaces of the kitchen with weary eyes instead.
Something in her demeanor told Gandrett that Addie had little to gain in this court and little to lose in her life. A kindred spirit.
“My name is Gandrett,” she offered and found Addie blinking at her in surprise.
“The trophy,” she whispered, then clasped her hand over her mouth, eyes turning wide.
Gandrett didn’t know if she even wanted to understand what had been done to the kind girl that she was so afraid of speaking wrong.
“Armand’s trophy?” Gandrett aske
d, more to clarify the meaning of Addie’s words than because it was outrageous to call her that.
“Well… the lady he brought home from the hunt, I mean.”
Gandrett smiled at Addie, imagining how Armand must have spread the news in the castle about the lady in need to whose rescue he’d so bravely come. No need to add that it wasn’t Armand who had saved her. It had been the annoying, brooding Fae male who might or might not have kissed her while she’d recovered from a blow to the head.
“I didn’t mean to upset you,” Addie added, fear now plain in her eyes. “Please don’t tell the young lord I said anything.”
Her reaction made Gandrett wonder yet again if she had misread Armand. If he was indeed the evil the Brenherans thought him to be and not the hurt boy seeking his father’s attention.
“I won’t tell if you don’t,” Gandrett whispered, glancing at the kitchen door. “No one can know I wandered through hidden corridors in the wall.”
Addie nodded in silent agreement. And who would believe a servant girl in rags if she told that the young lord’s trophy had stumbled into the hallway through a door in the wall that was no longer visible? Sad as it was that Addie’s word wouldn’t hold against that of a lady was to Gandrett’s advantage.
However, she herself knew exactly how not having a voice felt. At the priory, she hadn’t had one until she’d become Vala’s blade. And before, as a daughter of farmers, a child…
She finished her stew in silence. All the time Addie waited, standing on the side as if taking leave was even scarier than staying.
And all that time, an unspoken question hung in the air between them: how could Gandrett have been half-frozen on a mild spring night in a castle with hearth fires in every chamber?
Gandrett didn’t let herself think about it too much. She had no idea how long she had been down there. Only that Armand had sent her in.
Had he known he was sending her to her potential death? Was that why he brought home another girl every second day—if she trusted what she’d pieced together? Was Armand even more dangerous than she could have imagined?
“I have no clue where we are in the castle, Addie,” Gandrett said with a smile, forcing any thought about the icy cold and the whispering in the tunnels from her mind, “Would you mind showing me how to get back to my rooms?” She went through the maps in her mind. The servants’ kitchen wasn’t anything that had been displayed in the plans Nehelon had laid out. Just a general servants’ area on the ground floor between the north and the east tower. She must have been several levels underground in those tunnels. A shiver crossed her shoulders, and she shook her hair over them, hoping to hide the goosebumps that rose on her back and neck. “My rooms are in the west tower, I think, somewhere near Lord Armand’s chambers,” she added, attempting to look lost but wasn’t sure Addie bought it.
The girl took her empty bowl but didn’t give a sign of whether she would help.
“I would go on my own and ask the next guard I can find to escort me back, but somehow I think that would raise more questions than it would be helpful.” She glanced at the dagger in her lap, and Addie’s gaze followed her.
“Were you running from someone?” she asked lowly but not weakly. “The young lord? Is that why you are carrying that?” She gestured at the blade.
Gandrett shook her head. “I thought I saw something behind that door,” she explained as truthfully as she could without giving away any bit about her mission or what had happened with Armand or in the tunnels.
The girl pursed her lips, eyes still on the blade.
Gandrett picked it up, pulled up her skirt on one side to sheath the dagger, then smiled. “I won’t need it when I’m with you.”
Addie’s face relaxed, and she nodded. “Come,” she picked up her bucket and gestured for Gandrett to follow her. “I’ll show you the way.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Gandrett marked every turn, every door, every narrow window on the way back to her chambers. The path Addie was leading her wasn’t the route the members of this court were taking, but a narrow corridor that seemed to be exclusive to servants, some of which glanced at Gandrett, her dirty clothes and probably face, too, as they bustled along to take care of their chores during this cheery night of Demea’s celebrations. She marked those faces, too, and was relieved neither Deelah nor the middle-aged man who seemed to be reporting directly to Armand weren’t among them
After a couple of minutes of ascent through narrow stairwells, Addie pointed left where the corridor split. “This leads to the west tower,” she said, face unreadable. “Follow the main corridor, and you’ll end up right by the young lord’s door.” Something bitter entered her tone, but Gandrett didn’t dare inquire.
“Thank you, Addie,” she gave the girl a half-smile. “If there is anything I can ever help you with, let me know.”
Addie’s eyes widened, but she said nothing as she smiled and disappeared back the way they’d come.
Gandrett didn’t waste any time looking after her, but instead took the left path and followed it with a tight chest until it opened into the wide hallway Armand had led her down earlier that night. She loosed a breath. She was safe—or as safe as anyone could be in this castle.
She made her way, sneaking from doorway to doorway until she got to familiar black doors engraved with silver stars. The guards were gone, and Gandrett didn’t stop to marvel at the carving before she ran to her own chambers, the rustling of her skirts the only sound filling the air.
She had never been more relieved to see a door close behind her. As it clicked shut, she closed her eyes and leaned against it, resting her head against the wood behind, and she took deep breaths, trying to calm her beating heart. She was lucky those guards were no longer at Armand’s doors or they might have—
“How nice of you to return,” Armand’s voice greeted her from the other end of the room, making her heart stop and her eyes snap open. “I was beginning to wonder if I am really that terrible of a host.”
To Gandrett’s relief, there was no anger on his features as he rose from the crimson sofa where she had woken up only hours ago.
“I was coming here to—” He stopped mid-sentence, eyes going distant, and he shook his head. “I don’t really know why I came here.” He rubbed the bridge between his eyes with two fingers as if he was thinking hard. “Anyway, I found your chambers empty.”
Gandrett was still recovering from the shock. She knew what her dirty clothes and face must look like—like she had tried to run. She braced herself and decided to take the same approach she took during a sword fight. Assess her opponent, find his weaknesses, bring him down.
The dagger on her thigh weighed heavily as she took a step toward the young lord.
“Didn’t you know it’s impolite to intrude into the chambers of a lady uninvited?” Mckenzie’s words. “I could have been… indisposed,” she chose her wording carefully, watching his face change to confused. He was in a strange mood. She could tell from the look on his face, his eyes still looking her over.
“You don’t look indisposed to me at all, Lady Starhaeven.” He pulled his lips upward at the edges, the resulting smile not in the slightest resembling anything she had seen on those features before. “Dirty, but not indisposed. Have you been out on a night stroll?” he offered, smile tightening. “You could have asked me to join.”
“You sent me away,” she poked, and by the flare in his eyes, she knew she had found it. His pride was what weakened him. And that was probably why he had come to her chambers—to make sure the impression she had of him wasn’t weak. “You’ll probably kick me out in the morning anyway… as I was useless for your entertainment.”
There it was. No restraint lingered in her words, no leash keeping her thoughts to herself as she hit him with words she knew would trigger him in his pride.
She needed to keep a clear head even if she was drained. She had almost frozen down there in those tunnels. Did he know? Had he sent her there and was on
ly checking in to see if she had survived.
Armand’s smile had vanished, leaving his features blank.
“Where were you?” he asked flatly.
Gandrett took another step closer. If she made it past him to her bed, she could grab Nehelon’s knife from her pillowcase. Then there was still the dagger on her thigh even if she had no intention of revealing her legs before him. How she yearned for her plain acolyte uniform so she’d be able to fell him with a few jumps and kicks.
“I won’t ask again,” Armand eyed her with a gaze that didn’t allow for defiance.
So Gandrett took another step and changed her tactics, giving him an icy look. “I slipped in your secret, little passageway so I went to find someone to bring me clean clothes to wear.” She took another step, getting close enough to her bed to dart for it if he attacked.
But his eyes shuttered. “What?” He stared at her as if she didn’t make sense.
Oh, this was already so off-track. Where had the illusion of Lady Starhaeven gone?
Gandrett sighed through her nose. “I slipped.” She couldn’t bring herself to tell him about the icy caverns under the castle, the whispering shape in the dark, the minutes she’d thought she’d freeze down there. “And now let me go take a bath so I can get an hour of sleep before you kick me out.” She stepped even further toward her bed, making it look like a subconscious gesture.
He didn’t seem to notice.
“Why didn’t you come to me?” His voice was raw, eyes two hazel disks that let Gandrett glimpse a different Armand than the one she’d met.
The words were on her tongue—ready to be released. Because I don’t believe you would have helped me.
He read them in her eyes anyway. “I saved you in the forest, Gandrett. I brought you back to Eedwood castle to have my healers look after you.” His throat bobbed. “Do you think I wouldn’t help you with something as easy as fresh clothes?”
Shattered Kingdom Page 21