Crown of the Queen (The Wardbreaker Book 3)

by Katerina Martinez

  A quick glance at Axel was all it took.

  Together we made a mad dash for the truck, racing to catch it as it slowly rolled past. I reached the back of the truck first, leaping toward it at the end—with the help of a little magic—so I could grab hold of it. When I was securely hanging off the back, I turned around to face Axel and gave him my hand.

  For a second it looked like he wasn’t going to make it. The truck was already starting to accelerate, and Axel didn’t exactly have any Elemancy magic to help him move any faster. I stretched my fingers out as far as I could, reaching for him, grunting. Our fingers touched, fingertips teasing each other but not quite locking.

  “Run, dammit!” I yelled.

  Axel gave it one last hard push, speeding up just enough to grab my hand. I yanked him into the back of the truck, and we both fell on top of what felt like sacks of potatoes.

  Panting, I looked across at Axel. “You need to hit the gym more,” I said.

  “You used magic,” he said, gasping for breath. “I hardly think that’s fair.”

  “We work with the tools we’re given.”

  I sat up and looked around. The back of the truck was full of sacks and crates. Sitting upright, I shrugged out of my backpack and checked its contents to make sure nothing had broken. To my relief, none of Cassidy’s phials had broken apart—none of the powder baggies had spilled. Good. Once we got inside, we would be cut off from our magic and would have to rely on our wits and the contents of that bag to complete our mission.

  No pressure.

  “Okay,” I said, “So far, so good. Now it’s your turn.”

  Axel nodded, lightly touched my arm, and shut his eyes. We were sitting in the back of a truck with a tarp around it, and no hatch in the back. The back of the truck was wide open to any guard who wanted to look inside, and there was nowhere for us to hide. Axel’s part of the plan involved him throwing a blanket of psychic energy around us that would make us slide under other people’s notice.

  It was like hiding in plain sight. They’d look at us, but their brains wouldn’t register our presence—you know, assuming we didn’t do anything to attract their attention. At least, that was the theory. I trusted him more than I did my father, though, so when my body started tingling with magic, and Axel’s eyes opened, I had no reason to ask him if he thought the magic had worked.

  The real test would come in just a couple of minutes—the truck was already pulling into the prison.

  “Do we hide?” I asked, taking a second look around to try and find somewhere—anywhere—we could keep out of sight.

  “We shouldn’t have to,” Axel said.

  “That goes against literally every instinct in my body.”

  “I know. But it’ll work, just trust me.”

  I dug around inside my bag and pulled out a phial filled with black liquid. I opened it, took a whiff, and immediately hated it. “This is gross,” I said.

  Axel sniffed the phial and screwed his face up. “I’ve drank worse.”

  “Then you go first.”

  Cocking an eyebrow, he took the phial and drank half of the liquid. Grimacing from the taste of it, he handed it over.

  “Amateur,” I said, pinching my nose and knocking the liquid back. It was cold going down my throat. Ice cold. But with my nose firmly pinched, I couldn’t taste the potion as it slid into my stomach. “It’s like you’ve never had a disgusting shot before,” I added.

  “I’m not much of a shot person,” Axel said, smacking his lips with a grimace on his face. He shuddered.

  “Do you feel dead yet?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “No… crap. Are we supposed to?”

  A loud thud followed a series of deep rumbling sounds that could only have been the prison’s front gate opening. The truck started moving, and I stared at Axel as we reached the ward’s perimeter. I could feel it approaching, an invisible barrier—a Rubicon—the first real test. I braced for the moment where it washed over us… and then the moment passed, and we were still alive.

  My eyes widened. “It worked,” I said, exhaling.

  “I don’t think we should be celebrating,” he said, “We just snuck into Harrowgate, and the alarm could be silent.”

  I stared at him. “Buzzkill.”

  The truck came to a halt. Through the opening in the back, I watched the massive portcullis grind to a close, locking us inside. I held my breath as the sounds of crunching boots drew ever nearer to the truck. My body was tense, coiled like a snake, ready to strike. I had to tell myself to keep calm, to remember we were under Axel’s protection.

  The first guard to appear as a big man with a face full of facial hair, a massive forehead, and shoulders as big as footballs. He was massive, and mean, and wearing sophisticated tactical armor; the kind that could probably stop bullets in their tracks.

  He scanned the back of the truck, his eyes narrow. With a big hand, he opened one of the crates and looked inside. He then ripped one of the bags open and pulled a potato out from inside. It was impossible that he couldn’t see us. We were sitting right there, right in front of him. Out of arm’s reach, sure, but we were right there.

  Once he was satisfied that there weren’t any stowaways inside, he slapped the side of the vehicle and yelled at the driver to get the fuck moving. The truck grumbled to life and started rolling again, and even though the guard hadn’t seen us—I was sure that he hadn’t—he didn’t move as the truck peeled away. Instead, he stared directly at me, as if to challenge me.

  “Okay, change of plan,” I said.

  “Change?” Axel asked, “What change?”

  “If that is the kind of guard this place keeps on their payroll, we’re gonna have trouble knocking one of them out to take their gear. Let alone taking two of them down. Especially without magic.”

  “Suggestions?”

  As the truck made a turn, I caught a glimpse of what looked like the prison yard—a fenced off area inside of which a whole bunch of miserable looking people talked or worked out.

  “We’re going to pretend to be prisoners,” I said, “Not guards.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Changing the plan of action at the very start of this prison break probably wasn’t a smart idea. What kind of a plan was one that couldn’t change, though? We had come in here with the intention of becoming guards, but now that I’d seen a couple of them, the idea that Axel and I could take one down—let alone two—and steal their uniforms was slim.

  And that was assuming we’d find exactly two guards to stun. It was more likely we’d run into groups of three or four, and that was going to make everything more complicated. Pretending to be inmates was a far stronger idea.

  The truck kept moving along its path, coming to a final stop somewhere still in the prison’s main courtyard. Across from us was the yard, the prisoners still enjoying their rec time. Already I could feel my connection to the Tempest fading away. It wasn’t an instant snip, more like a slow dulling of my powers.

  If I needed to use them, I felt like I still could, but probably not for long.

  Ifrit, I thought, and the little fire Godling burst to life in the palm of my hand. He looked up at me, his fiery body burning softly against my skin. “I don’t like this place,” he said, though he sounded distant—as if I was hearing him between walls.

  “I don’t like what’s happening here,” I said, “Am I going to lose contact with you?”

  “I’m always with you, but there’s powerful magic at work. Magic designed to interfere with the way Mages work. We may not be able to talk once you get inside.”

  “I was afraid you’d say something like that.”

  “And yet, you wanted to come here.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t have the time to argue with you. Please, just, hold on for as long as possible. I might need you.”

  “I’ll do my best, but whatever you’re going to do, do it quickly. You don’t have much time before this place completely cuts us off from
the Tempest.”

  I nodded. “Understood.”

  Ifrit stared at me. “And Izzy… please don’t go around starting fires?”

  “Who says I want to—”

  “—I know what you’re thinking. A fire would be a great distraction. Do not go around starting fires. I can’t believe I have to repeat myself.”

  “Okay. No fires.” I looked up at the yard. I could hear the truck driver stepping out of the vehicle. In a few moments he, or someone else, would be coming around back to start unloading supplies. We needed to be out of here before that happened, or risk being trapped here for a while.

  Tugging on Axel’s arm, the two of us clambered out of the truck and into broad view of just about anyone who cared to look at where we were standing. There were guards everywhere, but not just guards—there were also prison staffers moving around. People carrying boxes, others working on any number of what looked like military grade vehicles parked inside of the compound, and others still enjoying a cigarette to stave off the cold.

  I managed to give the truck enough of a wide berth that when the driver came around the back, we were nowhere near him and in no danger of breaking our cover—even if we were hiding in broad daylight.

  The plan, at this point, was clear; get to the yard, find a way through the fence, and blend in with the prisoners. Easy. The yard had no roof, and as long as I still had a little magic left in me, I figured I could vault us both over it and directly into the mess of prisoners. All this while still being hidden from the naked eye.

  I turned on my heel to tell Axel the plan, and my heart lurched into my throat at the sight of the monster that had been standing beside me. It was a man, or maybe it had been a man once. Its skin was grey, its eyes bulging and white, its mouth a slackened, wide O of utter darkness.

  I froze, my muscles going completely numb. Even as the creature hovering a solid foot above the ground next to me moved closer, I couldn’t get my body to so much as twitch. The cold coming off its body, the grave chill, as Karim had called it, was palpable. I could feel it in my lungs, in my bones—a chill as cold as death itself.

  I didn’t know what to do. I hadn’t been prepared to face one of these things yet, and here I was, standing in front of one of them trying desperately not to make a peep. One harsh movement, one yelp, a single slip of my composure was all it took to break Axel’s spell and bring the whole prison down on us.

  My heart thundered inside of my chest as the ghost approached, its face moving ever closer to mine. The cold was starting to make my eyes sting and my throat tighten. Axel was nearby, watching this all unfold, a horrified look in his eyes.

  I stared at the ghost, watching it as that wide, open mouth of darkness inched closer to my face.

  “Boo,” I said, and the ghost recoiled, shuddering away from me like a startled cat. It shook its head, frowned, and then it hissed at me. I thought it was going to attack; I feared, maybe, I’d done something to make Karim’s spell wear off prematurely. But the ghost retreated completely and went shooting into the building, through a solid wall.

  My entire body unclenched then, a sigh falling out of my mouth.

  “Boo?” Axel asked, whispering.

  “What else was I supposed to do?” I asked.

  “You could’ve waited for me. I was about to blast that thing’s mind into the darkness.”

  “Yeah, well, you were taking too long.” I shuddered, shaking it off. “Anyway, that was close, but we’re still alright.”

  “Barely.” Axel turned to look over at the yard. “The prisoners are going back inside, look.”

  He pointed, and I noticed a pair of guards had opened the doors to the yard and were making the prisoners file back inside. It was now or never.

  “Let’s go,” I said, taking his hand and running across the courtyard.

  “What are you doing?” Axel asked, “We’re going to get spotted!”

  “Adapting.”

  My connection to the Tempest was weakening by the second. The closer I got to the inner walls, the further away Ifrit was starting to feel. I didn’t have long, I wasn’t sure if I even had enough power to do what I needed to do, but I had to get into that yard no matter the cost.

  Reaching, stretching my grasp to the limit, I drew magic into me and used it to bend the rules of gravity. Axel’s eyes widened as we neared one of the walls closed to the fence surrounding the yard. We weren’t stopping or slowing down, and we weren’t going to. Without breaking my stride, I stepped onto the wall itself.

  Five great strides and we were up and over the fence. I kicked off the wall, dragging Axel with me and using magic to control our descent into the yard itself. The landing was perfect, and silent. We hadn’t touched the fence, we hadn’t bumped into one of the inmates, and we hadn’t caused Axel’s invisibility spell to suddenly break.

  We were clear.

  “That… was something,” Axel said, standing.

  “I’ll be honest,” I said, “I wasn’t sure that would work.”

  “No?”

  “Nope. Never done that before. Let’s go.”

  I didn’t waste any more time in joining the inmates as they made their way past the guards and into the building itself. They weren’t being checked, or frisked, and as far as I could tell, the guards themselves didn’t seem to care much about doing either of those things.

  No one, and I mean no one, noticed Axel and I casually slip into the mess of prisoners marching back into Harrowgate. I treated that as a victory, not just for me, but also for Axel. It was a testament to his power that we hadn’t been spotted. But the victory was short lived, because that already weakened connection I’d had to the Tempest had completely disappeared the moment I’d touched the ground on the other side of the yard.

  As far as anyone was concerned, I was human now; and I’d just walked into one of the most dangerous places on earth.

  The hallway directly beyond the door inside was dull and dark, the lights spaced out in a way to keep the area dim and difficult to see in. It was cold inside, the walls themselves radiating an energy sapping chill not too different to what I’d just experienced outside. And the smell… there wasn’t enough lemon zest disinfectant in the world to mask the hostile scent of old blood, sweat, and urine pervading the air.

  My nose tingled. Axel and I had managed to slip right into the middle of the crowd of prisoners, and while they couldn’t see us, Axel’s magic also prevented them from bumping into us. The only problem was, I didn’t know how long the magic would last.

  We needed to act fast, but that was going to be difficult with the guards watching us.

  “Over there,” I said, spotting a nook up ahead. I had a feeling the prisoners were going to be marched all the way down the hallway and into the cell block. The little offshoot to the right would give us just enough space to grab a couple of prisoners and drag them into the dark. All we had to do was do it quietly.

  “Danvers, don’t fail us now,” Axel said.

  I shrugged out of my backpack, opened it, and pulled out a couple of small, purple pebbles. Neither of them was bigger than an almond, but they looked like little gems filled with light. What they were in fact filled with were stunning spells; a collaboration between Axel, Danvers, and RJ. The magic didn’t just need to stun the prisoner—it needed to keep them quiet while they went down, and a combination stunning spell would do just that.

  I offered one to Axel, and he got into position directly behind the man nearest to him. I did the same. They all looked human in here, so it was impossible to tell what they truly were under their human skins. But if the prison had the same effect on them that it had on us, then stunning them was going to be easy.

  I hoped.

  Like synchronized swimmers, Axel and I both slapped the tiny purple pebbles against the backs of the two prisoners we wanted to stun. Both instantly fell limp, allowing us to easily pull them off to the side. Just as I tucked away with the prisoner I had grabbed, though, one of the guards cal
led out, chilling my blood in my veins.

  “Hey!” I heard one say, “What’s all that shit going on there?”

  Something was going on in the line. The prisoners weren’t shuffling anymore, but squaring up to one another. “Did you touch me?” one of them asked.

  “I didn’t fucking touch you,” another growled, “Get out of my face before I bash it against the wall.”

  “You two, shut your traps!” a guard yelled. “And move.”

  I watched, my heart wedged inside of my throat and beating hard against the sides of my neck. Slowly, order was restored to the line of prisoners who were promptly marched away. One of the guards walked over to the corridor Axel and I had snuck off to. He stared at us, standing there, in plain sight, his eyes narrow. I was about to reach into my bag and pull out another stunning spell—we had packed six, now we had four left—but Axel took my hand.

  The guard moved away from the mouth of the hallway, leaving Axel and I alone with our two captured prisoners. Instead of pulling out a stunning spell, I produced two phials filled with a kind of translucent liquid that moved more like honey than water.

  “Someone’s going to notice they’re gone,” I said, handing one over to Axel, “And soon.”

  “We’ll have to cross that bridge when we come to it,” Axel said, “Let’s do what we have to do and get this whole thing over with. I already hate it in here.”

  “You and me both.”

  I turned the prisoner I had grabbed around and looked at her. She wasn’t exactly pretty, or muscular, or athletic. Those were all probably going to lead to problems later down the line, but it was either take her, or deal with having a penis for the duration of this mission.

  No thanks.

  I knelt beside her, rested one hand on her shoulder, and gave my phial a good shake. “Here goes nothing,” I said, and for the second time today, I pinched my nose and knocked back a phial full of mystery liquid that was about to do weird things to my body. All so that we could break a man out of prison who didn’t know a rescue was underway.