“You’re pretty full of yourself for a common criminal,” Captain Marik growled, taking a step towards me. I lined the crossbow up with his heart but I sure as hell wasn’t going to shoot. Stealing some jewels would get me thrown in the dungeons but killing the captain of the guard? I’d be lucky if they didn’t execute me here and now.
“There’s nothing common about me and I can’t help the way I look. I’m just insanely attractive. It’s really just my face though. And my body. And my personality-”
The Captain roared a challenge as he launched himself at me and I fired the crossbow over his shoulder and into the door behind him. He threw himself aside and I turned to flee.
Before I could take two steps, the guard I thought I’d knocked out lurched forward and snared my legs.
I swore as I collided with the ground and the taste of blood filled my mouth.
I started struggling, kicking, biting, punching. But all four guards landed on me before I could get free.
They yanked my arms behind my back and I cursed as heavy manacles encircled my wrists.
The guards dragged me to my feet and I scowled up at Captain Marik as he looked down at me. He really was abnormally tall, like a beast had a night of passion with a tree and gave birth to this inhumanly huge specimen.
“I guess we’ll find out what happens to pretty boys in the dungeons,” he taunted as the other guards began to drag me away and I spat a wad of blood from my mouth.
I tried to fight against the chain which held me but it was no use and I sighed as I was forced to accept my situation. It looked like I’d be heading straight to the dungeons to await rescue from Balthazar and the rest of the thieves. Egos was going to be pissed at me.
That’s what I get for trying to be the good guy for once.
“More,” I growled as the torturer jammed a hot poker into my side.
I was strapped to a cross, my arms and legs spread with drool pouring down my jaw and I would not let this oaf break me. So I'd settled on pretending I liked it. Which pissed him off to no end. First thing I learned in the royal guard? I am made of steel. They made me repeat it. Over and over. I wrote it in the sand a thousand times, I screamed it till I lost my voice, I even cut it into my skin once.
I am number two hundred and eighty seven. And I am made of steel. I am a warrior for Osaria. I cannot be broken.
“You sick, twisted piece of dirt,” he growled, his black eyes wheeling from my wound to my expression beneath the leather mask which covered his face. “I know you hate it.”
“I. Love. It,” I panted. Shit, I didn't love it. But I would not break.
I am made of steel.
He tossed the poker across the dingy room with a bellow of rage and a dull clunk, clunk, clunk sounded as it bounced across the concrete. The place was full of wooden racks and torture devices I hadn’t yet had the pleasure of enduring.
Pain seared through my stomach and I knew I was going to be scarred for life for this bullshit. I ground my teeth, angry with myself, but most of all I was angry with Gothel. I didn't know how, I didn't know why, but I knew for sure that damned woman was controlling the Emperor. My Emperor. The ruler of the kingdom. And that nasty old witch had him snared in her claws. She practiced magic, I was sure of it. But it seemed like I was the only one in the kingdom who had figured out she was a sorceress. And how did I know? Because ever since the Emperor had married her, every good thing he’d been planning had fallen to the wayside and the kingdom I loved was slowly sinking into chaos.
I knew my Emperor. I’d guarded him for two solid years, stood behind his throne while he spoke of the changes he wanted to make and the way he wished to rule. But ever since she’d arrived, that had changed. And no woman could have corrupted him so profoundly unless magic was involved.
“I should gouge out your eyes,” my torturer purred, moving across the room and picking up something which looked suspiciously like a rusty spoon. Trepidation slivered down my spine but I refused to let it show.
I am made of steel.
So they were going to take my eyes for what I'd seen, were they? Well, I supposed it was a punishment that fitted the crime.
The five second glimpse I'd had of the Princess's face had been, in all fairness, an accident. But they'd also potentially been the most thrilling five seconds of my life. Which was sad really. I’d trained vigorously for a place in the Royal Guard since I could hold a sword. And now, at twenty six years old, I was the youngest man ever to serve as one of the Emperor’s personal guards. And to achieve that position, I hadn’t exactly ‘lived it up’. I’d sworn an oath to my kingdom. I was owned by it. I lived for it, and I would die for it.
I knew how to obey the rules. Hell, I was the rules. I was a royal guard for Osaria’s sake. That meant rising before the sun, working out like your life depended on it, then protecting the palace for a fourteen hour shift before doing it all over again. Day in, day out. That was my existence. Any other urges, wishes and dreams I’d once had had long since been cut out of me.
So what had it all been for? Twelve years given to the guard but what had it given me in return? I was imprisoned and tortured daily since I'd committed the ‘worst’ of crimes.
No man looked at the Princess. It wasn't even a rule, it was more of an outright fact. But the Princess only walked around with her veil on when she left her quarters. And yes, I had known I was entering her quarters at the time. But I'd been two seconds away from catching Gothel at whatever freakish spell she was laying on the Emperor. Wasn't it my duty to protect him? Protect all the royals. I'd been too filled with rage to consider the fact that the Princess might have been standing there unveiled in all her beautiful glory. So I hadn't intended to break the rules. I took an oath never to break the damn rules. But what good did that do me now?
The torturer approached and I held onto the image of the Princess’s face in a sweet kind of defiance.
I am made of steel.
“Once you've seen something you can't unsee it,” I mused aloud and the torturer stilled before me with his spoon - which was maybe more of a knife now I was seeing it up close. And it was very apparent he took no care in washing his tools. Hadn't this freak heard of hygiene? The foul scent of sweat sailing off of him said he hadn't.
I leant as far forward as my tethers would allow. “Do you want to know what she looks like?”
Of course he did. Every man in the kingdom wanted to know. Even this worthless turd. And the glint in his eyes might just have been my salvation. At least for a few moments longer.
“I...” He cleared his throat. “Of course not.”
“Seems a shame not to share it. They're going to kill me at dawn, that secret will die with me.” I glanced toward the closed wooden door across the dark and filthy space, lowering my voice. “No one will know.”
“That's treason,” he snarled.
“I'm a royal guard, I know what treason is and describing her face isn't it. Nowhere in the rulebook does it say a man who looks upon the face of the Princess is not allowed to describe it.”
I was lying. And he was lapping it up. It actually did say that in the rulebook. Which I'd know as I'd read it back to front during my training. And it wasn't even a book, it was fifty golden scriptures in the royal archives.
“It doesn't?” he breathed and that deliciously rancid breath of his floated over my face.
“No, it doesn't.” My lips stretched into a smile even though my wounds were screaming, setting alarm bells off in my head.
Maybe I have sepsis. I’m definitely going to get some sort of an infection from this man if I haven’t already.
What does it matter? You’ll be dead tomorrow morning.
Shit.
“Go on then,” he whispered and there it was. My bargaining chip. Men were fickle. Especially when it came to women. Not me. The only thing I cared about enough to betray all of my morals for was the kingdom itself.
“She has eyes like the deepest, darkest night you ever saw.”
She actually had amber eyes which were so big I'd spent most of my five seconds not looking at anything else. “Her lips are as bright as a pink sunset and as sweet as a summer rose.” They were cherry red and hell had they made me want to know what they felt like. But this creep was not getting that truth to drool over. He didn't deserve the truth. He'd shoved a hot poker into my flesh half a minute ago and whatever version of the Princess he was conjuring in his mind, was not going to be anything close to reality. “Her skin is as white as chalk and as pure as silk.” Caramel with a scattering of freckles on her pixie nose which I hadn't had time to count. But when you're told your entire life that you're not allowed to know what someone looks like, no matter how much training you’ve had, or how much the rules have been beaten into you, your mind jumps into top gear committing that face to memory when you see it. So I very almost counted them. I reached six before Gothel had ordered my fellow guardsmen to arrest me.
He swallowed my last lie as easily as the rest of them. Which was hilarious considering he knew what the Emperor looked like. Why would she be chalk white if he was bronzed as hell? It's called genetics, Moron.
“Go on,” he begged, lowering the knife-spoon in his hand.
“Her nose!” I lamented. “Her nose was the smoothest, straightest nose you ever saw. Like...” I struggled for more words – how do I describe a damn nose? “Like the slope of the smoothest mountain peak, a glistening jewel adorning a perfect fact.”
Those freckles were for my memory alone. He wasn't getting a single one of them. Maybe my wounds were making me delirious because my training had ensured my mind never snagged on a woman for long. But this one - the damn Princess herself - was branded into my skull. She represented the kingdom, so maybe that was why I couldn’t get her out of my head.
The torturer sighed in satisfaction and I grimaced, sensing I was turning this cretin on and that disgusted me on so many levels it was unreal.
He lifted the tool again, his eyes darkening to deepest pitch. “At least you have one sweet vision to take with you.” He leaned forward, slamming his palm to my forehead to hold me in place.
I swore through my teeth, thrashing against my binds as he brought that rusty, blood-crusted spoon up to my face. I was actually more worried about the diseases I was going to get off of that thing when he gouged my eyes out.
The door flew open and the torturer halted, turning to see who'd entered.
I shook my head, but he didn't remove his sweaty palm from where it was stamped to my face.
“Back down, Farooq,” a woman's voice called and my bones chilled as I recognised her.
Gothel.
The torturer extracted his hand from my forehead and she appeared beyond him. Her unnaturally white hair spilled around her shoulders beneath the silver crown she never took off. She was my queen but I’d never looked on her as such. Her black dress hugged her feminine curves, revealing more flesh than was appropriate for a royal. But she didn’t seem to care much for propriety and the Emperor was so bewitched by her that he’d never stopped her from flaunting her flesh like a common street whore.
She was flanked by guards wearing the fine red robes of the palace; my own had been torn off of me the moment I'd been taken here. Stripped down and stripped of my rank as a royal guard.
I am made of steel.
Not anymore. You’re just flesh and bone. A man with one last night on earth and nothing to show for it.
I guessed this witch had come to mock me for that fact. Though why one criminal was of any interest to her was a mystery to me.
She indicated for her guards and the torturer to leave and they did so without a moment’s hesitation. Couldn’t they see what she was? Was I the only man in the whole kingdom with my eyes open to the truth?
The door clicked shut as they exited and she eyed the filthy room distastefully as she made her way toward me.
“Cassian Lazar,” she growled, eyeing me coldly.
“Yes your majesty?” I asked in my formal tone, pretending we weren't in a blood-stained torture chamber the night before I was going to be hung for my crime.
“Do you know why your eyes are still intact?” she asked, her voice honey sweet.
“No,” I replied. But I have a feeling you're about to tell me.
“Because I have something to tell you,” she said.
Knew it.
Her silvery gaze ignited with whatever was on her mind.
“And what's that?”
“You're a dead man,” she whispered. “A ghost. As of tomorrow, you no longer exist.”
Oh good, she came here to brighten up my day.
“And?” I pressed. My so-called queen sure knew how to talk. She'd spend a whole day circling around the point and never get to it.
“What does a dead man have to lose?” she asked, keeping up the game I was long-since done with.
“Nothing,” I growled.
“Precisely,” she said keenly, shifting closer and toying with the neck of her dress. “How do you feel now you've gazed upon the famed face of the Princess?”
I eyed her closely, trying to work out her angle here. She wouldn't have taken a trip from the palace just to rub my worthless face in the fact that I was going to die tomorrow. So it had to be more than that. And I sensed it was time to play the good little repenting guard.
“Remorseful,” I said as fiercely as I could manage.
I’m not remorseful, Gothel. Not even a little. Because I know what you're up to you venomous snake. And I almost caught you at it. My only regret is that I didn’t accomplish what I’d started and gain proof of what you are.
“I've tried to think of ways to forget her face. I've tried to burn the image from my mind,” I said powerfully. No I haven’t. I’ll hold onto it until the moment I die. It’s all I’ve got left. “But still she remains, my queen. So if I am to die for that one mistake, then I shall.”
She pursed her lips, nodding as she gazed at me. “So you looked at a girl's face, who cares?” she said lightly and I frowned at the change in her tone. “She's hardly worth the veil, don't you agree?”
My eyes narrowed and I remained silent, unsure what the best form of tact was.
She slid a finger under my chin, her sharp nail scraping against my adam's apple. “No need to die over a teeny tiny mistake, is there Cassian? Not when there's another option.”
“Another option, your majesty?” I asked, anticipation crawling through me.
Yes let me out of here, Gothel. Make any deal with me you like because whatever it is will end up with my sword in your back and the whole kingdom knowing what a deceptive rat you are.
She extracted her finger from my chin, reaching for the elaborate necklace around her throat. She popped open the golden amulet and took something from within it. Without warning, she shoved it in my mouth. I jerked, the vile taste of some pill rolling over my tongue. Gothel held my mouth shut and tilted my head back, forcing me to swallow.
My heart started to race, the room became blurry and unfocused.
What the hell has she given me?!
A vision filled my eyes and I lost sight of the chamber, engulfed by a swirling mass of light. As it faded, I swept across the desert, passing over a huge rock shaped like an eagle. Beyond it sat two lush green mountains and between them lay a waterfall so tall I couldn’t see the top of it which ran from a sheer cliff into a silvery pool of water.
I slipped through it and before me was a garden of jewels, the gemstones seeming to grow from the trees themselves. A floor of earthy moss trailed past the glinting gemstones: rubies, emeralds, diamonds bigger than my fist. I felt my mouth falling open as I remained trapped in the vision, sailing across the garden and gazing down upon a lamp. It looked ordinary, unpolished bronze and unlike anything else in the garden. It was perched atop a stone pedestal, nestled in a cluster of moss.
The vision died in a wave.
“Sourceress,” I hissed. This was the proof I’d been hunting for for years, and yet no
w I wasn’t in any sort of position to prove it.
“I need a man to cross that waterfall. It must be done quietly and by someone who won’t be missed,” Gothel said, ignoring my accusation. I blinked heavily, still trying to process what I'd just witnessed. So much treasure all in one place. A hundred lifetimes wouldn't have been enough to spend it. And I knew where it was.
“I will gift you your freedom if you swear to bring me that lamp. Only the lamp. Touch nothing else, and when you return I will reward you with enough coin to make you a lord of Osaria.”
I gazed up into the witch's eyes. It was death or this. But I knew whatever that lamp meant to her could be no good. I couldn't give her something that could make her more powerful. My kingdom meant too much to me to allow that. And she'd already gotten her talons into it. Since the Emperor had married her, taxes had doubled, hangings had quadrupled and the kingdom had fallen to disrepair. What other terrible things would she do if she gained access to more magic?
After she’d become the queen of Osaria and my suspicions had surfaced, I’d spent any free time I had researching sorcerers and witches. Their magic was only possible through potions, elixirs and the possession of powerful objects. Objects, no doubt, like that lamp.
I remained silent, wishing she'd offered me anything else. Something I could have swung to my advantage and used to assist me in bringing her to her demise. But a deep, resounding note of dread in my gut told me I couldn’t risk that lamp falling into her hands.
Am I willing to die for this? She'll just find another man to do this deed.
“I will return at dawn with your pardon,” Gothel purred, backing away from me with a knowing glint in her eye. She thought I'd already accepted. But had I?
She barked an order at the guards outside and a moment later I was hauled out of the chamber and taken back to my cell.
I was thrown into the damp, dirty space, wheezing as I clasped the deepest wound on my side.
“That looks painful.”
I turned to find I had company in the cell next to mine which had been empty before I'd been taken.
I could barely see the man in the darkness shrouding us, and I didn't have the care to try. I pushed myself back against the wall with a groan.
Forbidden Fairytales- The Complete Series Page 2
