Every cell held strangers. Folk strangers, women, and children, but she had to squint to make out some of the faces in the lighting of some of the cells. Her heart broke as she realized so few cells were empty. She would have thought the prison would have been so much louder for the number of people she saw, but perhaps their spirits were broken. There must be others in the castle who knew about these tunnels, and someone would find her eventually. Lady Dells knew, so why couldn't Lord Reynald.
Flora was also carefully paying attention to the floor. There was only one set of prints along the floor which she hoped was Perry's. The smeared layers of dust along the rest of the floor made her drop her guard as she walked on, no one except snakes could have been through these pathways in years. She finally reached the place where it looked like Perry had turned around, where the layers of dust along the floor had been undisturbed. Her guard dropped and she sheathed her knife back in her waistband for the first time as she continued on. The sword she had picked up still in the other hand.
She skipped a few holes along the wall and hurried down the tunnel, wondering how much further she could possibly even go. It was so dark she almost didn't see what she discovered hidden there until she stepped on its head.
The head of a snake laid on the ground not two feet from her. Though it was not just any snake she knew, its head nearly spanned the width of the entire tunnel. Its body blocking up the hole. Its eyes were closed thankfully, but Flora could see dust flick up as it breathed sleepily through its nostrils.
Flora lifted her sword up as slowly as she backed away. Her eyes wide and arm shaking as she realized what Perry had been running away from while he hid down in the tunnels. Finally she backed up to were she had left off, pressing her eye to the next cell hole she found, and there he was. Relief shuttered down her body as she realized she would not have to move back down the tunnel with the ancient snake.
He was battered, but his room was brightly lit by candles to the point there were nearly no shadows, something had happened to him since she last saw him. His blanched face looked lifeless. Fresh blood was oozing down his side as he held it while he was propped against the wall.
His wound had never been bandaged, and he was using his own shirt to press it against the wound. At least he was upright Flora thought, not that that meant he wasn't dead, only close to it.
Flora's heart broke as she took in the ten guards that were around him, standing like statues along the other cell walls. So many, all on a silent high alert, swords out. Someone must have found the guards around Dawson's cell and alerted everyone else down here. Flora smacked the wall. She hadn't found Thren quick enough.
She jumped as a hand laid on her shoulder, her wrist was caught before she could grab her knife again. Though, it was only Perry.
It had been lucky for him that this corridor was too small for her to have swung her sword at him before she realized who it was. "You couldn't have made a noise?" Flora whispered at him.
"I would have died long ago if I was loud you know," Perry whispered back.
Perry moved her shoulder over to peer into the cell. He didn't say anything, his face blank, and Flora soon pushed him back out of the way, as her eyes watered with unshed tears. Trying desperately to see if Thren's chest was still pumping breaths.
She wanted to scream as Lord Reynald pranced in, but her jaw dropped when she watched Lady Dells walked in after him, followed by Oswald. Icy shock filled her system as she watched. Knowing Lady Dells had known so much this whole time about all of them. Simmering when she saw Thren cough out blood that splattered onto the front of his pants. If he was coughing at least he was alive. Something loosened inside Flora's gut, but only barely.
Lord Reynald mumbled something to Lady Dells that Flora couldn't hear, her eye was jammed so tight up to the peephole that not a peep of noise could have through it had it even been possible. Perry gently moved her aside to peer back through the hole. He had to push quite hard before she relented and looked up at him.
"Flora," Perry said, moving to take her hand but she ripped it away. He instead covered the hole with his hand, blocking any noise that may fade into the cell below. "Lady Dells will protect him as best she can."
Flora stared wide-eyed at Perry. "How do you know that?" She asked. "She still looks pretty close with Reynald if you ask me."
"I've known her for a long time," Perry replied. "I can't tell you now. We need to get out of here, the world is going crazy outside and I don't want to be in these tunnels if these earthquakes finally rip this place apart, or wait around long enough for that snake to find us. Trust me. I've always tried to take care of you," Perry said, staring into her eyes. "We can't fight off that many right now either, not with Dawson depending on us to get him away from the castle."
"What if they kill him?" Flora said. "Do you care about him?"
"Of course I do," Perry said, hurt showing in his eyes. "You'll have to trust me that they won't. Lady Dells will take care of him. I know she will."
Flora looked back into the hole in time to watch Thren dragged into the hallway. "No!" She said under her breath. She watched him turn right down the hallway.
She took off after him, peering in every hole to see if she could find out where they were taking him. The dead-end passageway was the only thing that finally stopped her. She had lost Thren.
Perry had followed her the entire time. His hands were in his pockets as he watched her.
"If you are so close with Lady Dells find out where they took him," She forced out. Trying to stop her body from shaking.
"Only if we leave," Perry said.
Riddles Remembered
Perry led her back down the tunnels to leave the castle. They made it as far as they could within the tunnels before they had to leave the safety of the castle's forgotten belly. The castle's hallways were dark as the summer storm battered at the windows outside. The sound of rain pelting the glass echoed around the stone walls.
As they peered around the corners of the hallways, they saw drenched guards walking in nearly every hallway, passing one group or another every few minutes, and they often had to dive into hidden nooks, or behind heavy curtains. If they were around Perry would drag Flora into one. If not, they hid in one of the empty rooms of the castle.
Flora was disgusted by how well Perry knew the castle. "Come here often?" Flora snarled at him once as they had hid inside one of the curtained nooks.
"Not now Flora," Perry said through clenched teeth as he peered through a gap in the curtain, wind whipping at the glass pane behind them. "We just have to get past this last group and we will be out."
Flora peered around the curtain. Five soldiers were standing at a branch along the hallway, in the exact direction Perry was trying to get them. Another guard joined them as they stood around talking.
"Oswald," Flora said with vehemence through her teeth, an image flashing in her mind of seeing him in Thren's cell. She was glad when a strike of thunder made him as pale as Dawson had been.
Oswald said something to the guards and the guards made to move down one of the corridors, leaving only Oswald at the end of the tunnel, standing with his arms crossed.
"Lets go," Perry said making to move.
Flora grabbed his shoulder, throwing him back against the wall in the nook. "Are you crazy, there is still a guard out there?"
"But its just Oswald, He is on our side. Come on," Perry said, pushing off Flora's hand and leaping into the hallway.
"He didn't look like he was on our side," Flora said as she scurried out of the nook after him. Her eyes met Oswald's as she ran down the hallway, but Oswald said and did nothing. He kept looking back and forth between the other branches of the hallway.
"We are headed west aren't we?" Flora asked.
Perry nodded. Perry opened one of the doors along the hallway. "In here," he said with a whisper, reaching back for Flora.
Flora had to look away from Oswald to turn into the next room. Perry quickly and quietly
shut the door behind them. They were in a small servants bedroom, quiet now with the walls between them and the outside. Flora noticed with sadness that it was nearly the same size as her cell, but she couldn't see where they were going to be headed next.
"What is the next castle trick?" Flora snapped at Perry as she stared around the room, her patience worn thin.
Perry at least had the decency to look ashamed as he looked at the floor at what looked to be a well-hidden grate. "This should take us most of the rest of the way out of the castle. As long as we don't run into any snakes that are too big. And as long as no more earthquakes destroy the tunnels."
It was a sewage disposal grate, if Flora guessed by the smell as the dropped into the tunnel. At least the tunnel was wide though, thought Flora as she looked at the ceilings and walls.
"It's not a sewer," Perry said, watching Flora's nose shrivel. "We do have to go through one, and with luck it will not be overflowing with the storm water when we get there."
"Then what is that smell?" Flora asked.
"We are right above the sewers. That is how the builders were able to sneak it in, there are a few cracks that cause the smell to rise, and sometimes the water, you will want to jump just up here," Perry said with a shrug of his shoulders before making a leap over a large water filled hole.
Flora had to step back to make that leap, she didn't want to miss time. She ran at it with the energy she had left and barely got across. Her back foot slid back into the liquid with a shallow splash that echoed around the tunnel but Perry steadied her on the other side.
The moment she got her balance she shook her arm to get rid of Perry's grip and stormed back down the tunnel her boots sucking to the ground with a popping slurp. Perry followed on dutifully, and the tunnel was starting to get lighter, the smell starting to get fainter. Flora was still squinting her eyes, but she instinctively knew they were getting to the end of this tunnel. She kept her voice down, talking only when needed.
A sight on the wall drew her up sharp though. "Are those drawings?" Flora asked, reaching her arm out to stroke the deep grooves on the wall. It was a picture of a child, held within the petals of an uncut flower. Once again scratched into the walls were the words Every Dawn and Every Dusk, but now there were also more words below them. Reading-
Feared Constantly. Controlled by None.
"It's a riddle," said Flora.
"Yes," Perry replied. "There are sketches all down the tunnel though, you just can't see most of them through the darkness. I haven't had time to ask what they are all about, though it must be history. At least, I think so."
She wondered how long she had stared at that small child when Perry spoke. "We have to go Flora."
"Right," she said as she followed the tunnel along, now scanning the tunnel for more drawings
Perry had to pull her forward again when she saw the exact same riddle that had been inscribed in her cell.
"Perry, what is the answer to it?" Flora asked.
Perry kept his eyes forward. "We don't have time to think about things like that Flora," he said quickly, then paused, still looking ahead. "I am sorry," he finished, before continuing on.
When they reached the end, Perry put his arm to stop Flora from approaching and pushed in front of her to push back what looked like branches of a hedge moving in the wind that was blocking the tunnel. She only caught a glance through the hedge and saw sewer footprints that were quickly fading in the rain.
"Did Dawson slip also?" She asked.
"Shockingly, he was easier to get out of this castle then you are being," Perry said back, poking his head out the tunnel as slow as she had ever seen him move. He ignored the branches hitting him in the face. "Now be quiet, I don't know what's around us. Stay close."
She was right behind him in the tunnel, and she slid behind him. Now walking on a properly manicured wet lawn as rain pelted them in the face. Flora could barely see Perry as they stayed to the shadows of the plaited hedges that Flora recognized from Lady Dells tower. She heard the whirling of something that was not rain before she saw it. She put her hands on Perry's shoulders and shoved as hard as she could the momentum causing her to slip back into the grass. An arrow sat in the ground, where she had stood but a moment before.
"Run," she heard Perry yell, and she took off back into the garden. Having no idea if Perry was following her or not, with the wind and rain battering her as she ran.
This Centuries Elemental
Flora scrambled through the garden, going straight through thorny hedges, scraping and bruising her face and she could feel the warm blood running down her cheek, mixing with the cool rain. She could also hear the crashing of bramble as people were charging behind her, and they had more knowledge of the garden.
Flora needed to get high. Find a vantage point, or go back into the castle to slip into the hidden tunnels, and so she pointed her run back into the centre of the garden maze towards the castle towers remembering that all the tall trees had been placed strategically along taller walls. She knew there would be too many guards on the wall, so there had to be a different way out of here.
The guards were so much closer when she finally reached a rough chunk of a stone tower. She put the sword in the bag and scrambled up, not caring if it cut open the bag. Halfway up she looked below her and saw the guards struggling to climb the wall below her. Their curses were faint now that she was so high. Flora smiled with relief knowing they weren't going to be catching up with her soon as they kept sliding down the wall, tumbling into each other.
She turned her eyes forward and placed one hand after another, the wind whipping at her hair, tearing it from the bun, even as it was held by her pin, and rain blurring her vision. So much so that she had to trust the feel at her fingertips over her sight, and the weather only got stronger the higher she climbed. The curses grew fainter yet and knowing she should keep moving. She slowed, resting her body that had become weak over months of near starvation, and looked back down again.
Only one guard was still there, a young one, Walt maybe. His arm shaking as he pulled back the bowstring and released. The first arrow didn't even reach her height before the wind took it and turned notch over the blade and tumbled down towards the standing guard. Her brow grew tight all the same seeing the men there. She had no fear of the him below her, she feared more the other men who had left. She assumed they knew where she was in the garden, and would soon be at the top of where ever her trail led her. So she kept on putting hand over hand and hauled herself up to an opening in the stone that she could see, hoping to beat them there.
"Found you," came a voice that made her heart stop and her feet slipped on the stone, her fingers now the only thing that held her up from the ground below as the saliva in her mouth turned to chalk.
Flora thought her fingers were going to break as she held onto the stone with everything she had, her feet scrambling again to find their purchase while the wind threatened to take her down. She could hear the scratching steps of Lord Reynald coming up along the bridge through the empty space.
She struggled for breath, as the winds continued to tear at her and her hair whipped around. She tossed the wisps of hair back, trying to manoeuvre it from her face when she could finally see Lord Reynald's face overhead. Lord Reynald grabbed her arms and pulled her back over the edge with a brute strength that she could not fight as he tossed her into the stuffed room. Her head nearly cracking against the room's back wall as crates broke her fall.
Flora scrambled to her feet, grasping for the sword's hilt inside the bag. Pulling it out as the bag fell to pieces and items strewn along the floor. She held it with two hands in front of her, but Lord Reynald moved faster. He was at her before she could swing it and the sword was sent clattering to the floor as he wrenched it from her hands. It fell off the edge of the tower, its security disappearing with it.
Lord Reynald pushed against her, creating space and brought his arm back, preparing to punch. Lord Reynald's fist landed flat against
Flora's jaw. His fist came back as he made to crack her against the jaw again when the earth shook so violently that Flora could feel the tower pitch and part of the roof came down beside them. He lost his grip and Flora pushed herself away from him, stumbling along the cluttered floor, slipping on an apple that must have fallen from the bag.
"It is you," Lord Reynald said backing up, his arms dropped to his side as stumbled with the earthquake. "It is you!" Lord Reynald said again his eyes going wide. "You are what that witch Miranda Dells has been searching for all these years, the elemental causing the earthquakes," Lord Reynald laughed, his hands spreading wide. "I brought you right to her. After all this time, finally."
Flora had her back pressed against the wall, crouched, her eyes darting to find an escape. She moved to the door into the tower's core. Her hand clasped the handle and pulled, but it was locked.
"You don't understand. I can end this all now," Lord Reynald said, picking up Flora's knife that must have fallen from her waist. "They thought you, you, could change the tide of the war, the first elemental born in centuries. I cannot believe I did not see it before... Miranda must have known, it is why she brought girls into the castle for years. With you dead, I win. Another may come back, but for this century we win."
"You are crazy," Flora said.
"You know it is true. You must," he said, the dagger finally settling in one hand. He took a step towards her. "It has been fun."
With that Flora ran at him. Hitting his chest and pushing her with him back over the edge of the tower where she had come. They tumbled through the air, and she felt Lord Reynald stab at her as the fell, but his knife missed and his grip slipped, losing the knife in the air around them. Flora pushed off of him as she saw the ground get closer.
She hit a tree, than a bush, breaking her fall as rolled fell off of it. She crawled a few feet around broken parts of the stone tower, it was as much as she could manage with the little air in her lungs.
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