by Kaylin Lee
“Traitor!”
“Get her!”
But the Argentarius supporters shielded us as we pushed toward the gates.
Belle showed no sign of fear, remaining ice cold and imperious, as though the commoners who jostled against her were too far beneath her to notice.
At the end, we were pressed up against the palace gates. The crowd surged behind us and the iron bars of the gate dug painfully into my chest. We had to get through soon, or the mob would crush us even if the Falconus supporters didn’t find us first. Belle called out to the guards standing several feet from the gate. “Hello, there! Fellows! I’ve a matter to discuss with the prince. Might I and my maid enter the gates?”
A guard took one hesitant step forward, sweat beading on his upper lip. With his closely shorn hair and nervous eyes, he looked younger than either of us. “And who are you?”
“Lady Belle Argentarius,” she said, as though announcing that he’d won a pot of gold marks. “Let us in, and I’ll explain.”
“We … we’re not supposed to open the gates for anyone,” he said shakily.
From my profile view I could see Belle clench her jaw, but she maintained a stately smile for the guard. “I’m sure His Majesty is grateful for your loyal and faithful service. However, he may not take too kindly to you turning away a Procus lady, especially in a … well, a scene like this.”
The guard looked around. His fellow squadron members shrugged at him, seeming more worried about the growing mob than the lady at the gate. “Fine, then,” he said. “Inside, and be quick about it.” He swallowed and glanced at her. “That is, if you please, my lady.”
He unlocked the gate and opened it the slightest crack, and Belle grabbed me by the hand as the weight of the crowd pressed us through. We fell in a pile of skirts as the guard shoved a few commoners back and slammed the gate in their faces, locking it again with shaking hands. I got to my feet and helped Belle to hers, and we looked around. We’d made it this far. Now we had to convince someone to let us see the prince.
“What are you idiots doing?” A red-faced guard charged out of the nearest entrance to the palace.
The guard who had let us in swore under his breath, and then stood straight, his feet together. “Sir. The lady … ah, Procus Lady Belle Argentarius, she said she needed to see His Majesty.”
The red-faced man halted a few inches from the young guard’s face. “And exactly what part of ‘let no one in’ did you find it difficult to grasp?”
“N-n-no part, sir.” The guard’s eyes flickered to us. “Should I …?”
“Get them out of here, you imbecile.” The man in charge took a moment to glare at us before he about-faced to march back to the palace.
“Wait!” Belle glanced at me. “My maid … she has information for the prince.” She prodded me.
But I was frozen. I had no idea what to do.
The man stepped forward with a frown on his face. “What kind of information?”
“About the assassin,” I said, my voice raspy.
He smirked at me. “We know where she is, sweetheart. Quarter Guards will bring her in any minute now.” He nodded to the guard. “Get rid of them.”
He was leaving.
I looked at Belle and swallowed. If we went back into that mob, we’d never get this close again. We’d be lucky if we survived it a second time. This was my only chance. “It’s me.” The words came out thick and dry, practically a whisper. The young guard eyed me strangely, but the other man kept walking. I cleared my throat. “It’s me!”
He returned, skepticism coloring his face.
“I’m the girl you’ve been looking for. Me. I’m here.”
There was an awkward pause, and then the young guard dove at me. The next thing I knew, my face was pressed against the stones on the ground as he twisted my arms behind my back.
I gasped at the pain. “I’m here to help,” I said. “Yes, I was there, but I wasn’t trying to assassinate the prince. I know who is. I’m here to help, I swear it. Please, just let me talk to the prince!”
Someone wrapped something around my hands, fixing them behind my back, and then the older guard hauled me to my feet with a bruising grip. “A traitor like you, see the prince? You’ll be lucky if we wait until tomorrow morning to execute you.”
He yanked me toward the palace, and I wrenched my head around to look for Belle. The young guard was pulling her back toward the gate. She tried to pull her arm from his grip, but was rewarded with a stronger yank that nearly brought her to her knees. “Belle! Wait, please! Let her stay inside, it’s not safe out there!”
“Get her out of here,” said the guard holding me.
I tried to pull back but he shoved me forward, and I fell to the ground. As he hauled me to my feet, the younger guard opened the gate and pushed Belle through the opening. The last thing I saw before the mob swallowed her was the look of horror on Belle’s face, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a silent scream.
Chapter 22
I landed hard on my knees on the ice-cold stone floor of the cell before I lost my balance and fell on my shoulder. My arms were still bound behind me so I couldn’t catch myself. The door slammed shut with a clang, and my captors left me.
As the guards had dragged me inside to the top of a flight of stairs, I’d cried, screamed, and begged to be taken to the prince. I’d told them the Blight was planning to move against the prince. They’d silenced me with a heavy cuff on my head, and I’d cowered, numb with shock, as they dragged me down the stairway and into the dim dungeon, lit by a single luminous on the ceiling.
I lay on my side in the cell, my cheek pressed against the horrible-smelling straw, and squeezed my eyes shut against the vision of Belle’s last moments. She was one more person lost because of my failure. One more person who had paid the price because I couldn’t fix this mess. But what else was I supposed to do? And I would be the next one to pay.
The heavy thump of footsteps grew louder as someone approached my cell, and I knew it was time. They would execute me, and the knowledge of the Blight’s location and of Zel’s dangerous power would be lost with me.
I’d failed everyone. Not just Zel and her daughters. Not just Weslan and Belle. I’d failed the whole city. Perhaps it would be better this way. I wouldn’t have to see the ugly future that my failure had brought about.
The door swung open, and I struggled to a sitting position, forcing my wobbly legs to stand. A tall, heavily muscled guard in a black uniform stood in the doorway, staring at me with an inscrutable expression on his face. I’d never seen a uniform like his before. Older than the other guards, he had a scruffy beard along his jaw and a suntan on his cheeks.
I squared my shoulders as best I could and looked him in the eye. If he worked for the Palace Guard, he’d execute me soon enough. If he was the Blight’s man, he’d seize the chance to kill me now. But I was dead either way, so what did it matter who did the job?
I had failed everyone else, but at least now, in my last moments, I could be brave. If only I could be sure he wasn’t in the Blight’s employ. But I had to try. “Before you kill me, I beg you, please send a guard to an abandoned warehouse in the River Quarter. You’ll find the Crimson Blight’s headquarters and a woman they plan to use as a weapon against the prince.” My voice shook, but I’d said the words. I’d tried.
The new guard only watched me.
“The woman is my stepmother, Zel Stone, and she is an unregistered absorbent mage with the Touch. They also have her two twin daughters, who are mages as well, and another mage, Weslan Fortis, held captive.”
At the sound of Zel’s name, he flinched. At the mention of Bri, Alba, and Weslan, his shoulders bunched up for a moment and his brow tensed as though he were in pain.
What did that mean? “I believe the Blight’s leader is a mage, and most of those working with him are mages. They plan to end Fenra rule in Asylia and return the mages to power. Please, I know you’re going to kill me, but this is bigger than me.
You have to stop them!”
He pressed a hand against his forehead, staring at me so intently I wondered if he was seeing me or something else. After a beat of silence, he snapped into action and stepped inside the cell with me.
I flinched backward, but where could I go?
He grabbed my arm and leaned close to my ear. “Not another word of that until we get to the prince,” he whispered. “Play along with whatever I say.”
He hauled me out of the cell, his grip tight on my arm, and dragged me back down the hallway to a point where two uniformed guards stood at attention. “We need answers out of this one. Taking her to the Sentinels for interrogation.”
One of the two guards, the red-faced man who had ordered the younger guard to throw Belle to the mob, frowned and opened his mouth, but the guard holding me cut him off. “I know you’ve got your own tools, Lupus, you blood-thirsty rat.” He squeezed my arm so tightly I knew it would leave a bruise. Of course, that was the least of my worries now. “Let’s just say we’ve got better ones.”
I didn’t have to fake the terrified wail that came out of my mouth at his words. Was he one of the Blight’s men, trying to get me away from the real guards so he could kill me? Would he torture me?
Lupus glared at us before he followed us up the stairs in silence. At the top of the stairs, he stopped and watched us go.
The guard holding me led me down a long, empty passage and then another one before he stopped. He looked over his shoulder and then opened a small closet that held only a shelf with folded cleaning rags and a large broom. “In here.” He gave me a quick shove inside and shut the door behind us. The room went dark.
I felt his arm reach around me, and I hastily stepped backward, hitting the side of the closet.
He opened a door in the back wall. “This way.” He ducked through the small door and paused in the doorway, the dim light coming from further down a hidden passageway. “You’re safe,” he said. “At least, for now. Come with me.”
Feeling woozy, I swayed for a moment before following him through the door and into the narrow passageway. I stayed close behind his back and stumbled along in the dim light, my balance thrown off by the tie that still bound my hands behind me. We walked in the near darkness for several minutes, twisting and turning, going down narrow staircases until I couldn’t have said which way was which.
He stopped and tapped on something.
Bright light flooded the passageway, blinding my eyes. Panic built in my stomach again. His tall, broad form blocked the light for a moment as he stepped through the doorway. And then, wondering if I was walking into my own execution after all, I followed him.
The room was well lit, but small and cramped. It held only a large wooden desk, piled with papers, and a faded couch with a man reclining upon it.
“Your Highness,” said the guard beside me. He knelt on the ground and bowed his head.
I gaped at him and then dove to the floor, copying his pose. It was no easy feat with my hands still tied behind my back. That man on the couch was Prince Estevan? What was he doing here?
“Rise,” came a tired-sounding voice. Where was the cold, arrogant voice from the night before? I rose slowly, eyeing the prince. A clean, white bandage covered his side, but the couch where he lay was stained with blood. His face was pale and drawn, his hair stringy with sweat. “What is this, Darien? Is this the girl?” He coughed roughly and then groaned, his hand hovering over his side. “Doesn’t look like her.”
“Your Highness, this is the one accused of being involved with the attack on your life last night. She's also the girl who gave you that proposal.”
And the prince’s haggard face lit with the slightest of smiles. He lifted a small sheet of paper crumpled in his fist.
My proposal. It looked like I’d gotten his attention after all, for what it was worth.
Darien nudged me. “Speak, girl. Tell him what you told me.”
“Your Highness, I am so sorry … I didn’t know that someone was seeking to take your life. When I sought you out on the balcony, I thought only to give you my note and beg you to consider changing the regulation on mages. When I heard the commotion as I was walking away, I knew something had happened, and I was worried I’d be wrongly blamed for it. I ran home. But the trackers found my home. Instead of arresting me, they called for all the girls my age to come in for questioning.”
I shivered. “At the time, I thought they had simply tracked me to my street but didn’t know which house I was in. My two stepsisters—”
My voice broke at the word, but I kept going. “My stepsisters went outside to protect me, even though they are only thirteen, and obviously far too young to be mistaken for me. A tracker took them away, but instead of going to the Quarter Guard station, he took them to the Crimson Blight.” I glanced up at the prince.
His eyes were on me, but his face was indecipherable. He waved a weak hand for me to continue.
“My stepsisters were kidnapped by the Blight for a reason, Your Highness.” I glanced warily at the guard, but he nodded at me. “They were taken because their mother, my stepmother, Zel, is an unregistered mage. She has the Touch.”
The prince glanced from me to the guard beside me. “I’m guessing she’s the one?”
Darien only grunted and prodded me to keep going.
“Um, yes, Zel has the Touch, Your Highness,” I went on. “But I promise you, she is the gentlest, kindest woman I’ve ever known. In Draicia, she was forced through her True Name to work as an assassin. But she escaped, and she has been in Asylia for thirteen years, caring for her daughters, harming no one. No one!”
I was babbling, but I couldn’t seem to stop. Never, in all my worry-filled nightmares about exposing Zel’s secret, had I imagined spilling it to the crown prince himself. “I’m telling you, she never—”
Darien folded his arms across his chest. “Tell him what you said about the Blight.”
“The Blight. Well, not an hour after the twins were taken, someone came to our bakery with proof that they had the girls, so Zel had to go with them to get her daughters back. She told me to stay home, but I followed her.” I swallowed, feeling guilty.
I couldn’t risk telling them the truth about Weslan’s True Name and digging myself any deeper. “I followed them to an abandoned warehouse in the River Quarter. And while I was there, I overheard two of the Blight’s men talking. Both were mages. I recognized one as the tracker who arrested my stepsisters. I’d seen him before at Theros Street Market. There was a quarter guard too. They were saying that since they had Zel, they would be able to make their move any hour now. They said they couldn’t wait to get rid of the Fenra.”
I took a deep breath and met his eyes. “Your Highness, I believe the Crimson Blight is made up of mages with people in the government, including trackers and quarter guards, under their employ. They are planning to overthrow the Fenra and bring Asylia under their rule.”
I gasped as a thought struck me. What about Belle? I’d been so wrapped up in my own impending death, I’d forgotten about hers. “The Blight’s attacks seemed random to me, but my friend … well, my classmate, Belle, believes they have chosen specific targets to convince the Argentarius clan and the Falconus family to go to war against each other. If they destroy each other, the mage authority structure will collapse. She said the Blight tried to kill you last night, Your Highness, but her father and Lord Falconus each thought the other was behind it. In fact, Lady Belle Argentarius, she was with me when—”
“She’s fine,” said the prince, with another wave of his hand. “They stopped the fighting. She’s home safe.”
I sagged with relief. Belle was fine. Maybe there was hope for the others who hung in the balance because of me. “Your Majesty, please, if you send guards to the warehouse, you could rescue Zel and her daughters and the other mage, Weslan. You could stop the Blight from making their move, and no more lives need be lost—”
He broke out into another painful-sounding coug
h, cutting me off. After a moment, he lifted himself up into a reclined sitting position against the side of the couch. I expected Darien to go to him and help, but he remained by my side. The prince stared at me with that piercing gaze, and though his face was slick with sweat and tight with pain, the arrogant, cold man from the other night was visible enough. “Let me be sure I’ve got this right. You’ve been harboring an unregistered mage with the Touch, a known murderer and assassin from Draicia, for thirteen years.”
He held up one finger as if to keep count. “And she has two daughters”—his eyes flicked to the guard and back to me—“who are most likely mages as well. All three of them have been hiding, unregistered, for over a decade in my city, thanks to you.
“There’s also the other mage you’ve been sheltering, a Weslan Fortis, who is apparently far more powerful than he ever let on until now.” Three fingers.
“Then there’s the bakery stand you’ve been running which profits daily from illicit use of magic in almost every aspect of its operation.” Four fingers.
“And the fact that you snuck into my selection ball, which commoners are not allowed to attend, caught me alone, and handed me a supposedly anonymous proposal to free my most powerful enemies, a proposal that many in this city would consider outright treason. A proposal that has involved secret collaboration with other merchants who should have known better.” His balled his fist and rested it on his knee.
I felt as though I’d sink right through the floor.
He watched me with an icy gaze as he spoke, “And there’s more, isn’t there? You distracted me—knowingly or not—enough that an assassin’s knife found its target in my back for the first time in years. When my guards would have arrested you, you resisted and ran. And then you came to the palace gates, demanding to see me, and nearly got a young Procus lady killed in the process. I’m starting to think you’re running a dangerous rebellion of your own, Cinderella.”
