He cut himself off.
“Wait—”
Sathryn looked away from him and tried not to let the tears pooling at her lids fall. Through her blurred vision, she saw Navier approach her, wrapping his warm arms around her and pulling her toward his chest. Over his shoulder, Colette looked at her, then glanced back at Julian, who stood on a patch of dirt looking guilty.
She hated him in that moment.
Colette walked over to him and crouched, pulling him down beside her. They spoke in voices too low for Sathryn to hear, so she turned her face back in toward Navier.
“He’s tense,” Navier offered. “He didn’t mean it. I don’t think he got much sleep—he was out much of the morning before much of us were awake to get food and clothes and more supplies—he’s just a bit tightly wound.”
Sathryn nodded, but she didn’t want to hear Julian’s apologies and excuses from Navier—she wanted to hear them from Julian himself.
But he and Colette were still talking.
Sathryn pulled herself from Navier and took one last look out at the Spring Festival in Kingsland, and she relished it.
Just in case she could never see it again.
Julian didn’t say anything to her until the castle was in clearer view. She couldn’t see much of what it looked like—the trees’ scaffold of branches combined with the elevation’s haziness made it too difficult to notice details—but what she could tell was its size. It rose so high up in the air that it passed the layer of low-hanging clouds and faded into a dark mist above that. And she could tell vague details about the color. It was made of light brick for the main body, but the lining and the spires sparked it with menace. The spires were great, big, pointed black things that soared from the peaks of multiple towers. The linings along windows and balconies were also dark, but the windows themselves were bright and beautiful, many of them stained in magnificent works of art.
It was when she was staring up at this, trying to forget about what Julian had said to her earlier, that Julian came up to her and spoke.
“Forgive me,” he began. “I—I was a bit . . . overwhelmed earlier. I haven’t been getting too much sleep, and I just—I felt so confident before, and now, I can’t even figure out what I’m doing here, like everything just seems so . . . hopeless. And I know that is no excuse for me saying the things I did—yelling too—especially since I know how it feels to lose—lose someone so close to you that—”
He sighed and glanced toward her. She kept looking straight ahead. “I just wanted to say that I’m sorry, and that that wasn’t me—it—well—it was me, but it was me on—on no sleep. And tension. Me—me on no sleep and plenty—of ten—tension.”
His stutter and desperate need for her to say everything was all right made her laugh a little bit. He looked at her. “Does that mean we’re okay?”
We’re. “Yes.”
He let out another sigh. “Good. I was scared I messed everything up.”
“You almost did. I was about to push you off this hill.”
“I would have let you.”
“Did Colette tell you to apologize?”
“No. She was only getting me to calm down.”
Sathryn glanced over to Colette, who had been watching them until she noticed Sathryn was looking at her; then, she turned away. Every time the wind picked up, it took Colette’s frizzy red hair with it. She looked so calm and confident that for a moment, Sathryn didn’t hate her as much. She had a feeling that wouldn’t last long.
Before she knew it, they had reached the final stretch. A field of low trees and bushes separated them from the back of the castle, but once they passed the trees, it would be time to move.
“Sit down and rest,” advised Julian as he handed them all food. Sathryn took her bag eagerly and ate as quickly as her mouth would let her. She hadn’t even realized how starving she was until she saw Julian with bags of food.
It was time to move again. Julian pulled a long sword from his bag, sheathed it, and then handed Navier his bag.
They were crouching in a thicket of trees, and through the bare, winter-scorched branches, she could see the back wall of the castle, high and looming over everything in its path. Along the wall was a row of guards—perhaps a dozen total—all looking half asleep standing up. They, like Julian, were clad in black hats, boots, and light-gray, long cloaks with long swords sheathed along the belt. Every so often, a guard would call out something—some sort of hidden code that Sathryn couldn’t decipher, and the guards would break their stance and venture farther into the bushes, looking for whatever they felt they would find. Then, the guard would call them back, and they would line back up along the wall.
“Why are there so many?” he asked, but his voice was frantic.
Sathryn was confused. “How many guards did you expect?”
He flipped the map over. “Half of this,” he said. “Six or four . . . this is too much. It throws off the plan. We can’t just sneak in anymore, the kings know we’re here—”
“Shhhh,” Colette warned. The guard closest to them perked his head up and looked around. “They wouldn’t have known we would be here. Julian, it’s okay, we can think up another plan.”
Julian looked at Sathryn. “Remember the Red Arrows—how they attacked us the night I played the harp up on stage? Maybe they told the kings we were coming, so they increased their guard force—”
Before Sathryn could answer, Colette interrupted him. “It doesn’t matter. We’re here, so let’s just figure out another plan. You already have the guard uniform on—see if you can sneak up there while they’re walking around.”
Pulling his hat farther over his head, Julian tucked his map into his cloak. He glanced over to Sathryn, and she offered him as encouraging a smile she could muster before he turned back to look at the guards. The head guard had just called out again, so they were all wandering around through the thickets of undergrowth back to the wall.
“Okay,” Julian began in a soft voice. “I’ll grab one of them once he gets close enough and silence him—choke him off for a minute—and then once their attention is drawn this way, I’ll sneak into one of the cellars.”
He pointed to the two big, wooden doors planted into the ground along the castle wall. He seemed confident again, and that, more than anything else that day—other than the Spring Festival of course—made Sathryn smile. Whenever he was nervous, it most likely meant she had good reason to be so too. To see him confident again meant she could be confident too.
“You all can use the foliage to your advantage just in case they suspect anything. Once I get the cellar doors open, I’ll distract the guards while you sneak in. Okay?”
Everyone nodded, Colette patting his back like a proud parent.
“Okay,” he muttered. A guard was approaching where they lay, but looked ready to turn back around. Sathryn snapped a stick.
Julian cursed and glared at her, but she pointed back up at the guard, who had turned back around again and was coming closer to where Julian crouched. As soon as he was close enough and hidden from view from the other sentinels, Julian launched from the underbrush and grabbed the alarmed guard, dragging him to the ground and clapping one hand over his mouth and one hand over his throat.
The guard struggled for a while, grunting under Julian’s arm and grabbing at his arms so that his golden-brown fingers lightened to yellow. Sathryn reached out and placed her hands over Julian’s hands. The guard eyed her and aimed his foot at her legs, but he missed and scuffed the ground instead.
The other men wandering in the brush heard the clamor and marched toward where they all lay, but by then, the guard below Julian had stilled. Julian grabbed one of the guard’s swords, then leapt up and circled around the underbrush and out in the open. The head guard spotted him and called out.
“Hey! Kedler, is that you? What’s back there?”
Julian, walking toward the cellar, waved his hand dismissively. “It was just a rabbit,” he said. Sathryn could almost lau
gh at how he had deepened his voice, but she was too busy watching the ten other guards advance to where she, Navier, and Colette all sat. Still shading herself with the trees, Sathryn carefully crept from her suspected position. Colette and Navier crept along behind her.
“On your right,” Navier whispered. As promised, a short, heavyset, gray-cloaked man, his hair braided back behind his head, was thrashing through the brush, his sword leading every step.
“If it was only a rabbit,” he called back to who he thought was Kedler, “why are you racing to get away?”
Navier pulled Sathryn back just as the guard’s swords slashed down right in front of her, so fast that she could feel the wind of the blade as it swooped down. He led her away from the path of the short guard until they were far enough to speak in quiet voices.
“Do you see Julian?” Colette asked.
Sathryn pointed. Julian was standing at the cellar doors, but when she peered in closer, she noticed that he was struggling more than expected to open the doors. The other guards were busying themselves in the trees and bushes, but the head guard kept splitting his attention from the foliage to Julian, eyeing him again and again.
“It looks like the door is stuck,” Sathryn muttered. He’d already cracked the lock on the doors with one of his swords—that wasn’t the problem. Despite the beginning of spring, winter had still left a trail of ice in its wake—ice that sealed the cellar’s doors shut. Julian stabbed a sword against the edges of the doors. “Ice.”
The heavy guard flaying his sword spoke again. “Kedler? Kedler! You didn’t answer my question. Why’d you run—”
Sathryn glanced back to see what had stopped him. His jaw hung open, and his eyes were bulging from their sockets.
“Hey!” he shouted out, alerting the other guards to where he stood. He pointed down at the ground, then pointed back at Julian, who was now slowly pulling the doors open, stopping to stomp or hack away more ice. “That’s not Kedler! Get that man!”
They’d found the body.
Sathryn looked at Navier, glanced over at Colette, and then ran out of the underbrush and toward Julian standing next to the half-open cellar door. She gripped the cellar door with him and, with Navier and Colette, helped him yank it back.
“Pull it harder!” Julian shouted, stabbing down at the layers of ice. Out of the corner of her eyes, Sathryn saw the guards running toward them. They were slowed by the brush, but that would only last so long.
Her heartbeat skyrocketed, and she pulled harder. She yanked back on the heavy cellar doors until her fingers burned from the pressure, and even then, she didn’t let go until the opening of the cellar was large enough to squeeze through.
Julian and Navier held the doors open so Colette and Sathryn could slide into the dark, dank cellar below, then Navier slipped down. Then, Julian, with a squadron of guards trailing just behind him and the weight of an entire wooden door falling against his strained hands, leapt down into the cellar just as the group of sentries surrounded the doors. The doors slammed closed behind him. Sathryn was lost. Everything was pitch black, and all she could hear was a clicking noise, stomps, and shouts from above.
“Julian? What’s that clicking noise?”
He responded somewhere above her. “I’m locking the doors from inside. Is everyone all right?”
From somewhere around her, Sathryn heard Navier call out, then Colette a second after. “Okay,” Julian said. “Can you all feel around the edges of the wall? There should be a torch mounted up somewhere.”
Sathryn did as he said, though she was having a bit of trouble not tripping over the miscellaneous items on the floor and cracking her skull open. Her arms were stuck straight out in front of her. When she hit the wall, she started running her hands along the bumpy surface of the—stone?—wall until she did brush over something long and tapered at one end. “I found one.”
“Me too,” said Navier from some corner of the room.
She heard a noise from above her, like someone was—or many someones were—jumping on the cellar doors, and then a grunt from Julian. “Okay—there should be a fire striker and a chunk—chunk—of steel in my bag. Use it to light the fire on your torches—” His words were cut off from his grunting. “And hurry—the men outside are trying to get in.”
Navier, who had Julian’s bag with him, lit his torch first. He was cocooned by warm light, but anywhere else, it was still too dark. The chamber was much larger than Sathryn thought. She followed his light anyway and lit her torch from his. From there, she could see all the other torches and candles mounted on the walls and hanging from the ceiling and lit them until the room was bathed in soft, golden light. Enough light to see that Julian was hanging from the ceiling, his hands clutching the curved handles of the door above him. She laughed a little bit at his legs dangling and squirming in the air and heard Julian scoff.
“Stop it,” he said, but it was joined by a lighthearted laugh of his own. Then, he pointed to his weapon bag. “There should be a rope with wire around it in my bag. Give one end to me, and tie the other end to someplace heavy—a wall, a shelf, anything. It should buy us some time.”
Navier slung one end of the rope up to Julian, who tied it on the cellar door’s handle. Sathryn tied the other end to a large shelf stretching the length of a wall. Julian leapt down from the ceiling. In the better lighting and no longer preoccupied with Julian or finding torches, Sathryn could see the room they were in was a storage area bursting with unorganized bins and shelves. Sathryn couldn’t help thinking that if the rest of the castle looked as the cellar did, she was going to be disappointed.
Navier, however, looked thrilled. “Everyone,” he called out, gesturing grandly around him. “Look! Look where we are! We’re inside the castle! We’ve done it—or at least part of it—but we have still done something! And none of us are dead!”
They laughed. For a moment, the pressure of the whole reason they were inside and the erratic, threatening thumps from above dissipated, and all that remained was joy and relief. Colette hugged Julian, but as soon as she released him, Julian made his way to Sathryn and wrapped his warm arms tight around her. She hugged him back.
“Did you ever think you would be here?” he asked.
Perhaps he meant Kingsland itself—or the castle—or in a cellar in the castle in Kingsland—either way, the answer was no. So she shook her head.
“Okay,” Julian began. He’d pulled his arms from around her. “We only have a little bit of time, so let’s get out of here.” He walked toward the door in the corner of the room.
“Wait,” Colette called out, pulling him back. “Do you even know where this door”—another large thump from the break-impending doors above—“leads?”
Julian neared a lamp and pulled his map out. “This is the second cellar, which should lead to a stairwell up to the servants’ quarters. We can meet your father there, remember?”
As they spoke, Sathryn’s eyes were drawn to something on another shelf in the far, neater corner of the chamber: a long, wooden box carrying numerous large, glass jars, each filled to the brim with red liquid and capped with a chunk of cork. She glanced over at the others, who were too wrapped up in Julian’s map and too distracted by the loud thumps above to notice her, and inched toward the bottles. Alongside them, thrown in any unfilled space in the box, were smaller, empty vials.
To Sathryn, peering closer at the full jars, the red liquid looked too much like blood to not be blood. “Um—hey—”
The others didn’t hear her. They were arguing about something—the best or worst way to get in the main castle. “Julian! Navier . . . Colette!” she added. She had to let them know it was urgent somehow. They all swerved to look at her.
“What?”
“Come here. I found something.”
Colette rolled her eyes. “We don’t have time to meddle through the kings’ things. We have to plan a course of action—”
Sathryn went right back to hating her. “It’s an important
something, so why don’t you just come over here and look to see what it is rather than standing there and arguing with everyone else,” she snapped.
Colette’s jaw fell unhinged.
Julian chuckled a bit. He was by Sathryn’s side in a heartbeat, as was Navier. Colette strolled over as if there weren’t eleven men pounding on the wooden doors outside.
Sathryn pointed to the glass containers. “Blood,” she said. “Whole jugs of it—”
“Of course it’s blood. I thought it was a well-known fact that the kings are crazy bloodhounds,” Colette sneered, “but I guess that takes a bit longer to catch on for slow-minded people.”
Sathryn was fuming, but Navier spoke before she could spew any sly words back. “Be quiet, Colette! Must you attack her over everything?” Navier hissed. His smile, usually persistent, was gone, replaced by the irritation in his eyes when he glowered at Colette.
“It isn’t blood,” Julian said. He was holding one of the jugs in his hands and swirling it around.
Sathryn pulled her eyes from Colette and looked back at Julian and the container. “What do you mean, it isn’t blood? What is it then?”
“I don’t know, but it isn’t blood.” He held the jug up higher and swished the contents again. “Do you see how it moves? Way too thick to be blood.”
“Maybe it is aged,” Navier suggested. “Blood coagulates when it ages—that would thicken it.”
“It would also darken it.” Julian frowned. “Definitely isn’t blood.” His hand reached for the cork, but Sathryn grabbed his wrist.
“Wait! Don’t open it! What if it’s poison—toxic?”
Embers of Empire Page 18
