The Fallen (Hades Castle Trilogy Book 1)

by C. N. Crawford

I stared back at the cold perfection of his face. High, broad cheekbones. Forlorn gray eyes framed by midnight lashes. Angel of Death. My entire body went cold and hot at the same time, heart slamming hard against my ribs. His unearthly beauty made me want to fall to my knees, to worship him.

  I pulled myself away from his gaze, and crept on through the darkness.

  As I walked, I checked every fleck of light, every crack in the wall until I finally found my room. And to the right of the cracks in the wall was a wooden door. When I turned the knob and opened it, I found that it led into the wardrobe—which was now open, with all the clothes pulled out, strewn on the stone floor.

  I hadn’t left it that way.

  I crawled through the wardrobe, shutting the secret passage behind me.

  The entire room had been ransacked. Clothes on the floor, sheets pulled off, tablecloth in disarray. An unopened bottle of wine lay on the floor.

  I’d have to come up with some explanation for where the fuck I’d been while I wasn’t in here. Slowly, my mind started to form a plan. Pretending to be an idiot had gotten me out of many difficult situations in the past. No reason why it should fail me now.

  I snatched the wine off the ground and uncorked it. I drank as much as I could stomach, chugging it down. Then, I went back through the wardrobe. In the dark passage, I dumped more wine onto the floor, leaving only a tiny amount. I crossed back into the room.

  Although soldiers had pulled off most of the blankets, I doubted they’d checked that little crevice between the bed and the wall. The one where perhaps I nearly suffocated in a drunken stupor.

  I poured a little bit of the wine on myself for extra realism, then I stumbled toward the door, getting into character already. When I flung it open, I found twelve soldiers standing before it.

  All of them drew their swords.

  I rubbed my eyes, blinking innocently at them. "What's all the fuss about, then?" I swayed on my feet, drinking the last dregs of the wine. “I tell you what, I woke up with the most lethal headache. The two guards you lot stationed out here got me proper pissed on wine. Fell half off my bed, stuck between the mattress and the wall. Ridiculous.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “Still feel a bit nauseous.” I made the most revolting retching sound possible, and watched out of the corner of my eye as the soldiers started to back away.

  I turned, rushing back into the room, and slammed the door behind me. Then I jammed my fingers into the back of my throat. I’d never done this before, and it was bloody harder than I’d imagined. I gagged for ages, until at last the wine I’d just chugged came rushing up again, splattering all over the floor.

  The guards opened the door to find me standing over a pile of wine-vomit, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth.

  Disgusting.

  The guards stepped out of the room, visibly repelled by me.

  But the real danger wasn’t over.

  Because of what I learned tonight, I realized I could be murdered at any moment—just like the servants.

  22

  Samael

  I could have sworn I felt her there, just on the other side of the wall. Her presence had a strange magnetic pull to me that I couldn’t explain, like a black hole pulling me into her orbit.

  The two guards had been discovered unconscious outside her room. And when her quarters were searched, she was gone. She’d only been here one day, and already the entire palace was in chaos.

  I loathed chaos.

  I paced the floor, my thoughts roiling like storm clouds. My room occupied one corner of an enormous library, partially walled off. Normally, it was my refuge—the bed and hearth, the books stacked around me. My teakettle. But tonight, chaos reigned in my mind.

  Once, I’d commanded an army of angels. Asmodai had gleamed with the blood of my demon enemies, or the cruelest men.

  And now a little mortal had turned my world upside down in a matter of hours. It would be hard to justify to the soldiers why she was here in the first place. Only Sourial valued my dreams.

  When I closed my eyes, I felt like I was plummeting, disoriented. That ancient memory roared in my mind—the fall from the heavens, wind whipping over me. Wings that would no longer carry me, and that gnawing emptiness that ate at the inside of my chest, confusion. I smelled the scent of burning bodies, heard the screams, her voice screaming for me.

  My eyes snapped open. If I slept, maybe the dreams would guide me again, but I feared only nightmares awaited me.

  Had Zahra been playing me this entire time? She was lying about something. But the worst thing about her was that for some reason, her image had invaded my mind, like poison ivy growing inside the walls of my skull.

  For a moment, I thought of her bent over my desk, the hem of her skirt lifted… My heart started racing.

  Why? I was never interested in mortal women. Once, I’d felt something like love. But the woman was not remotely mortal. No, she’d been a creature of darkness and chaos. And what I’d felt for her had been something like madness.

  I’d learned my lesson then. Death was my companion.

  I crossed to the copper tub and filled it with hot water, then peeled off my clothes. I sank into it, and steam coiled off my overheated body.

  Tomorrow, whether or not Zahra was joining me, I would spy on the Free Men.

  “Samael?” Sourial’s voice echoed out from the other end of the hall.

  “In the bath.” I called out.

  “They found her drunk in her room,” he shouted. “It seems they missed her in their search. She stank of wine.”

  At that I felt my chest unclenching. Good.

  I heard the door close again, and I slipped deeper into the water, one last dip under the steaming surface. Then I rose from the bath, and dried myself off.

  But even if Zahra was found, my mind still wouldn’t rest. Perhaps a visit to the aviary was in order, then. I pulled on my cloak, and lifted the hood over my head. I started the long march through the castle.

  When we’d arrived in Dovren, slaughtered the king and locked the royals in the dungeons, we found six captive ravens here. Now, they were one of the few things that brought me a sense of peace.

  Albians viewed the ravens as symbols of their country. Many other mortals saw them as omens of death. Winged and forbidding, people thought of them as cold, stark, loveless. Creatures of shadow and darkness, harbingers of doom.

  But I understood their hearts.

  They needed the company of others. They craved warmth, companionship. They yearned for closeness, nestled up close to each other in their cages at night. In their quiet moments, they cooed and soothed each other. I felt fiercely protective of them.

  Their wings had been clipped when I found them—a practice I abhorred. Like me, I thought they must dream of their true purpose—one long since lost to them. They must dream of soaring through the heavens, the wind whipping against their feathers.

  I’d created their very own courtyard for them—the court of ravens. They sunned themselves on the grass, and spoke to each other in a language of clicks. I’d tried to learn it, calling them to me with the same sounds. Ravenish, I called it. I was still learning it, getting better day by day. When I was High King, I’d have a whole castle of ravens, but I’d let them fly free as they wanted.

  I stalked through the halls, pausing for a moment at Zahra’s door. I pressed my ear against it, listening for sounds of her moving around.

  I heard only silence.

  I kept moving, thinking of my six feathered companions. I’d had no idea what the birds’ names were when I killed the king, so I’d come up with my own—Eden, Soolam, Za'am, Esh, Nahash, Aryeh.

  Before she fell asleep, Aryeh liked to perch on my shoulder and squawk her Ravenish language in my ear.

  The ravens—and Sourial—were all the companionship I needed. And that meant I must put all thoughts of Zahra out of my mind. Otherwise, I was at risk of losing control again, of letting my true face emerge. And then, who knew what might happen?


  23

  Lila

  It must be nearly dawn, but there was still no way I could sleep. The storm still raged outside, rain punishing the glass. My mind simmered with panic. Somewhere in this castle lurked the man who’d probably slaughtered my sister.

  Dressed in nothing but a thin, white nightgown, I crossed to the window once more. I unlatched it and leaned my head out into the rain.

  Quietly, I started cooing for the crow, making the clucking noises—just like Finn had taught me. I waited until I heard a quiet squawk coming, then the fluttering of wings. I held out my hands as I watched Ludd soaring closer through the rain. He landed on my wrist, and I pulled another tiny note from his feet. As soon as he flew away, I closed the window.

  When I unrolled this message, it seemed even worse than the last one. This picture showed a series of women with their throats cut. He’d used black pen for contouring and shading, but then added bright red for blood. The raindrops on the note had added an unintentional effect of blood running and pooling all over the page.

  Above the massacred women, he’d drawn beautifully rendered angel wings, and a crown above the wings. An angel was massacring women in Dovren. An angel had killed the servants—an angel with a crown. Samael, the usurper king.

  And on the back, I found another picture. It was a beautifully rendered portrait of me—driving a sword through another pair of angel wings. This time, the crown lay on the ground in a pool of blood.

  I inspected the letter and found Finn's signature raven on the bottom. With a lump in my throat, I crushed the macabre drawing in my fist. The message was clear. Samael had murdered the servants, and I was supposed to exact revenge on him.

  I crossed to the fireplace and threw the drawing in, watching as it burned.

  More than anything, I wanted to talk to Finn in person. I wanted to know what else he knew. Had he heard about Alice specifically? Did he know if she’d died? I rushed to find my cloak.

  Not only did I have questions to ask Finn, but I wanted to get a message to the Free Men. Someone needed to warn them.

  For the second time that night, I snuck through the dark passage. I wasn't going to wait another day, for the angels to get the upper hand. And soon, I was sure, the sun would be rising.

  I’d find Finn at the music hall. He’d be able to get a message to the Free Men, find out more about the servants. With my cloak wrapped around me, once again I found myself sneaking through the armory in the cover of night. This time, I found it dark and quiet. I pulled open the window at the far end, and started climbing down the wall. Still bloody raining, making it hard to keep my grip. But when I was about six feet from the ground, I just let go, and I landed in the soft grass. Already, the stormy skies were brightening just a little as the sun started to rise.

  With rain pouring down on me, I made my way to the first wall—the one with open arches that would let me pass through. To get out of here without anyone noticing, I’d need to scale the outer wall.

  Skulking through the grass, I pulled my cloak tighter. Through the open arch, I looked behind me at the castle looming over the hill. Lights flickered in some of the windows.

  I turned back to the outer wall, gazing up at it soaring into the sky. Then I started sliding my fingers into the little cracks of rock, gritting my teeth because the stones were slippery in the rain.

  But before I could get off the ground, my heart skipped a beat, and my breath went still. It was as if my body knew something was wrong before my mind did. And then I realized what it was.

  The smell of iron and sweet fruit coming up from behind me, and a dark magic skimming over the ground, up the stones.

  My body froze as I heard the sound of soft footfalls in the grass.

  When I turned my head to look, I saw the faintest outline of a cloaked figure stalking toward me. I recognized his precise, swift gait right away. His movements suggested a restrained violence.

  I’d never make it up the wall far enough. And besides, he’d probably just bust out with a set of wings. So I turned to face him, meeting his gray eyes.

  For a moment, my mind simply went blank as I looked up into his shadowed face. A line formed between his dark eyebrows. He looked ... perplexed. I felt a rush of his electrical power heating me up.

  As he reached behind my head, I shuddered. He pulled down the hood of my cloak. Cold rain hit my face, and my breath shallowed.

  His expression was one of confusion, but I felt he was judging me, weighing me, deciding if I was worthy.

  The icy rain slid down my skin. When lightning rent the sky behind me, I caught a flash of his sharp cheekbones, the long black eyelashes.

  What the fuck was he doing out here anyway? Why was he out prowling the courtyards just before dawn?

  "Didn't I tell you not to betray me?" His voice sounded cold and distant.

  “I was scared," I said. "I'd heard rumors that you killed some of the women who worked for you. I was worried you would do the same to me. I thought maybe I’d made you angry with everything that happened tonight. So I thought it best to leave.”

  Another flicker of confusion in his eyes. Like he couldn’t quite read me.

  “I don't care that you were drunk." His voice was a low knell that trembled through my body. “But I do care if you betray me.”

  “But how am I supposed to trust you?”

  He frowned. “You don’t need to trust me. You fear me. That should be enough.”

  And he was right—I was afraid of him. It was instinct. So how the hell was I supposed to seduce him?

  Samael was hard for me to read, too. But stalking the courtyard at night suggested to me an unquiet mind, maybe even loneliness. Maybe that was a starting point.

  I widened my eyes and hugged myself. “I was afraid my room was haunted. I heard about those two little princes that were killed by a mad king long ago. And I'm positive that I heard them screaming, and saw their ghosts in my room. I woke up and I saw the big blue eyes of two little blonde children dressed in black, staring at me mournfully, and their necks were covered in blood.” I was starting to get so into the macabre story that I forgot how this was connected to any sort of seduction.

  He cocked his head. “You had a vivid dream?"

  I shrugged, and touched his shoulder for a moment, looking up at him. I thought he flinched at the contact.

  “Well, I don't know if it was a dream or real life,” I said. “But all I know is that room is haunted. And maybe if I'm going to sleep, I could sleep in your room. You seem like you could keep me safe from ghosts.”

  “Ghosts don't exist. And even if they did, they’re not who you should fear.” He let the threat hang in the air.

  “Well, I believe in them.” And I did, sort of. After all, I felt the Raven King’s spirit here. “Lots of Albians believe in them. And they can drive you totally mad. So I think I’d be better in your room. And don’t you ever feel lonely?”

  His brow furrowed. “No.”

  “I’m not sure I believe you.” Strangely, that was the truth.

  He slid away from me. “You could fulfill an important role at some point, Zahra. So perhaps I want to personally keep a close eye on you. You will stay in my room from now on.”

  Permanently?

  He turned away from me, disappearing into the shadows. “Come with me, then.”

  24

  Lila

  I was completely soaked by the time we reached the Ivory Hall—the grand corridor just before his room, that I’d glimpsed through a crack in the wall. As we crossed into it, I looked up at the ceiling, gasping. At some point, probably long ago, masons had carved the pale stone to look like spindly flower petals fanning out from sharp-vaulted peaks. And the stone itself was ivory like bone. The effect was beautiful, but thorny and sinister, like we were inside the skeleton of an ancient beast.

  Staring at the ceiling, I nearly missed the rest of the hall—the narrow, multi-paned windows that stretched up the ceiling, and the wooden doors be
neath each of them. I wanted to know where each one of those doors led. Beneath my feet, the flagstones had words written on them, like graves. Maybe they were.

  I felt magic tingling over my skin, and I was sure this was a place of ancient power. Like a hall built for the Blessed Raven King.

  Samael was leading me to the enormous oak door at the far end of the hall, up a set of stairs. And when he opened the door, we stepped into a library fit for a king. His living quarters were the size of a cathedral, and full from top to bottom with books, the colorful spines faded with age.

  Two floors of books lined every wall, with ladders and brassy spiral staircases connecting them. The ceiling curved high above us, painted a deep blue and adorned with paintings of snakes and ravens and stars. Magic.

  Knowledge was power. And Samael, the greedy fucker, was hoarding it all for himself.

  At the far end of the room, stone arches and columns separated another space that looked like a smaller bedroom within the library.

  He stalked through the arches, and I followed.

  As I stood in the doorway to his bedroom, directly across from me was a hearth, flanked by two velvet armchairs, and a sofa to the right. An ornately carved mantel had nothing on it but a copper kettle. Further to the right, through stone arches, I spotted a small bathroom with a round, copper tub.

  To my left, a large bed was nestled between bookshelves, with more shelves arching over it.

  God, this place was amazing. Apart from the murderous angel who also inhabited it, I never wanted to leave.

  Samael pulled a book from a shelf and dropped into a chair by the fireplace. I had the feeling that he did that every night, and it suddenly felt strangely domestic in here. He even had two little ceramic mugs on a bedside table, as if he were a normal person and not a murdering death god.

  He didn’t look at me. “You didn’t sleep much. Sleep on the sofa.”