“There will never be a conflict, Your Highness. I shall return.” With that Juliette slipped out the door and closed it behind her.
Carys moved to the door and waited several long seconds before turning the handle and opening the door a crack so she could listen to the sound of Juliette’s footsteps as the maid hurried down the hall. Juliette giggled at something one of the guards said. Then she let out a small shout. A few moments later, Carys pushed open the door. She could hear the guards, but they weren’t in sight as Carys slipped out of her rooms and hurried to meet her brother at the place they had always gone to when they needed to be alone.
Years ago, Andreus had discovered a door behind a large tapestry in the now unused nursery at the very end of the hall next to Micah’s rooms. The wall hanging was two hundred years old, reached from the ceiling to the floor, and covered three-quarters of the wall. Iron masonry nails fixed the corners of the woven scene of the mountains beyond the castle. All around the mountains were swirling clouds and trees bending beneath the force of the wind. In the center of the biggest gust of wind was a broken crown. From what she could tell, no one knew how long the tapestry had been hanging in the room, or why an artisan created it, but it had been long enough that no one seemed to remember the door it concealed. She wouldn’t have known it was there had Andreus not discovered the hidden entrance while trying to hide behind the tapestry when he was little. Whoever had hidden the entrance had done so long before she was born—long before her father was King.
Carys was relieved to see no guards were stationed in the nursery hallway. Captain Monteros must have decided there was no reason to use his men in an area where no one currently lived. Good. That meant there were no eyes to see her as she hurried into the nursery, shifted the heavy wall hanging, and slipped behind it into the darkness beyond.
An oil lamp and flint to light it were waiting on a small table Andreus had found. Striking one of her stilettos against the flint, Carys lit the lamp, lifted it to the hook in the middle of the small room, and studied the space as she waited for her brother to arrive.
How long had it been since they had come here? The last time she had been here was two years ago when Andreus insisted she try to break herself of the Tears of Midnight that had wrapped her in their seductive grip. He’d taken her into the tunnels below the castle and there she’d fought and screamed and sweated and clawed and shook so hard that Andreus was scared she’d die.
It was fear for her that pushed Andreus into giving her just the small sip that Carys begged for. Just enough to make the worst of the shaking stop and keep her stomach from cramping in a way that made her wish someone would kill her. She’d promised Andreus that she’d take a little less every day until she no longer needed the drug. She’d gotten close so many times to breaking free of the drug’s grasp, but there was always a reason to give it another day. A ball to attend. Micah pushing Andreus to take a turn on the guard’s practice field. Her mother reminding Carys that it was her responsibility to protect her brother’s secret no matter the cost.
Carys walked to the center of the room, pulled up the rug, and stared down at the trapdoor beneath, wishing all the usable exits to the tunnels hadn’t been sealed. As children she and Andreus had used the tunnels to practice his guard drills with the sword and the bow and her with the knife. He hated how she could hit the targets dead center, one after another, while he lost his breath. Day by day, though, week by week, he got stronger and they had to look for longer corridors to set up their targets. By the time they were ten, Carys knew the tunnels below the castle as well as she knew the hallways above.
All but one of the uneven, dirt-packed corridors that ran under the castle ended at piles of boulders and rubble that stood from the floor to the ceiling. The one that didn’t led to a ledge on the southern side of the plateau. From there it was an almost sheer drop to the ground. Andreus often wondered if it was the previous ruling family who had sealed the tunnels to ward off the forces wishing to take their crown and if that one lone exit was the path the surviving Bastians took when they escaped the night the rest were slaughtered. But unless they knew how to fly, Carys couldn’t see how they got to the ground. There must be another unseen way out of the castle. Too bad Carys had no idea where that was because very soon they might need it.
Carys began to pace as she waited for Andreus. Could he have said something to the Council of Elders that made them detain him? Could he have had another attack without a chance to take the remedy?
Worry had her heading for the door as the knob turned and Andreus strode in. The tapestry settled as he closed the door behind him and then several seconds passed as they both waited—listening as they always did for any sound that indicated someone had followed.
All was silent. Andreus opened his arms and Carys rushed into them. “I was afraid something had happened to you.”
“I had to take the long way to get here. The guards and the Council of Elders’ pages are wandering the halls more than usual.”
Her brother hugged her gently, careful of her wounds, and she pressed her ear to his chest to listen to his heart. It beat fast but steady. At least that was something to be grateful for.
“Carys,” he said, pulling back to look at her. “What are we going to do? I can’t take part in the Trials. If I do—”
“I know,” she said. “And if we refuse, Garret will be named King. Our family will be seen as a threat to his rule.”
“We’ll end up like the Bastians.”
“The only answer is for us to leave. We have to get Mother and get out of Garden City before first light.”
“Go? To where?”
“I don’t know. Somewhere no one is looking to remove our heads? If we ride to the west eventually we’ll reach the Fire Sea. We can get a boat and sail to Calibas.”
“We’ll be lucky to get out of the castle without anyone seeing the two of us. There’s no way we’ll be able to move Mother without detection. And even if we could, what then? Outride the guard when they discover we’ve gone? If we drug Mother unconscious to keep her quiet, she’ll be dead weight. If not, she’ll be trying to ride toward the mountains and the Xhelozi that have already woken for the cold season.”
“Does it matter?” she asked. “We’ll be alive.”
“You will. What about me? Wherever we go, there won’t be Madame Jillian.”
Gods. She hadn’t thought about Madame Jillian and the remedy she created at the Queen’s directive. The Queen claimed Oben suffered from chest pains, shortness of breath, and prickly weakness in his limbs. She ordered the healer to create the remedy that Andreus had used for years. Andreus always had enough to see him through several weeks, but what then? Who knew if they could find another healer or one nearly as skilled?