Chapter 40 #2
“We need to find another way. Lucky for you, this is my thing. Breaking and entering comes a lot easier to me than prancing about like a count.”
“Oh, I’d love to see you work,” she cooed, and I scoffed.
I’d hardly call thieving work, but then again maybe she was right; it was how I’d earned a living for most of my life, and though I didn’t pay taxes on my income for it, that had only made it all the more profitable for me.
That said…Egos’s cut had always been far greater than any tax ever would have been, so maybe it wasn’t that amazing for me after all.
“Come on then.” I turned and hurried back the way we’d come, ignoring the sounds of screams which swept in from the closest windows. I knocked on the walls as I went, hunting for something I was almost certain would be here.
I cursed as I failed to locate anything other than solid stone for several minutes, seeking out any sign of a hidden passage. But surely all palaces this big had them. More than a few of the estates I’d robbed did, so this wouldn’t be any different.
“Knock a penny, hop a penny, dance a penny tune,” Kyra murmured as she followed me, rapping her own fist against the wall too. “Mock a penny, drop a penny, party like a loon.”
“You have a beautiful singing voice,” I teased.
“Thank you,” she breathed, and I almost felt bad for teasing her, but the girl honestly couldn’t hold a tune any better than a brawling alley cat.
“Well, even if he is lying, he was being nice by doing so. So why don’t you keep your big nose out of it or just stop existing like you keep threatening to do? ”
I glanced at her, wondering if the conversations she had with herself were meant to be overheard, or if she believed she was conducting them in her head most of the time, because she certainly acted as though none of what had just passed her lips had been heard by anyone other than herself.
Kyra fell silent, tilting her head as if she was trying to listen to something, and I knocked my fist against the wall again, eliciting a hollow sound in response.
“I think I found it,” I hissed.
Kyra sighed and moved closer to me. “I’ll never leave me,” she muttered, eyeing me sadly.
“That’s really confusing. But I’m guessing if she’s you and you’re you too, then maybe you shouldn’t really want her to leave?” I replied as I slid my hand along the wall, trying to locate a way into the passage.
Kyra remained quiet as she drew closer, biting her bottom lip as she considered my words. I reached up to pull on an unlit torch bracket. The sound of sliding stone filled the air, but no entrance appeared.
I frowned at the wall, looking along it until I spotted a tapestry. The bottom corner of it lifted slightly like it was caught in a breeze and I pointed at it as I hurried closer.
Kyra jogged after me and I pulled the tapestry back to reveal a hidden stairwell which ascended into darkness.
“A little light?” I asked.
She stepped ahead of me, and a glowing purple orb appeared above her head, illuminating the way on. I followed her inside and dropped the tapestry behind us just as another shuddering boom rattled the castle walls.
“Well, we always had purple lights in the coin,” Kyra muttered. “He doesn’t mind, or he’d say he minds-”
“I love the purple light, Kyra,” I said loudly, interrupting the argument she was having with herself over it.
“Really?” she asked, turning to look back at me from a few steps above.
“Really,” I confirmed. “Everything you do is unbelievable. You couldn’t get it wrong if you tried.”
Her lips parted but she didn’t say anything, and I wondered if she was having an internal discussion over it with herself again.
I probably should have found that unsettling but somehow, I didn’t, I was just fascinated by her and the way her mind worked, unable to imagine how I would have coped if I’d been cursed with her fate.
I guessed she was doing pretty well all things considered.
I passed her on the stairs, and she began to follow me as we climbed higher. I kept going, up and up until we must have climbed four floors, then entered a dark corridor where we could finally take the direction of the compass once more.
“Where the fuck are you, Cassius?” I snarled, mostly to myself but partly to him because what a fucking time for him to choose to go AWOL.
No doubt he was on some one-man mission to catch Magdor in the act of whatever witchcraft he was so certain she performed, but I wasn’t the least bit interested in that shit given the current circumstances.
My fancy new boots weren’t as suited to moving as silently as my old ones, but I managed well enough despite the stone floor, not that I really expected anyone to hear a soft footfall while the walls were rattling, and monsters roamed the night.
We came to the end of the hidden passage and there were two doorways awaiting us: one to the left and one on the right.
Kyra summoned her golden arrow and it pointed firmly to the right.
I raised an eyebrow at her and moved to push on the wooden door, easing it open silently.
Another stone passage lay beyond it, and we hurried on.
My heart started to beat a little faster, my thieving habits kicking in as we moved deeper into forbidden territory, my Affinities for stealth and cunning growing sharper as I drew on those skills.
Awareness pricked at me. I had no doubt we were well within the royal family’s private quarters now, and the idea of it sent a thrill of longing through me.
How close might I be to the crown jewels ?
We also could have been just moments away from getting caught, and I wasn’t sure what would happen then.
Perhaps I could say that Austyn had told me about the secret passages and asked me to come see her, which would probably be less of a crime than breaking and entering, but how would I explain Kyra’s presence?
Maybe I could say I’d brought her as a chaperone, but would anyone buy it?
So, I was sneaking to the princess’s quarters and my intentions weren’t to get her alone in her bedroom.
.. Unlikely, but if anyone could sell it then I was willing to bet I could.
I’d just have to convince the princess to go along with it – but I could probably use my general charm or even my sex Affinity to help with that.
The passage came to an end, and I stilled before a door with a small hole located in the centre of it.
I pressed my eye to it and found myself looking at a large room with a fireplace on the far side of it and a thick red rug lining the floor beneath a dark, wooden table.
There didn’t appear to be anyone inside it, so I eased the door open.
Kyra stayed close enough to me that I could feel the echoes of her power brushing against my skin, making the hairs raise along the back of my neck as I was taunted by her nearness.
I stepped into the circular room with a frown. The fire had burned low which suggested someone had been here earlier, but the place seemed deserted now.
It looked like some kind of office or private study, sadly void of anything of value aside from reams of books and papers. And though I knew there was value in knowledge, I was a street thug who couldn’t read, so I had no way of figuring out if any of the scriptures here were worth stealing.
I turned to push the door closed behind me and found myself looking at a huge painting of the emperor, seeming younger than he was now with a beautiful woman by his side who must have been Austyn’s mother.
The hole I’d looked through had been cleverly disguised within the pommel of his sword.
Kyra eyed the compass on her hand, but the thing kept spinning around and around, flailing left and right like it didn’t know which way to direct us at all. I frowned at it and Kyra sighed.
“He must be invisible,” she murmured. “But I don’t know why he’s not talking to us.”
“I don’t think Cassius is invisible,” I replied, but I was beginning to feel a lot more uneasy about this whole thing than I had been.
I’d been quick to dismiss Kyra’s concern for Cassius initially, but now that we were in the furthest reaches of the palace, I couldn't help but wonder what the hell he was doing here.
There was no way he could have gained access to this part of the castle legitimately, and I was beginning to think that maybe Kyra had been right to be concerned for his well-being.
“If the compass thinks we’ve found him, then I’m guessing we must be either right below him or right on top,” I said.
There were no windows in the round room we’d entered but after the stairs we’d climbed, I was willing to bet we were pretty high up in one of the towers.
With that in mind, I guessed that Cassius was below us somewhere.
“So, we need to go down. Maybe you should command me to create a hole in the floor?” Kyra suggested excitedly.
“Maybe. Or we could just take the stairs,” I pointed out. “It might be a bit more subtle.”
“Right,” Kyra agreed with a look in her eye which hinted that she was disappointed with my choice.
I resisted the urge to laugh and crossed the room to the only door instead.
I tried the handle, but it was locked, and I released a breath of frustration.
“Have you got a hair pin?” I asked and Kyra produced one magically, holding it out to me.
I dropped to my knees, manipulating the lock with well-practiced skill and after several achingly long minutes, the door clicked open.
“Wow,” Kyra breathed.
“I’m a man of many talents,” I replied with a smirk.
“No, I just meant; wow, I can’t believe you wasted so much time doing that when you could have just asked me to unlock it.”
I stared at her for a few seconds, feeling like an idiot for not realising that while also wondering if any of my hard-earned skills would be worth remembering anymore.
With her by my side, most of my tricks and talents were seeming more and more irrelevant and all the things that had made me impressive were now unnecessary.
Hell, she was making it possible for me to be the next emperor and if that came to pass, I would never want for anything again in my life.
And yet the idea of my skills being debunked sent a trace of loss through me which I never would have expected.
I’d been looking after myself for a long fucking time and I was proud of the things I’d learned in my bid for survival.
My skills were the things that defined me and made me the man I was.
If I didn’t need those anymore, then what was even left to me?
I decided it was better not to think about that too much right now and turned my mind back to the task at hand instead.
“Whatever Cassius has gotten himself mixed up in, it can’t be good,” I said as I prepared to open the door I’d unlocked. “So just be careful, okay? Stick behind me.”
Kyra’s eyes widened and she nodded before following me through the door. We stepped into a tightly circling staircase and started heading down. The further we went, the colder it got and the more distant the sounds of battle came from above.
We passed several doors which led back into the palace but didn’t stop to check any of them. Kyra shook her head at each of them, her connection to Cassius telling her that wasn’t where he was.
We clearly weren’t about to walk into a royal parlour or the princess’s bed chamber.
No, we were headed far too deep for that.
If I were to hazard a guess, then I would say that we were closing in on a dungeon or something of the sort.
The kind of place where no one could hear you scream.
And the only place in the palace which was fit for that would be all the way at the bottom.
In the murky depths of the building, far below the glamorous facade they wanted the world to see.
Down here would be the darkness they hid from their subjects. Down here would be the truth.