Chapter Twelve #2
Balthazar glanced over his shoulder, but all was quiet. The gaoler was too far away to hear any conversation; lucky for them that he didn’t want Cyrus anywhere near him. The cells close by were unoccupied. They were, for all intents and purposes, alone.
“Now, you escape,” said Balthazar. He didn’t sound too impressed by the idea.
“I escape with the help of . . . ?”
With obvious reluctance, Balthazar reached into his pocket and took out the rusty key to the cell. He laid it carefully on
the ground between them.
“You seized it when you accosted me,” he said stiffly. “I came to clean your wound to ensure your survival for Maximillian.
You lunged for me in the cell before I could render you unconscious with this.” He indicated the final glass vial, where a
scrap of parchment wrapped around the bottle bore a hurried sketch of an opium poppy. “You hit me, knocking me out, and ran.”
Cyrus eyed him speculatively. A muscle jumped in Balthazar’s jaw.
“You’re not going to actually knock me out,” he said. His teeth sounded like they were grinding hard. “If you try, I will poke that wound so hard you will cry like a child.”
Interestingly vicious. It also, unfortunately, insinuated that he had noticed the gathering tears earlier. Still, Cyrus could
respect the intent.
“Wasn’t even thinking of it,” he lied.
Balthazar didn’t look convinced. He gave Cyrus a dirty look but let the matter drop, shrugging out of his cloak instead.
“You took this from me when you knocked me out, so nobody would recognise you. You went up the staircase, through the passageway that leads out, and took two left turns. That brought you to the stable, where you stole a horse.” Balthazar spoke quietly but clearly, each word precise and devoid of emotion.
“Ride for the house overlooking the harbour on the westerly hill. It stands alone and will be empty. You can’t mistake it. Do not let yourself be seen.”
Cyrus considered this, slowly pulling Balthazar’s cloak towards him. “Maximillian’s house.”
“One of Maximillian’s properties.”
Of course. Cyrus glanced out of the cell, down the shadowed passageway with its flickering torches. “Gaoler needs killing,
I presume.”
The muscle in Balthazar’s jaw jumped again. “Incapacitating only. I brought his meal with yours. It included a very light dose of sleeping draught. Untraceable. He’ll be conscious but very
tired, so he won’t be difficult for you to overcome.” Balthazar’s eyes flickered to Cyrus’s bandages. “Even in your . . .
condition.”
He was trying to needle. He was fortunate that Cyrus had bigger problems to deal with.
Picking up the key, Cyrus gingerly stood and shook the stiffness out of his legs, breathing through a flare of discomfort.
The wound throbbed, but it was bearable.
He looked at Balthazar. The other man didn’t move, still kneeling on the ground, his head turned away. This must be a terrible
affront to his dignity.
Cyrus could relate to that, at least.
There was one last thing to sort. “I left my horse at a paddock outside the city. She’ll need collecting—”
Balthazar didn’t turn his head. He addressed the wall of the cell, his voice tight. “Do not ask me to do any more for you.”
“It’s not for me.” The words slipped out before Cyrus could think them through. Did he intend them as a taunt, a finger pressed
to the bruise at Balthazar’s core, or as an acknowledgement, allowing him the relief of knowing that Cyrus did not mistake
his intentions? He wasn’t sure. Maybe the answer was both. “You’re not doing this for me. I saw.”
Balthazar’s head did turn this time. There was a flash of emotion in his eyes, something hot and angry and hurt. But it vanished
as swiftly as it had come, and when Balthazar spoke his voice was quiet and steady.
“No. It’s not for you.”
There was something else lurking beneath those words, a half-swallowed sentence. The silence between them was taut. Cyrus
turned to leave.
“He was always going to kill you, you know.”
Cyrus stopped, one foot out of the cell.
“From the start, that was his plan.” Balthazar’s voice was still quiet. “He would use you to increase his standing, get what
he wanted, and then finish you off in front of a nice big crowd. All that bonding the two of you did . . . he was just pretending to keep you on side. You were only ever a tool to him. It never meant anything.”
Cyrus didn’t move, his back still to Balthazar. He sounded distant, like his voice couldn’t quite get through.
But Cyrus’s body absorbed each word. His heartbeat picked up, demanding that he listen. His throat felt curiously tight, as
though Balthazar had wrapped cold fingers around his neck and squeezed.
“Just so you know,” Balthazar said, unnaturally calm.
Maximillian’s face flashed through Cyrus’s mind, the way he’d looked as his sword bit into flesh. The anguish.
He wanted to turn and demand an explanation, push back at Balthazar until he could make sense of all that had happened. But
he could not afford to waste any more time. He had to get out.
It never meant anything.
He couldn’t think of it; he had lingered too long already. A breath tried and failed to calm his erratic pulse. It would have
to do.
Cyrus steeled himself and walked on.
He thought of Maximillian as he dispatched the gaoler. Sleepy and sluggish, just as Balthazar had promised. The man barely
managed a groan as Cyrus seized the arm he threw up in flailing, uncoordinated defence and shoved him headfirst into the stone
wall. The wound burned and fresh red seeped through the bandages. Cyrus welcomed the distraction.
He thought of Maximillian as he made his way up the stairs, sucking in a lungful of musty, chilled air to keep his head clear and his strength up.
Balthazar’s directions led him to a horse: a bay with a glossy black mane, friendlier than he was used to.
He walked alongside for the first few minutes before clambering up onto the horse’s back in an ungainly lurch.
At any moment he expected to hear yelling, angry cries and pounding feet on the dusty ground; to feel grasping hands at his ankle, the edge of his borrowed cloak.
His nerves bristled on high alert. Still, he thought of Maximillian.
When the yells did start, they were distant enough for Cyrus’s breath to come a little easier. He rode to the outskirts of
the city, taking a slower, more circuitous route to avoid the suspicion of careering directly through Heliarth’s central district
at a frantic pace. The squat cottages here were packed tightly, red stone shouldering russet with thin alleyways snaking between,
too narrow for the washing lines strung up by optimistic residents. In contrast to the glamour of the centre with its designer
shops, the residential quarter leaned into practicality: butcher, blacksmith, grocer, carpenter. The baker folding down his
awning sold bread rather than fancy pastries, though intricate leaves still curled into the golden-brown sourdough piled in
a crate by his door.
A gang of children ran barefoot from an alleyway, giggling as they darted past his horse, led by a young girl with smudges
of red dust on her cheeks and flyway hair. Clutching a twig in one hand, she pointed it towards the rest of her group before
posturing with a hand planted against her hip. “I am the mighty Maximillian, and I will destroy you, evil wrongdoer!”
Clearly, putting the champion from his mind wasn’t an option.
Cyrus, his head bent low over the horse’s neck, couldn’t resist a quick glance up.
Another girl, black hair almost to her waist, held her own twig aloft.
“Not if I get you first, disgusting champion!” she bellowed with gusto.
“I am Earthshaker and all fear me!” She stomped hard on the ground, then darted forward and jabbed her companion unnecessarily hard.
The first girl shrieked and ran off, the other leaping to enthusiastic pursuit.
The rest of the horde ran after them, chanting eagerly for a fight.
Well. At least he’d achieved something today, even if it was only providing a bad influence for Heliarth’s children. He nudged the horse onwards until he left the
suburbs behind, the archway of the city’s main gate materialising before him.
There, on the most westerly hill, sat a fine manor house, sprawling over three floors and overlooking lush green gardens.
Thick hedgerows framed the grounds on all sides. The house was built from the same red stone with cream balconies stretched
across wide, airy windows, and as Cyrus stared he couldn’t help but imagine Maximillian standing upon one of those balconies,
the sun catching in his hair as he surveyed his kingdom.
Maximillian, who had planned this from the start.
Cyrus dragged his gaze away from the house, looking through the archway instead. He could just about make out the stable by
the paddock where he’d tethered Soulripper. It would take two days to get back to Ranragh, if he abandoned Balthazar’s plan
and went home.
He wanted to. In some ways, he very much wanted to.
But then there was Maximillian, and the invisible thread that seemed to bind them so inexorably. His eyes on Cyrus’s, willing
him to trust.
The way that Cyrus did, despite everything.
A moment more of indecision. His side pulsed. Two days of riding loomed before him, sore and painful. An empty lair at the other end.
Or . . .
Cyrus swallowed, and turned the horse towards the westerly hill.