Chapter 20 #2
The boy tried—and failed—to push himself upright. Damien planted his boot against his spine and pressed down harder.
“Who else knows about this?”
He demanded an answer, but the boy could barely breathe. Shallow, frantic gasps rattled from his lungs as he pressed his cheek against the wooden floor.
Damien dragged a hand down his face, his lips pressed into a hard, unforgiving line.
“Answer me.”
Nothing.
Another kick.
This one struck the boy’s ribs, followed by a blow to his face.
The boy curled in on himself, clutching his torso as though he could somehow hold himself together, tears spilling freely as he cried against the dusty floorboards.
Ellaryn trained her eyes on her fingernails, trying her best to look bored, unaffected. When she lifted them, Damien was still standing over him.
“Answer me when I’m talking to you,” he commanded, and the boy spluttered, shaking his head frantically.
“N-nobody knows about it,” he managed. “I-I swear.”
He spat blood onto the floor, his voice barely audible beneath his ragged breathing.
“See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?” Damien patronised, straightening to his full height over the shrunken boy. “Take him away.”
The Knights obeyed, dragging the boy from the room before tossing him onto the street outside.
Through the window, Ellaryn watched as he scrambled to his feet and fled as though the house itself were poison. One arm clutched his stomach while he limped down the street, barely daring to glance over his shoulder.
Damien pulled a cloth from his pocket and, with a practised ease that made Ellaryn’s stomach turn, wiped the blood from his boot. Crimson stained the off-white fabric.
“So, boys…” Damien looked around the room before his gaze settled on her. “And lady.”
His eyes held hers.
“Who’s going to join me down there?”
“You want to go down?” Ellaryn asked, unable to hide the shock from her voice.
Xander was down there.
“Why? You scared?” he teased, and a few of the Knights chuckled, and she sent them a menacing stare. They stopped.
“It’s not that.” She shook her head, taking a step, floorboards creaking under her weight. “He said there’s nothing down there. It would be a waste of time.”
She tried to keep her voice casual. Tried not to let the urgency creep in.
“He was a liar. How can we trust anything he says?” Damien said, placing the cloth back into his pocket.
“From my experience,” she said, peering out the window as stray flames licked at the streets, “the truth always comes free with my blade at their throat.”
Damien let out a loose chuckle. “Is that so?”
“More often than not.” Ellaryn turned to face him.
“And if you’re wrong?”
“I’m a woman, Damien. I’m never wrong.”
Damien chuckled. “Woman or weapon?”
“Same thing.”
She winked, deliberately resting a hand against the hilt of her sword.
“Well, woman, weapon…” He drew out the words, a smirk tugging at his lips, gesturing loosely. “I’m going down there. So, are you coming with me, or are you just going to admire that manicure some more?”
She shot him a look before drawing her sword.
“Ladies first.”
With a wink, she turned towards the hatch and lowered herself into the darkness.
On the outside, she looked every bit the woman ready for war. On the inside, Ellaryn was cowering in the shadows.
They walked through the darkness with nothing but a torch to guide them.
Ellaryn drew a sharp breath. She had wanted her words to come out as measured as her steps, but they stumbled from her lips anyway.
“What would you do if your source was right… and we actually found an outsider?”
She lifted her chin, forcing calm over the storm raging in her chest.
“I’d take them to the King,” Damien replied, his words quick and sharp, no hesitation behind them. “Holding information like that is like clutching a live bomb.”
His boots scuffed against the cobblestones. Dust danced through the torchlight, making Ellaryn fight the urge to cough.
“Or I’d just kill them,” he added casually. “Make the King’s job easier.”
“You wouldn’t want to know how they got through the wall?” Ellaryn asked, watching the flame in her hand flicker with each breath.
Damien stopped. His footsteps falling silent in the darkness.
“Not if it meant threatening the King’s reign.”
Ellaryn could almost hear the pride in his voice. His chin had lifted a fraction higher.
He was loyal as a fucking dog to a bone.
“Why?” she pressed. “Why stay in Cinders if you could leave?”
“This conversation is drifting dangerously close to treason.” His sneer carried through the darkness, one side of his face swallowed by shadow.
“There’s nothing but dust and ash down here,” she continued, slowing her stride. “No one can hear you.”
“Ruin…” He tutted.
She heard the smile in his voice before she could see it.
“I know what you’re trying to do.”
Ellaryn’s grip tightened around the torch.
“You’re trying to test my loyalty.”
Even in the darkness, she could make out the knowing curve of his mouth.
“But it won’t falter.” He said before he started walking again, his footsteps echoing through the tunnel. “Because,” he added, glancing back at her, “I happen to like the dark just fine.”
Ellaryn’s heart jumped, her mind now running through the ways she would react if Damien did, in fact, find Xander. She couldn’t let him take him to the King. Nor could she let him kill the city’s only chance of freedom.
She held her breath, eyes scanning the dark.
Ellaryn prayed Damien wouldn’t pull the thread that led to Xander, hoped his keen instincts wouldn’t find the outsider at the end of his blade. Because if he did… she knew exactly what she would have to do.
And despite his persistence, she didn’t want to kill him.
Killing on the King’s orders was different. Easier to survive. Easier to live with. It created a distance between the act and the blame, a fragile lie she could cling to when the nights grew too loud.
She might have carried the sword, but the blood had always belonged to him.
Killing Damien would be harder.
There would be no command to hide behind. No voice in her head telling her it had to be done. No King to carry the weight of it for her. It would be her choice. Her hand. Her guilt. And Ellaryn didn’t know if she could live with that.
A scurrying sound from around the next turning had them both stopping in their tracks.
Ellaryn’s pulse spiked instantly.
What if it was Xander?
Damien raised a finger to his lips, lowering his stance as he moved forward. His movements were measured, his sword held ready in front of him. Ellaryn drew hers too, but she didn’t point it towards the corner… she pointed it at Damien.
He didn’t know, of course.
But he would.
She made the decision there and then—If Xander was around that corner, Damien would never make it back to the surface.
She would kill him.
In a heartbeat.
The tension tightened as they crept closer. Their footsteps were barely whispers against the stone. Then, together, they pivoted around the corner.
“Who goes there?” Damien barked, his torch thrusting forward and scattering the shadows.
And there stood the culprit—frightened, wide-eyed.
A rat.
It briefly rose onto its hind legs before scurrying away into the darkness.
Ellaryn released a breath of relief, but Damien’s exhale was much heavier as he lowered his sword.
“Fucking rodents.”
“What do you expect?” Ellaryn said, forcing boredom into her voice. “We might as well be in the sewers.” She gestured back the way they had come and sighed.
They kept walking for what felt like hours, but it was only minutes until they reached something dense, immovable. Close enough to steal the breath from their lungs. Something that made even the darkness around them recoil.
The shadow wall.
The boy had been telling the truth.
Damien cursed under his breath.
“There’s nothing down here. Come on lets go.”
Please, she thought to herself.
“Guess Ruin was right after all,” was all Damien said before sheathing his sword and turning on his heel.
“I told you,” Ellaryn smirked, trying to hide the relief she had felt on her face as she followed him back through the shadows on their way out of Cinder’s underbelly.
She glanced over her shoulder—only briefly, just once—without knowing why. And to her surprise—Xander stood in the shadows. Smiling.
Smiling.
Fury burned hot in her bones, but he didn’t share the emotion. He winked at her. Actually winked, and then he disappeared.
Ellaryn’s heart stopped.
Only for a second.
But it was long enough for the hope within her to plummet as deep as the underbelly they were in.