Chapter 11
“They’re spaced three minutes apart,” Faron observed.
The trio hid among the trees outside the property.
Thirty paces ahead, Eddard stalked after a cloaked figure that patrolled the grounds.
Lights shone through most of the windows of the four-story mansion.
A shadow appeared in a first-floor window on the eastern side of the building.
It waved and then disappeared again. Waylon had made it inside.
Faron hung his head, hiding his smirk, and Carrick snorted.
“Guards are placed at each of the entrances. I don’t see any among the grounds,” Carrick added.
“Pretty bold of them to assume they don’t need more patrols,” Tal said.
“What worry do they have of someone rescuing a palace servant? This place is virtually unknown. It should have been abandoned nearly twenty years ago. Though it doesn’t look like it’s been abandoned at all,” Faron added under his breath.
“A false sense of security. That’s good for us. It’ll make it easier to go unnoticed. Can we hope this also means there aren’t hordes of them inside?” Tal asked the noble.
“There are no rooms underground. Everything you see is the whole compound.”
“Well, they can’t be watching from inside with the intent to create more apparitions at the first signs of an intruder.” Carrick paused. “Both Eddard and Waylon made it through the grounds without issue.”
“Maybe they are too bold for their own good. How much of an offense would the king take if he knew mages took over his holiday home? That is, assuming he didn’t give them permission to occupy it in the first place.” Tal’s suspicion pulled a scoff from the noble beside her.
“The king would never consort with mages, especially those that torture and kidnap innocents,” Faron huffed.
“That you know of,” Tal muttered under her breath.
They reached the mansion half an hour ago and were no closer to discerning whether the abducted girl was inside or not. Tal and Carrick exchanged doubtful glances, knowing any conflict with mages would be dangerous, but Faron seemed determined to search the building regardless.
A tortured scream broke the silence of the starry night, and their attention shot to a window in the top corner of the west side. Tal noticed the ivy snaking its way from the ground up past the window to the roof.
“That’s the queen’s quarters,” Faron said with a determined glint in his eyes.
“You seem to know an awful lot about this secret mansion,” Carrick voiced Tal’s concerns.
Without missing a beat, Faron replied, “Before King James’s father took the throne, my family was close with the royals and other members of the nobility, as I previously told you.
” He met Tal’s gaze. “They had a daughter a few years younger than me. When politics required our fathers meet, we often played together: the princess, King James—then a young noble—and me.”
“So, this secret mansion is only a secret to commoners then.” Tal searched Faron’s face for a hint of deception.
“It is a secret to anyone who is still alive, save James, a few select advisors, and me, and now you, Ed, and Waylon. Everyone else who knew about the mansion died in a fire that burned down the east wing.” He nodded to the opposite end of the mansion.
Tal narrowed her eyes at the east wall. The stone shone brighter in the moonlight, with considerably fewer vines snaking up its face. The framework appeared stunted, as if the structure used to be grander. The newer addition didn’t fit the architecture or the quality.
Whispers from years past of the dead king began to make sense.
“A tragedy,” they would say. “His whole lineage, even the little one.” Women gossiped over their baskets.
Men harumphed at the new king without royal blood.
The throne had been given to one of his closest advisors—a noble—and King James was that man’s son.
She hadn’t thought about the circumstances surrounding the throne but seeing where the man and his entire family met their demise humbled her, at least for the moment. She found the window at the west end of the house where the girl screamed in the room beyond—the queen’s room.
For decades, perhaps centuries, the royal family would visit this mansion for a private summer getaway, and the queen would sleep peacefully in the room where one of her kingdom’s servants was now being tortured.
Who was that woman that perished in the fire twenty years ago?
Would she turn her nose at anyone below her station, or would she protect all members of her kingdom, title or not?
“How do we know the king isn’t somehow involved in the mages’ presence here? It is his mansion,” Tal said.
Carrick’s body tensed with each new tortured scream from the window, but she wasn’t about to blindly jump into a rescue mission against an unknown number of the most powerful and dangerous beings they’d ever heard of.
Faron sighed, exasperated. “We’ve been over this.
The king has no involvement with the mages, nor would he ever contribute to the kidnapping and torturing of innocents.
If he were involved, do you really think he would be hiding them in a secret dungeon or in his summer house?
He would be better off creating a false story to accuse them of treason, not that he would even need to have a reason for any of his actions.
But I’m telling you, he’s a good man. He is not involved here.
Are we done debating who is responsible?
Can we stop them from torturing Nola now? ”
Tal released a frustrated sigh. “If those vines are strong enough, I could scale them to that window.” She nodded to where curtains swayed on a summer breeze.
“They’ll hold. But I’ll go first to eliminate the mages in the room.”
“With all due respect, your nobleness, those swords of yours won’t do any good from that window.
By the time you get over the threshold, the mages inside will have already spotted you, sliced you open, and raised an alarm.
We need the element of surprise.” She pulled her daggers a few inches out of their hilt, letting the moonlight glint on the metal.
“Then I’ll go,” Carrick chimed in.
Tal patted his large bicep. “Sorry big guy, I don’t think any vines would hold you.
And there’s no way you would fit through that window.
You stay below to keep guard and run the girl to the woods once we get her out.
I’ll go first and take out the mages in the room.
Hero over here,” she gestured to Faron, “will follow after me, help me get Nola out of the room, and down to you. In and out. No heroics. No wise ideas to investigate or take out any more than we need to.”
Carrick’s mouth tightened in a thin line, but he stayed silent.
Faron’s lips quirked into a crooked grin. “I like it when you give orders.”
Tal ignored him but stuck her tongue out at Carrick. No matter how much trouble they found together, he would always try to protect her from danger.
A window on the west side of the building opened, and a candle appeared.
“That’s Ed’s signal. The patrols are gone.” Faron tensed on the balls of his feet.
Tal pulled her daggers out. “How many mages are inside?”
“Only one way to find out,” Faron said with a flourish of his sword and leapt out onto the open lawn.
Carrick swore and followed while Tal paused to smirk at the man bounding across the lawn, dressed head to toe in leather. She met her companions against the west wall, regarding the vertical climb.
They waited for a signal from Waylon to indicate he’d distracted the mages inside. Carrick faced the opposite end of the estate. “What kind of signal did he say he would give?”
“He didn’t.” Faron tested the strength of the vines.
Tal wondered how much longer they’d have to wait when a deafening BOOM shook the building. Despite the horror on his face, Faron gestured for Tal to climb. “Well, you can’t miss that. Up you go, lovely.”
Without a moment’s pause, Tal stepped to the wall, quickly finding footholds.
The climb proved much faster than she anticipated. The ivy grew several inches thick from decades of neglect, and she easily slipped her toes among the foliage. As she climbed, the agonized screams continued, pushing her to move faster.
She reached the side of the window and carefully stepped onto the sill, the curtain obscuring her from the occupants inside.
By the groaning floorboards and voices within, Tal guessed there were two others—one near the girl, and one straight ahead, likely by a door.
Securing her footing on the ledge, she pulled two daggers from their sheaths.
Tal crouched behind the curtain. A quick glance told her that Faron had climbed halfway up the wall.
With a deep breath and flip of her weapons, she pulled the curtain aside with her left hand, threw the dagger in her right across the bed, choosing to aim for the man’s chest for a wider target.
Before it hit, the dagger in her left hand soared toward the door, this time finding home in the second man’s throat, his faceless head turning to her as blood gushed over his cloak.
She spared only a glance as he slumped to the ground.
Then she turned back to the enemy at the bed.
A hand lifted, his bloody knife pointed in her direction.
His head suddenly snapped back, the hilt of her third dagger sticking out where his eye socket would have been.
Tal stepped to the side of the bed where the girl, about sixteen, panted. “Nola?”
“Please. Please help me,” she begged. Her clothes bore evidence of the torture she’d been subjected to; cuts and bruises littered every visible inch of her body. A sheen of sweat coated her face, and her cheeks were sunken from malnourishment.
“We’re getting you out of here.” Tal attempted to cut the ropes tying the girl to the bed, but nothing happened.
“They’re spelled. You can’t cut them,” the girl cried weakly.