Chapter 34 #2
When I came to, a small, warm body with curly black hair was curled up to me.
Wolfe? He had his little thumb in his mouth like a toddler and was sound asleep.
I looked across from me and saw Ania toying with the knife she had bought from Cillian on her first visit to the blacksmith’s shop.
With her long black hair braided and dressed like me, in breeches and a shirt, she didn’t seem like a high-born lady as she sat on a log gazing into the fire.
‘Ania?’ I whispered, confused. Something wasn’t right, they shouldn’t be here. Through the flickering of the flames, her usually soft jade eyes looked like Bethel’s – rigid and cold.
‘I couldn’t stop him. He was determined to be near you,’ she said tonelessly, watching her brother sleep.
‘What are you doing here?’ I gently touched Wolfe’s curls. His hair had gotten longer in the month I hadn’t seen him. ‘Where is your father?’ Ania’s eyes closed as her lip trembled, and I wished I could take back my words.
I carefully extracted myself from Wolfe, sucking in a sharp breath when I moved my sore shoulder to sit upright. I readjusted the blanket someone had placed over us, tucking it around Wolfe’s compact form.
‘You’re awake?’ Atlas came and sat next to me on the ground. Finn also appeared and sat with us. He gave Ania a wary look. I was tempted to tell Finn that she might look like her sister, but Ania was nothing like Bethel.
‘Can someone please tell me what’s going on?’ I looked between Atlas and Ania to see who would give me the answers I needed.
‘Knights attacked Murus in the middle of the night,’ Atlas began.
‘King Hared’s?’ I asked, shocked.
‘Yes, hundreds of them. The night before Lord Warwick was to leave.’
‘Lord Warwick?’ I knew the answer, but I had to ask.
‘Dead.’ The harshness of Ania’s voice cut me to the bone.
We all waited for her to continue. ‘They came during the night. There was an explosion, and the whole fortress shook. I went to Wolfe and took him to Father’s chambers.
Father told us to hide under the bed, but they found us.
’ Ania gripped the handle of her knife and stared into the fire once more.
‘There were too many, and they cut him down before us.’ She looked at her brother’s sleeping form. ‘Wolfe tried to stop them from hurting Father.’ Her eyes shone with unshed tears.
I touched the top of the brave boy’s head. We shared something now – Wolfe, Ania and I.
‘They wanted to kill us too,’ Ania rasped, her tears finally falling.
‘You stopped them.’ Atlas looked at her proudly. ‘She drove that blade right into the man who killed Lord Warwick.’
‘You saved us, Atlas. You found us,’ she cried softly.
Atlas went to her, holding her to him. Both were lost in the memory of what they had shared.
‘Webber? Meg?’ I asked.
Atlas shook his head sadly. ‘There was a fire. They were trying to get the horses out when the stables collapsed.’
I covered my face with my hands, trying to keep a hold on my emotions, but all I could think about was Webber and Meg’s deep love for one another as grief tore through me. When I dropped my hands to my lap, I saw Atlas’s eyes mirroring my pain.
‘Why would King Hared do this? He must have sent troops before we even arrived in Capita. Bethel was on her way to marry Goodwin, so he would have his legitimate heir. Wasn’t that all he needed?’
‘Wolfe and Ania would always be a threat to Goodwin’s reign, even if Lord Warwick had no intention of helping them make a claim,’ said Atlas.
‘Their claim to the throne is much stronger now,’ I realised out loud.
‘What do you mean?’ Atlas frowned.
‘I killed Goodwin. The king has no heir.’
They all paused to take that in.
‘Bethel?’ Ania asked.
Finn shot me a pitying look. Now, after everything she’d been through, I had to tell Ania the truth about her sister.
‘I’m sorry, but Bethel betrayed us.’
I began telling them everything we encountered in Capita.
From the hanged women at the gate, to the king’s obsession with finding and stopping anyone from taking his throne – including the Cursed One.
How the plan to rescue the queen failed, leaving Cillian trapped in the dungeon.
Bethel betraying us to Goodwin, and how I ended him.
Atlas showed no surprise at my revelation, suggesting Torgrin had informed him of my Cursed status. Ania’s eyes widened, but she remained quiet.
Finally, I admitted I had left Torgrin behind to rescue Cillian alone.
‘You did the right thing, Caris,’ Atlas said firmly from across the fire. ‘Give him more time. There are soldiers out searching everywhere. Torgrin and Cillian could be lying low right now, just as we are.’
I hoped the same, but I also knew those two men would move the underworld to reach me, just as I would for them.
‘Is there anything left of Murus?’ I wondered where Wolfe and Ania would go when all of this was over.
‘The fortress and parts of the city are badly damaged. Wrecked by exploding fire.’ Atlas shook his head. ‘I’ve never seen anything like it. We had no way to fight it.’
‘Dragon fire.’ Finn spoke from where he had been quietly listening.
‘You know it?’ Atlas turned his full attention on him.
Finn nodded. ‘The Order makes it using powders.’
Atlas leaned forward. ‘Do you know how to make it?’
‘No.’ Atlas’s shoulders slumped, but Finn continued.
‘They keep the powder’s ingredients secret.
Only those closest to Merrick know how to make it,’ Finn paused, his eyes glimmering as he looked at Atlas intently.
‘But I know where it’s stored. There are large amounts of it under the castle.
They always had us guarding it. It must be handled carefully as it’s extremely volatile.
I’d always thought that one torch thrown into it could destroy the entire castle. ’
Atlas nodded, taking Finn’s meaning.
‘You would need an entire army to get into the city,’ said Finn.
Atlas looked despondently into the flames. Given the camp’s size and the few soldiers keeping watch from the trees, he had only a handful of soldiers with him.
I was exhausted. I yawned and excused myself from the group to grab my things.
Ania came to find me just as I was rolling out my bedroll. ‘You’re Cursed?’ she blurted out.
I had seen her eyes widen earlier by the fire as I recounted how we escaped.
‘Yes.’
I wondered what was happening behind those jade-coloured eyes as she pinched and pulled at her bottom lip with her thumb and index finger.
‘I wish I were strong like you,’ she whispered so quietly I had to strain to hear her.
Ania took a shaky breath as if preparing to tell me something important, but her gaze wavered.
‘You can tell me anything,’ I assured her.
She nodded and left to get into her bedroll. Ania wasn’t ready to share her secret, but I hoped one day she would be.
?
The following day, we buried Rhett. Atlas and I stood on either side of Tomas. He did not cry or speak as the curator from the fortress read from a book. I let the words wash over me, not listening, just feeling.
The curator had changed since I last saw him.
He had lost weight, and now a large burn marked one side of his face.
By the way he moved, it was not just his face that had been badly burned.
He had taken the news of Queen Yaris’s death hard.
I saw Mae comforting him and wondered if they had known each other before the Order had banished him to the fortress library in Murus.
Atlas was wary of the patrols still looking for us, so we moved our camp as a precaution. Atlas had found us entirely by accident last night while tracking the knights, worried that they were searching for Ania and Wolfe.
I was reluctantly packing up camp, afraid we were making it harder for Torgrin and Cillian to find us, when Atlas called to me. He lingered by an ancient elm that stood out from the rest of the trees because of its colossal, twisted trunk.
‘This is for Torgrin,’ Atlas said as he pointed to the circle and lightning bolt he had carved into the tree. ‘He will know I was here.’
I ran my fingers over the marks, wishing Torgrin would see them and find us soon.
‘We devised a way to leave each other messages as boys.’ Atlas handed me his knife. ‘Now you need to carve your mark, so he knows you are with me.’
‘What’s my symbol?’ I looked at him, confused.
‘Only you can choose that.’
‘So, you chose a circle?’ I scoffed.
‘It’s the world. I was strong for my age, and my mother would say I could hold up the world with just this finger.’ He held up his index finger.
‘Wait, the world is round?’
He laughed loudly, almost sounding like the old Atlas. So he was still in there.
‘You’re lucky that Torgrin reads enough for the both of you, Caris.’
He had the nerve to laugh harder when I punched him in the shoulder. I wasn’t stupid. I just hadn’t been around books growing up. I had been too busy apprenticing as a blacksmith and training to fight my mother’s killer one day. Then it came to me.
Torgrin had been the first to call me Swordmaker. Using Atlas’s knife, I carved a vertical line from top to bottom and intersected it with a horizontal line near the top. I handed Atlas his knife back and waited for him to say something.
‘Perfect! It suits you well, Swordmaker.’ He winked at me.
We rode for half a day. Atlas was considerate of my little group.
Tomas, Finn and I were still recovering from our wounds, and even though Mae didn’t complain, it was clear from the deepening grooves in her face that she was exhausted.
Even as we settled in our new camp, she did the rounds tending to our wounds.
She inspected my shoulder and back, clicking her tongue, which became a familiar sound.
She grumbled about all the medicines she had left behind that had taken years to create and collect.