Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
Ellery
Luna opened a portal into the forest outside the Earl of Oakley’s castle. Since she’d once worked and lived here, she knew the property best.
We stood behind the castle, where the back of the fortress rose high above the land sloping around it. Ryker, Callan, and I had emerged on this backside after fleeing the earl’s catastrophic ball… a ball my mother didn’t survive.
I swallowed back the lump that formed in my throat at the reminder. Now was not the time to lose myself to sorrow; we had far too much to do for tears to fall.
During our escape, we’d used an unknown section of tunnels the servants had created in preparation for the rebellion they’d planned during the earl’s ball. We wouldn’t take them to get back into the castle.
By now, the earl’s men had probably discovered the tunnel and closed it off. Even if they hadn’t, we’d have to navigate all the way through the castle to get to the earl’s rooms.
We couldn’t avoid being seen by them if we did that. While we only had three gargoyles with us, they couldn’t move easily through the castle’s halls.
The presence of guards wasn’t as thick outside the castle as I’d anticipated, probably because the duke had commandeered many of them once he claimed the throne for himself. He wasn’t legally the king of Tempest, but he would never let that throne go while he lived.
However, I was sure that after the rebellion and Ivan’s death at Ryker’s hands, the earl still had a fair number of guards inside to protect him. Which meant we might have to destroy many of them too.
I ignored the small twinge of guilt tugging at my conscience. These men and women had decided their fate when they sided with the aristocrats over the rest of the amsirah. They guarded the monsters who’d trapped us all here, and they’d suffer the consequences.
“Do you see those two windows, right there, with the lights on?” Luna pointed to the top floor of the castle. Behind the glass, the flicker of lanterns illuminated the space within. “That’s the earl’s room. That whole floor is his, but his bed… bedroom is there.”
Luna’s voice quivered, and her words broke when she uttered the word bedroom. She could be abrasive, callous, and sometimes rude, but my heart ached for her.
I couldn’t imagine what she’d endured at the hands of the earl, but I knew what he’d done to her. I’d meet the same fate if one of these aristocrats, especially the duke, got their hands on me.
My fingers itched to offer her some comfort, but I closed them. My nails dug into my palm as I restrained myself. Even if I meant it to be a show of support, Luna might perceive it as a sign of sympathy, and that would annoy her.
“You said he also has sons?” Indon asked.
“Two,” Luna said.
“Where are their rooms?”
“On the floor beneath the earl’s. Their windows are dark already.”
“That could mean they’re not there,” I said.
“We don’t have any way of knowing that until we’re inside,” Indon remarked.
I studied the guards patrolling the parapets. “If his sons are home and we move against the castle, the soldiers will see us and raise the alarm. Since the earl is our main target, we should go for him first.”
“The moons haven’t risen yet,” Indon said. “If we wait until they do, we’ll be more noticeable to the guards. Now, they might not see us at all, or they could mistake us for something else.”
“I don’t think you’ve seen yourself in a mirror lately,” Scarlet scoffed. “No one is mistaking you for anything else.”
My lips twitched toward a smile before it fell away. We had planned to make our move while the moons were still too low in the sky to illuminate much.
We planned to take out the aristocrats first, before going for the palace and the duke. There were more of them to get through, and they had fewer guards.
While the main plan was to eradicate the aristocrats and not worry about taking any hostages, it would be good to keep at least one alive who could open a portal out of Tempest. However, the eradication of the aristocrats was our priority, and everyone in all the groups knew that.
“From what I’ve seen, there aren’t a lot of soldiers on the parapets,” Indon said. “We could kill them before entering the castle.”
“You think the six of us could kill all of them?” Scarlet asked. “If Ellery uses her lightning, or if any of us use our abilities, it will draw their attention.”
“No,” Indon said. “I think the three of us can.”
I looked over the gargoyles as they stood half in shadow and mostly obscured beneath the trees. They were so still they could have been statues once more.
With their grotesque faces, two-inch-long fangs, and four-inch-long claws, they were as ugly as they were frightening. They had a ten-foot wingspan and towered over all amsirah, including Ianto, who was the tallest man I’d ever seen.
Their bluish-gray color blended into the night, so there was a good chance that, without the moons illuminating them, they could fly low to the ground and stay hidden in the shadows. Once they got closer to the castle, they’d blend in with the large rocks of its foundation and its walls.
They could do it, but… “Is it worth the risk?” I inquired.