Chapter 47
Chapter forty-seven
The High Spire
With horns blaring and the guards on high alert, we had to move more cautiously. The pace was killing me. We stopped at each intersection, listening for footsteps. All I could think of, all I wanted, was to get to Darion.
“Now that all the guards are crawling around, there’s no way we can just go up the central staircase to get to the high spire,” Mrs. Crowe said. “But there’s another way: the service elevator.”
“I’ve climbed up elevator shafts before.”
“You won’t be able to climb up this one,” Mrs. Crowe said. When I shot her a skeptical look, she said, “You’ll just have to see for yourself.”
We raced down a long hallway lined with lavish oil paintings.
As I ran, one particular painting caught my eye—a scene from over two hundred years ago.
Queen Amara stood proudly in front of a sapling that would one day be the Bleeding Oak.
Beside her stood her shadowlynx, a massive feline with glossy black fur, large white fangs, and golden eyes.
I had never seen the queen depicted in the lush colors of oil paint.
Her fire-red hair cascaded over her shoulders.
“We must hurry!” Mrs. Crowe said.
At the end of the hallway was a room that was hard for me to fathom.
I had never experienced such an immense indoor space.
A massive staircase wound up the middle, climbing more than a dozen stories.
Walkways spidered out from the stairs to the far walls, which were lined with a myriad of balconies and doors. How was this building even standing?
And then we reached the service elevator, and I understood. There was no shaft to climb. The entire elevator was just a carriage topped with wire mesh, suspended by a rope. It ran on a track heading up this monstrosity of a room. The rope looked impossibly thin. Could that thing even hold me?
Mrs. Crowe saw my skeptical look. “Braided rope made from Vanara silk. It can carry the weight of a hundred men. No time to waste,” she said as she opened the door.
I was more than a bit doubtful, but as Mrs. Crowe had said, we had precious little time.
So I swallowed hard and entered the carriage.
On one side was a brass control panel with a numbered dial.
She set the dial to the number eighteen on the far right and pressed a button.
Then she stepped out and shut the carriage door.
“Aren’t you coming?” I asked.
She shook her head with the look of a woman facing her fate. “I have unfinished business.”
The door made a latching sound, and the carriage started to rise. What powered it, I could not say. I had made it only a few stories up when a sickening voice echoed across the room.
“Elandra Crowe, I’ve been looking for you.” Orlik Leonom walked directly toward her.
The cage hugged the outer wall of the chamber, rising slowly.
I tried to open the carriage, but it wouldn’t budge and had no visible locking mechanism.
I instinctively reached for my dagger, but I soon realized the wire mesh that covered the cage was woven too tightly to fit anything through.
Powerless, I shrank into the shadows and watched from above as Orlik approached Mrs. Crowe.
“Orlik, how may I be of assistance?” Mrs. Crowe said, her voice steady and calm.
Several Royal Guards gathered behind Orlik, who now stood face-to-face with Mrs. Crowe.
“A curious thing, you coming back today of all days,” Orlik said with cold indifference. “The day after Syra died.”
Mrs. Crowe barely moved, but her jaw clenched.
“No reaction?” Orlik said, then nodded. “So you already knew.”
The implication went unstated. With Syra dead, they had no power over Mrs. Crowe anymore. She had nothing left to lose. This was why Orlik had summoned her.
In a flash, she pulled out a hidden dagger and lunged toward Orlik. But he was lightning fast and was clearly anticipating this. He grabbed Mrs. Crowe’s arm with one hand, and with the other, he slashed her throat with his own dagger.
I had to cover my mouth to keep from crying out.
Mrs. Crowe staggered back, grabbing at her throat as blood poured out.
Orlik simply shook his head and turned away. “A waste of a good mind.”
My nails bit into my palms hard enough to draw blood. I would remember this moment for the rest of my life.
Mrs. Crowe fell to her knees. But then she reached for two vials in her belt. They were purple and green.
The time-release bomb.
She made her best effort to throw the vials all the way to where Orlik stood, but her hands were slick with blood, and they fell well short. Even so, the vials shattered, the liquid inside mixing on the floor. The combined contents immediately began to smoke, giving off a particularly acrid odor.
Orlik spun around and took one look at the smoking liquid, and his eyes went wide with recognition and terror. “Sound the alarm! Evacuate the keep! We have only minutes!”
Horns blared. From my steadily rising perch, I witnessed utter chaos as people poured out of doors everywhere and raced for the central staircase.
The elevator rose for what felt like an excruciatingly long time, which left me alone with my thoughts.
Memories of Mrs. Crowe flooded my mind. For a heartbeat, I saw her teaching me how to grind herbs, her watchful eye never straying.
I couldn’t believe the sacrifice she had made, and yet, Orlik had still escaped.
I would add hers to the list of lives for which I would hold Orlik accountable.
Finally, the elevator stopped at the top of the keep.
The cage door clanked. I tested it, and it opened without effort onto a balcony, one side extending to the central staircase and the other to a hallway.
As I hurried down the hallway, I couldn’t help but notice how opulent everything was, from the wool rugs covering the floors to the hardwood doors with golden knobs.
This looked more like a nobleman’s house than a prison.
A door at the end of the hallway was ajar.
I made my way to the opening, pressed my body up against the wall, and peeked through the crack.
The room was shrouded in shadows, so I slipped inside to get a better look.
This didn’t look like a prison cell. It looked like a chamber fit for a prince with a stylish wooden dresser, a desk, and an elaborate bed.
Lying on the bed was a figure I recognized instantly.
I raced to Darion’s side. He was unconscious, looking just like Elena had.
Oddly, he wasn’t even chained. I took my last vial of Embercloak, gently brought it to his lips, and dribbled it into his mouth.
Before long, Darion blinked his eyes open.
“Am I dreaming?” he said with a slight wobble in his voice.
I shut him up with a kiss.
“I guess not,” he said with a smile.
“Can you get up?” I asked. “We have to go.”
“I think so.” Darion sat up and immediately tilted to the side. “Oh, maybe not.”
“Here, let me help you,” I said as I put his arm around my shoulders.
Together we stood and slowly made our way to the door. I was so distracted that I didn’t even see the figure that had entered the room. When I finally looked up, Orlik “The Butcher” Leonom was staring at Darion and me with disgust.
Without a moment’s hesitation, I drew my dagger from my tunic and threw it right at The Butcher’s head.
But halfway to its mark, the blade stopped in midair.
Orlik’s hand was raised, his fingers spread out toward me.
A golden light and a crackling sound came from the ring on his finger, which also began wafting the smell of ozone and citrus.
Before I could react, my body went rigid, locked in place. This seemed to be the same Ember that Caldren had used to stop Syra. But Orlik wasn’t Emberborn, and the null field still buzzed around us.
Without my support, Darion wobbled and fell against my side.
“So, this is the mighty Cassian Nightbrook,” Orlik said in a wicked, mocking tone. “For some reason, I expected more. I bet you don’t even know what you are, do you—or what your sister is?”
What did he mean—what we were? Something burned in my chest, feral and furious. I couldn’t say all the profanities I wanted to yell back with my jaw locked in place.
“You like my little creation?” Orlik said, admiring his ring. “All that Ember the null field collects has to be redirected somewhere. Some of it turns to Emberbane. The rest”—he flexed his fingers—“comes to me.”
Darion pushed himself upright, swaying once, then steadying. He looked between Orlik and me as if calculating his next move. What in all the hells was he doing?
“Feeling better, son?” Orlik said.
“Yes, Father,” Darion said in that cool voice that made my skin crawl.
“What precisely was happening here before I arrived?” Orlik asked, his hawklike eyes on Darion.
“This man was trying to kidnap me, I assume,” Darion said in such a detached tone that it turned my blood to ice. This couldn’t be happening. Not again.
“I see. Do me a favor—take that dagger and stab him in the heart,” Orlik said, as simply as if he were ordering a pint of ale.
Without hesitating, Darion took the blade that was hovering in the air.
He turned to me and slowly raised the dagger toward my heart.
But I could see his true nature in his eyes. I trusted this man with my life.
I wasn’t scared. Not of him.
Darion spun around and threw the dagger right at Orlik, yelling, “Never call me your son again!”
With a simple twist of Orlik’s hand, the blade stopped. Another gesture sent it hurtling back, stabbing Darion in the side. Blood soaked his tunic as he cried out—then fell silent, his body locking rigid.
I wanted to scream, but I could do nothing but watch.
“So predictable,” Orlik said to Darion. “Bad blood from that bitch mother of yours. You’re one of my biggest mistakes.”
Orlik turned his gaze to me. He clenched his fist. The dagger ripped out of Darion, dripping with blood. The blade turned, pointing right at my heart.
“Goodbye, Mr. Nightbrook,” Orlik said, his eyes as cold as ice.
Somewhere below, a massive explosion suddenly rocked the entire building. Mrs. Crowe’s time-release bomb had finally gone off.
The null field wavered.
Darion and I fell to the ground, freed from Orlik’s control for the moment. The dagger clattered to the floor in front of me. But I could already feel the null field returning and see the golden light shimmering around his ring.
In a single motion, I grabbed the dagger and flung it toward Orlik, aiming for his head. But he was wickedly fast and deflected the blade with a silver bracer on his wrist.
The moment he did, I drew the dagger strapped to my leg and sent it flying through the air. The knife hit its target, slicing two of Orlik’s fingers clean off. The ring clattered to the floor and rolled under the bed, its power gone. Orlik cried out in pain as blood gushed from the wounds.
I drew my last blade to finish him, but just then the entire building shifted, knocking me to the floor.
Dust and loose stones rained down from the ceiling.
A large rock struck Orlik in the shoulder.
His face, normally a monolith of detached cruelty, was now filled with terror.
He steadied himself, then raced out of the room, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
When the shaking slowed, I jumped to my feet. I peered down the hallway where Orlik had escaped. I could chase him and finish the job.
But then I turned to Darion, who was lying on the floor, wounded, with an ever-growing pool of blood surrounding him.
In the end, there was no choice at all.