2. Phantom Intruder
Chapter two
Phantom Intruder
The music of the theater filtered through the humid air as Antonio tracked the shadow flitting through the courtyard.
A movement between the hedges had lured him moments before, and he’d silently beckoned another guard to take his post as he’d stepped into the dusk.
His breath was tight in his chest, but he tried to will his beating heart into submission.
He wouldn’t believe the rumors. He would capture this cloaked figure, expose him as a thief or a servant looking for his love in the darkness of twilight.
He wouldn’t believe it to be what his mistrustful mind was screaming at him, that the figure was one of the greatest threats to Monte Rico: a loyalist to the Empire.
Impossible.
But if such an impossibility was likely, it would be due to his failure.
His hip ached now that he had walked a few yards down the path, and he fought the rising panic in his chest that the figure could slip out of his grasp.
He quickened his pace, ignoring the way the brass joint in his left leg creaked with every hurried movement, loud enough now to be heard over the orchestra music that drifted from the open windows of the theater.
Golden light streamed into the courtyard, but inky shadows pressed at the edges surrounding the outermost wall that overlooked the river.
Antonio heard the clomp of boots and the crunch of stones up the stone steps of the wall. He lunged forward, toward the wall, to the allure overlooking the cliff’s edge, just reaching the rope as it went slack. He pulled the revolver from his belt, cocked it, squinting down into the gloom.
Yards below, the figure hugged the nearly vertical cliffside.
Just one misstep would send him tumbling down to the river below.
Even though the river was deep, its current was strong, and it would pull the masked figure away.
Maybe he wouldn’t need to fire the gun; it might alert any hidden hostiles, as well as fellow guards who harbored secret loyalties against Monte Rico.
This man couldn’t have gotten into the king’s courtyard unseen without some help.
Antonio would need to handle this alone.
Pebbles skittered. A gasp cut through the air.
Antonio held his breath, his finger tensing on the trigger, but no splash came.
A few moments later, a boat pushed out from somewhere along the cliff’s base.
A small lantern illuminated the boat, like a lonely firefly over a summer meadow, but it revealed nothing of the man’s face.
Antonio holstered the revolver, gripping the rope with fingers so tight it chafed his palms.
A few years ago, he wouldn’t have had to hide up here like a coward.
He would have swung down the rope and gone after the figure, even if they both tumbled into the river below.
His legs would have helped him push against the current, tread the water that would try to claim his life. But that time was dead and gone.
Words reached his ears over the pulsing of his heart, which also thumped in his palm wrapped around the rope.
“Capitán?” A guard spoke, his voice urgent. “What is it? Is there an intruder?”
Antonio swallowed the anger and helplessness rising in his throat.
With a swift slice of his knife, he cut the rope and pulled the grappling hook, passing it to the guard.
“No,” he said. “Maybe.” Frustration made him grind his teeth at the unknowns that faced him.
“Figure out where this might have been made, speak with Cristian. Ask him to investigate the blacksmith’s brand. I want a name by dawn.”
He looked at the guard, Gabriel, who stood even straighter.
He was young, merely nineteen, but humble and eager to please.
He was one of the few that treated him like he was normal.
But Antonio wasn’t sure whether that made the boy more endearing or only hurt more than the sneering jabs of those who thought he’d gotten his position out of pity.
Because he would never again be the way he had been.
The boy gave a deferential nod of his head and slipped into the darkness, his stride as quiet as the wind. Antonio could trust the boy to be stealthy, loyal. Even if he couldn’t trust himself and his leg, creaking now as he walked down the steps to the courtyard.
The castle courtyard was a large expanse, holding the theater, the queen’s garden of tropical flowers and fruits, and the maze.
Lanterns flickered as a few guards patrolled along the edges of the courtyard, but their lights disappeared as they continued, and Antonio felt—not for the first time—that the courtyard was far too big to be overseen by just a half a dozen guards.
It was, after all, where the king and his advisors had met to plan Monte Rico’s secession from the Empire.
That was when King Jairo had gone from being a figurehead for the Empire’s taxing decrees to a voice for the people.
The music of the orchestra had stopped, overshadowed by a grating voice barking orders, and he winced, this time for the dancers facing that woman’s wrath.
Antonio started back toward his post. His hip ached with each step.
Even two years later, he was still trying to adjust to walking in a way that would pass for an able-bodied guard in the darkness.
Even if the revealing sunlight would always give him away, he didn’t need the darkness to be a danger, too.
Gabriel rushed back, his face red. “Capitán,” he said. “I know who made this. It’s the blacksmith in Rio Celeste.”
Suspicion tore through Antonio. That was fast. “How did you know that?” It could be that the boy was one of them, that despite his kind and honest expression, he could be a snake.
“Mi prometida, eh, she lives in Rio Celeste, a ways south of the capital.” The boy flushed, as if embarrassed to talk about his betrothed with his superior, but Antonio waved him on.
“I go to visit her every few months, and last time, she gifted me a new dagger. Look.” He unstrapped a dagger from his belt and angled it in the light, reflecting the emblem. “You can take it if you need it, sir.”
“Did anyone see you with this?” Antonio snatched the hook and the dagger, stowing them quickly as footsteps echoed from the patrol passing by. The worry about the boy’s loyalty had released its grip on his throat, but too many unanswered questions filtered through his mind.
The lad shook his head vehemently, lowering his voice even after the patrol had passed and was out of earshot. “No.”
And even if Gabriel had been spotted with the hook, Antonio trusted him.
Maybe it was foolish, but he saw something of himself in the boy’s stride and demeanor—a kind of strength that he had lost—and he would do his best to protect Gabriel if he could.
He saw Gabriel more than he saw his own brother, who was always off and about on the king’s business for weeks at a time.
Cristian was more than six years his senior, but the age had never felt like a distance.
No, Antonio had always kept pace with his brother before, in dueling, sword fighting, racing, and riding.
Perhaps that was why Cristian had hardly spoken to him since the incident.
Perhaps the secondhand embarrassment of being associated with an invalid would be enough to put a mark on his perfect record.
Even if Antonio was a decorated soldier.
“Gracias, Gabriel,” he said. “You can return to your post.” As the boy left, Antonio’s mind whirred with thoughts louder than the gears that groaned in his artificial knee when he walked.
Tomorrow, he would get a boat, inspect the place where the intruder had been hidden.
See if any information could be gleaned, any small clue of what the figure had been after—and worse, whether they had succeeded.
And after that, he would row downstream to Rio Celeste as Gabriel had mentioned.
It was small, tucked away between two main ports on the coast, but it produced strong laborers and farmers to till the land.
Surely they would be loyal to the kingdom and not the Empire.
But whatever he did, he would do it alone.
At least if he unbalanced himself and flipped the boat, no one would see.
His weaknesses would be hidden. And he didn’t trust his fellow guards.
Even if they weren’t loyalists, they might not hesitate to shove him out of the boat and watch him drown anyway.
If he let any harm come to the royal family, he deserved it.