Chapter 44 The Gatekeeper
The moment we step out into the hall, empty except for the deserted guard chair and the torches burning uninterrupted in their wall brackets, Cherry unsheathes her sword.
I watch as she inspects the blade, turning it this way and that as it reflects the flickering light.
It looks at home in her hand, which is still not a condition I feel comfortable with.
She gives the sword a few experimental swings, a lunge, a parry.
"What are you doing?"
"Checking the weight," she tells me, as if it should be obvious.
"It doesn't matter. You won't be using it.
"
She freezes. Slowly, she rises from her fighting stance, holding the blade down at her hip.
"What are you talking about?"
I tug indicatively at the collar still attached to my neck.
"I can't shift like this. I can't fight.
Our safest bet is to get out of the palace, unseen if possible.
We'll come back—"
"What about Marton and Vakhrin?
" she interrupts me, all indignance.
"We'll come back when we have help," I finish.
"I need to get this collar off. And we need—"
"I can't believe you!
You would just abandon them!"
"Of course I wouldn't! But I can't lead you into danger either.
The two of us can't take on the entirety of the palace guard with a single blade.
"
"You still have your claws!
You have your fire!"
"I have half my claws.
The others are filed down from digging out the stone.
And fire isn't a reliable weapon. Indoors.
Surrounded by people whom I also need to protect.
"
"You're scared." Her eyes narrow in accusation.
"Of course I'm scared.
Are you not scared, Cherry? You should be!
"
She is quiet for a long time.
And then, "He has already taken everything from us, Tarah.
He has everything. Marton and Vakhrin.
The kingdom. Everyone's lives. Everyone's minds.
We have to stop him."
"We will stop him.
But first—"
"No," she cuts me off, voice laced with more command than I have ever heard her use.
It is not the tone of a spoiled princess, but the order of a queen.
"No but firsts. No more delays. No retreats.
We've done it your way. We've done it enough.
You and I, as far as we know, are the only people alive who can withstand the king's power.
We are the only ones who can stop him.
It ends now. Today. We have to try, Tarah.
" She is my princess again by the end of her speech, blue eyes imploring me.
Needing my help.
There is a brick in my throat, impossible to swallow around.
The truth is that I do not want to delay either.
I want this to be over. I want Marton and Vakhrin safe, with us, now.
But I don't know if I can risk her.
"You have to let me do this, Tarah.
" Cherry steps forward, clasping my hand with her free one.
"You have protected me my whole life. You have been the big sister that I never had.
My truest family. But this is about more than just me.
More than either of us. This is our kingdom.
This is our world. Someone has to set them free.
"
"Can't it be someone else?
" Even though I whisper, my voice cracks.
"No," Cherry laughs, moisture gathering in her eyes.
"I'm their princess. And you're my protector.
I think it has to be us."
I exhale, squeezing Cherry's hand back.
"Alright," I agree. "Let's make them free. "
The first few levels we climb out of the dungeon are eerily deserted, but Cherry seems to think this is normal.
"No important rooms are placed close to the dungeon," she explains.
"No one wants to hear the screaming."
"Skies," I mutter, stepping quietly through an obstacle course of sheet-covered furniture.
Some sort of storage space for palace discards.
Two more floors up and we begin to hear the whispers of servant conversations as they go about their night time duties.
Outside of a residence hall, we hide around a corner while a meal cart is wheeled slowly past by one of the maids.
Down another hall, we press our backs to a shadowed alcove as a butler passes, blowing out all but a few of the passage's candle sconces.
Through the windows on the opposite hall, I can make out the pitch black night beyond.
An overcast sky with no moon.
I remind myself that I do not believe in omens.
I remind myself that escape is not our object, and breaking the glass to flee would do us no good this high up, when my dragon form is out of reach.
One more floor, and we spot our first palace guard.
Draped all in gold, with the black dragon of Ithyma on his chest, he stands sentry in the doorway we need to pass through.
The entrance to the central part of the palace.
I grip Cherry's wrist, pulling her back with me around the corner.
The guard hasn't seen us, looking in the opposite direction.
But I've seen him, and what's worse than that, I've sensed him.
And he isn't human.
I wrestle with the panic that tries to grip me, making my heart pound and my breathing come too quick.
"What is it, Tarah?" Cherry says the words directly in my ear, barely making any sound at all.
Still, I turn on her in flash, pressing my palm to her mouth.
Her eyes go wide. I don't think there's any way the guard could have heard her.
I wouldn't have, and Vakh wouldn't have, at that distance and that volume.
But I can't know what kind of creature that guard is.
What I know is that he has a danger complex that makes my hackles rise and every instinct cry at me to fight, flee, run, kill, defend.
It is a stronger feeling that I have ever experienced facing another of the kin.
Stronger than I felt when I met Inobar and Besana, stronger than I felt in the Trove or at the Academy.
Which leads me to believe that he is not something that I have faced before.
I try to catalogue all the other types of kin I have heard mentioned.
There are various types of Lycan, I know, the most dangerous of which are meant to be the wendigo.
I don't think he could be Kraken, this far from the water, but I don't know all the rules that govern their kind.
Equira? The only one of their kind I have met was a unicorn, Master Albertson, and his danger complex was near negligible.
From my time spent with Vakh, I do not think the guard is Chimera.
That leaves Lycan, most likely wendigo, or either of the two types of Dragomira I have no real experience with—my time under the king's mind control notwithstanding. Basilisk, or gorgon.
I shake my head at Cherry, finger pressed to my lips.
I only lower my hand when she nods, agreeing to be quiet.
The guard's eyes make a slow sweep of the hall, and I get a good look at them for the first time.
From this distance, they are a pale, almost colorless gray.
The color of old bones or clouds on a moonlit night.
It is not a human color.
I wrack my brain for what I know of the different protectorkin species' powers.
Wendigo, like other Lycan, have somewhat.
..canine forms. But the wendigo are meant to have added abilities, particularly around the full moon: increased strength, aggression, and appetite.
It's a new moon tonight, so if this guard is a wendigo, we should be in the relative clear.
So why does every instinct in me cry that we are not in the clear?
Could he be a basilisk, like the king?
Somehow, that doesn't sit right with me.
From what I know and have heard of basilisks, they tend to use their powers to gain more prestigious positions for themselves.
I can't see a basilisk settling for being a lowly guard.
And then, slipping through my mind like an insidious finger, comes a snippet of remembered conversation, from an evening spent with the sirens.
Our mother used to tell us children's tales about heroes defeating monsters. A lot of those monsters were Dragomira. Dragons sitting on hoards of treasure or gorgons turning people to stone...
Turning people to stone.
If any power were going to engender a high danger complex, more than brute strength or destructive capabilities, I would think turning people to stone could do it.
Why did I not ask Nerris or Marton more about those stories of gorgons when I had the chance?
I know the answer to that, of course. It's because I was so completely fixated on the idea of facing a basilisk. I did not consider that, just as dragons and wyverns congregate together in the Trove, gorgons and basilisks might do the same.
Whatever the case, I know I can't storm in head first right now.
We need time to regroup, discuss. With this in mind, I tow Cherry—on silent, bare feet—back through the halls in the direction we have come.
I pull her into one of the deserted rooms we passed on the way, easing the door shut behind us.
It is a drawing room, the barest glow of embers in the fireplace offering the only light.
"What is it, Tarah? What was he?" she still speaks in the lowest whisper.
I am surprised at how much she has inferred. "Gorgon," I admit, grimacing. "I think he is a gorgon."
"Like..."
"Like turn people to stone. Dragomira. One of the most dangerous of the kin. Gorgon."
"And he works as a guard?"
"I'd like to remind you that that's basically what I do as well."
She makes a scoffing noise. "Hardly."
"Either way. Either way, we have to find some way around him."
"Or through him," says Cherry with an arch look.
"Yeah," I swallow. "Or through him."
After much deliberation, we decide on through.
Another fool plan, wild hope, no-time-for-stopping course of action.
Cherry's idea, but shaped and developed by me.
We plan together in much the same way we used to make up stories with one another in our tower room.
Cherry making all of the choices, and me just trying to keep things from falling apart.
Cherry refuses the blindfold that I try to make her wear, fiercely gripping the pommel of her sword. "I can't fight if I can't see, Tarah."
As a compromise, I make her promise to aim for his hands and feet, under no circumstances raising her gaze anywhere above his navel.
"What about you?" she asks.
"I'm Dragomira," I say with false bravado. "Dragon fire doesn't hurt me, and neither does basilisk magic. Maybe his power won't work on me either."
"Except my father's power did work on you."
"Not as well as it worked on Vakh and Marton."
"By that logic," Cherry says, "I should be immune to the gorgon's power, too."
I stiffen. Cherry's smile is a white flash in the dark. "It's why my father's power doesn't work on me, right? Even though I'm not a basilisk, his blood is in my veins. Maybe I'm immune to all Dragomira magic."
"We are not testing that theory."
Her use of this new leverage is instant. "Then you don't get to test your theory either. If I don't look him in the eye, you don't look him in the eye."
"Fine."
I leave the drawing room with my claws out, the talons on one hand almost completely dull. I keep Cherry carefully behind me, although she arguably has the better weapon of the two of us.
We don't try to hide as we approach the guard.
I keep my attention focused on his chin, strangely tempted to raise my gaze to his eyes. He straightens as we approach, his leather glove creaking as it tightens on the grip of his spear.
"Who are y—" He senses me before the question is all the way out, bristling. "Dragon." It is a short leap from there to realizing two very important prisoners have escaped.
He moves before I do, lowering the business end of his spear in my direction. "Get back to your cell."
"There aren't words emphatic enough to communicate how much that is not going to happen, gorgon." It's still a guess, really. A shot in the dark.
The guard gives me all the confirmation I need when he fumbles. "How did you..."
I kick out, knocking the sharp point of his spear away at the same time as I uppercut with a handful of sharp claws.
His surprise is the only moment of advantage I get. My claws rake his jaw and the side of his throat before he falls back.
It soon becomes clear that he is trained in hand to hand and weapons combat, and I am not.
He recovers swiftly, bleeding but undeterred.
While I'm busy desperately dodging the flurry of spear thrusts and swipes that comes my way, the guard uses the first opening to seize me by the iron collar, forcing my gaze up, instinctively, involuntarily, to his eyes.
It is like being crushed by a ton of bricks.
Everything in me feels weighed down, impossibly heavy. I can move, but it is like moving with a boulder tied to every limb. Even breathing is a struggle.
I cannot even summon the fire in my chest. It seems to crawl up my throat in slow motion.
In regular time, my ears register Cherry's battle cry a second before her sword flashes in my periphery, and she slices the gorgon clean through the forearm.
Disgustingly, horrifyingly, his hand and wrist remain gripping my collar even as the guard falls back with a cry, blood fountaining from his amputated appendage.
With a gag, I fling his severed hand away from me. The guard is whimpering and cradling his arm when I pick up his spear and hit him as hard as I can with the blunt end of it.
"I don't suppose there's anywhere we can put him," I hear myself say as I stand over his unconscious body, oddly detached from the horror of the moment.
Cherry looks green. "Let's just keep moving."
We do, but she pukes in the first potted plant we come across.
"I didn't know the sword was going to be that sharp," she says in her defense.
"Of course not, princess."