32. Chace #3
Without a word, the minion turned and rushed back down the tunnel from which he’d come.
The bastard jailer dropped low on bent knees and studied Aldine.
He pulled the blade from Aldine’s side and patted him on the chest. “Alive or dead, you may still be of use to me, old friend. You wait here. I’ll send someone for you shortly.”
He casually stood, bloodied blade in his hand, and strode away, not bothering to lock the cell. I listened intently to the retreating footsteps while gathering my strength.
When the sound of the jailer’s leave had faded and minutes had passed in silence, I crept to Aldine’s side.
“Why?” I whispered.
His eyes dragged open slowly, and my nose flared, my jaw clenched.
You’re alive, I wanted to yell. We need to get you out of here. Get you help.
Somehow, he managed to find my hand despite the invisibility of the cloak. I didn’t pull away. He clutched and squeezed while I held back any words I wanted to say.
Aldine wheezed, his breath sputtering. “I have already stayed my death date once.”
I had to lower my ear to his lips to hear him.
He tightened his grasp upon my hand. “No point in trying to avoid the inevitable. At least this way, my death has meaning.”
I pulled back and stared at him. Blinked.
“I have one foot on either side. I see you,” Aldine said. “And I see the Killian who has come to claim me.”
I swung a tight gaze over the room, but I saw nothing and no one.
“You must get free of this place,” he continued. “Waste no more time and go. You and Raven need to finish this.”
The word somehow lingered unspoken in the air between us.
My chest heaved. Aldine wanted me to find Raven, stop the mad jailer, and fix the reaping issue of the citadel with my limited reaper knowledge. I would think about that later. First, Aldine…
“You knew him,” I said of my captor. “Is he―”
“Go.” Aldine’s voice sounded more like a bark. “Go before he returns. Don’t wait on me. My time is almost gone.”
“I can’t just leave you. Not like this.” I hovered my hand over the wound in Aldine’s side.
I wanted to press upon it to stop the bleeding, but he’d lost too much blood already. The internal injuries clearly extreme, I knew of nothing I could do to improve his condition.
An invisible force clasped me by the shoulders, dragged me to my feet, and shoved me out into the space beyond the cell.
I wobbled and grabbed the bars of the cell to steady myself, then I whipped my head around, searching for the source of my violent extraction. “Reaper’s hell. What was that?”
“Go,” Aldine said, his voice cracked and gritty. “The Killian and I both want you to go.”
The Killian wants me to go.
Only Aldine laid crumpled nearby, visible. Which meant…
The Killian had touched me. Pushed me out of the prison cell.
I shivered.
The sound of someone approaching echoed from the tunnel at my back. A couple of someones. Likely the people sent to collect Aldine.
Reluctantly, I backed into the darkest of the surrounding shadows.
As Aldine took his last breath, the haze of green surrounding his body vanished.
A new set of minions arrived. They lifted and dropped the elder’s body into a pushcart then wheeled him away, leaving me in a void of light and sound.
Slowly and painfully—most painfully—I made my way toward freedom. My emotions tugged like a shackle upon my heart. My soul.
Each step of the way through the tunnels to the surface, across the palace grounds, and into the citadel beyond, I planned a revenge worthy of the reaper god, Death.
I would summon Death and bring Hell upon this place for what they had done. What they had allowed to happen. To Aldine.
But first, I’d find a pair of decent-enough-fitting boots.
I’d barely stepped foot beyond the palace gates, my plot for revenge a mere seed in need of watering, when a red-faced officer, beaded with sweat, dashed up the street toward the men standing guard. He approached from the wrong direction to have any news of my escape or Aldine’s demise.
I stepped into the spaces between buildings and bustling, fearful of detection and curious about what currently transpired. I leaned as close as I dared to hear the exchange.
“The prince,” the soldier said between panting breaths. “He’s been spotted. Get help. Get Valen.”
He gestured toward the castle.
Valen. The person Raven’s father suggested they seek. He resided in the palace. A place protected by a queen who wanted me gone…possibly dead or tortured, based on the past few days.
“His Highness has been touched,” the officer added.
Touched? I frowned.
The message drew stares and gasps from the surrounding guardsmen, and they erupted in a flurry of pitched words and flapping arms.
“Say it isn’t so,” a guard asked. “Our prince? The only possible heir? Trapped in the living hell?”
Understanding immediately hit me. The royal prince had become afflicted.
Such a situation would make the queen even less likely to work with me for fear of losing the prince to a permanent death. She’d already made her opinion of my kind deadly clear.
I needed to think. Needed to get to my room and tools.
I needed a solution…to everything.