CHAPTER 8
Axel
I
f they had been outside, Axel could have imagined a lonely wind blowing through the empty halls of the theater, stirring up a few leaves as it eddied around a corner.
It was too early for any members of the cast or staff to be around.
But no matter how hard he looked, he found none of the signs he hoped for.
No melodious alto voice. No soft rustles or barely discernible movements in the shadows.
He searched through all the practice rooms, the dressing rooms, and through the auditorium, which once again looked ready to receive guests.
He stood on the stage as Otto paced behind him, then searched the shadows themselves, holding a candle in his hand to chase them away.
If only it could chase away the heaviness in his heart.
Even the echo of his boots past the open curtains failed to coax him from his melancholy. The sound drifted away to nothing, begging him to fill it with music, but he couldn’t hear a melody for his mood.
“What exactly are we doing, Axel?” Otto asked as they followed the steps down into the auditorium and began climbing one of the slanted paths. “I expected more singing and less looking like your puppy died.”
“I can sing at home,” Axel replied quietly. He pulled his cloak back over his shoulders before stepping out into the brisk morning. “Now that the theater has been repaired, I was hoping to find Lotti.”
He kept his eyes straight ahead, but as Otto drew even with him, he could see the other man’s frown in his peripheral vision. “Is that the voice tutor that you thought was a danger to Kat?” Axel nodded. “Then forgive me for asking, but why are we looking for her?”
Axel didn’t answer at first as they turned onto a side street; he didn’t expect Katy’s cousin to understand.
“She was my friend,” he finally said. “Lotti recognized my talent and passion for singing and encouraged it when no one else would have. If not for her, I would be a hopeless amateur, drifting through the frustration of knowing more was possible without knowing how to attain it. Life would be pale and dry without the freedom that the theater offered me for the ten years she was there. And if I hadn’t been singing with Lotti, I might not have taken Katy to the music room to sing in the mornings, and then she might not have chosen to marry me.
She might have taken the position with Tobias’s family instead. ”
“Kat didn’t marry you for your voice,” Otto cut in with a wry grin.
“No,” Axel agreed, “but if not for our mornings in the music room, she might not have cared enough for me to stay.”
Otto didn’t respond. Perhaps Axel was assigning too much of his happiness to his tutor’s impact, but he had no doubt that he would be a different person had he not met Lotti. The entire course of his life might have been different.
It was fine if Otto didn’t think she was safe to be around. If Otto insisted that he never work with Lotti again, Axel would acquiesce to the guard’s demands.
He just wanted to assure himself that she was all right, that she had escaped the fire uninjured. Once he knew that, he could walk away.
“Shouldn’t we be heading back?” Otto prompted sometime later. “It’s been a few years since that garden incident, but I imagine your parents might still be concerned if you miss breakfast.”
Looking up at the sky, Axel conceded his point. “I wasn’t paying attention. Sorry.” He turned in a slow circle. “And…apparently I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going, either. I know the city quite well, but I don’t recognize this neighborhood.”
His companion gave a long-suffering sigh. “Luckily for you, I was. Come on.” Spinning on his heel, Otto began to lead the prince back the way they had come.
They were walking through a less-respectable area when Otto suddenly dragged him back after turning a corner. “Change of plans,” he hissed, hauling Axel in a different direction.
“What’s going on?”
“Five years without seeing him, and now he’s back,” Otto muttered. He released Axel’s wrist, placing a hand on his sword hilt and glancing over his shoulder before increasing his pace to a jog. The edges of his weighted cloak bobbed beside him. “I’d hoped he was gone for good.”
“Who?” Axel demanded.
“That red-haired man.”
An old memory sprang to Axel’s mind. His first day with a guard in tow for visiting Lotti. Being pulled back around a corner because a red-haired stranger had a skilled young guard shaking in his boots.
And as he looked at the guard jogging next to him, Axel thought the man might be shaking in his boots again. Or would be, if he were standing still.
“I take it you know an alternate route?” Axel said between breaths.
“If I don’t, we’re in trouble.”
“That’s so reassuring,” Axel grumbled.
Otto released a strained chuckle. “Relax. The streets here are laid out in a fairly consistent manner. This should take us around.”
They entered a narrow alleyway. Axel could tell it made his guard as nervous as it made him, but they didn’t have many options. Otto slowed, stepping carefully down the road.
“That’s far enough.”
Otto whirled to face the voice behind them, but Axel, a little slower to react, kept his face forward when several men stepped out of a doorway. Two were armed with nothing but their fists, but the other one held a sword.
“Um, Otto?”
The guard’s eyes darted back. “Please tell me you’re carrying a sword.”
“Nope.” Axel allowed himself a quick peek over his shoulder. Three more men, two wielding swords and one a dagger. “I used to wander the streets alone; I’ve never been in danger in my city.”
“First time for everything,” Otto grunted just before the clash of metal rang out. Axel spun so he could see the attackers on both sides. Otto’s sword flashed, but the dagger-carrier slipped past him. Worse, Axel’s three were almost upon them.
Axel didn’t have a sword, but he did have a boot-knife.
Ripping his cloak from his shoulders, he bent down and whipped the seven-inch blade from its sheath.
He brought it up just in time to block the dagger.
The sword, he dodged by dropping into a crouch.
He planted his hands and kicked out at the nearest set of legs.
The dagger slashed down, and he executed a hasty roll.
Someone grabbed his ankle and dragged him backward. As he scrabbled for a handhold, the sword flashed at the edge of his vision. He threw up the boot-knife, but the sword glanced off the blade. It bit into his left arm, drawing a strangled yell.
“Axel!” Otto called before crying out in pain, his distraction costing him. Why wasn’t chainmail part of a guard’s uniform when inside the city? “Are you all right?”
The knife was worthless in defense. Twisting, Axel buried it in the hand holding his ankle.
The man jerked away, almost wrenching the knife from his grip, but Axel held on through sheer determination.
“Still alive!” he hollered back. His sleeve clung to the skin next to his cut, but he ignored it.
Shoving to his feet, he scanned his opponents as he staggered back.
Otto had dispatched one of his attackers, but the other wasn’t letting him turn to help Axel. The man Axel had stabbed was hanging back, nursing his left hand. The two with weapons lunged forward.
Axel gritted his teeth against the pain in his arm and dove to the right, ducking under the swinging dagger. The move risked tripping Otto, but it put Axel next to Otto’s fallen opponent…and that man’s sword.
Dropping his knife, Axel snatched the longer weapon and scrambled back up. The poorly crafted sword felt awkward and unbalanced, but he flung it up in a defensive position.
The two unarmed men turned tail and ran while the swordsman swung at Axel.
But the last man drove his dagger into Otto’s back.
“No!” The cry ripped from Axel’s throat as his friend dropped to one knee. The guard swung once more before collapsing, bringing the second swordsman to the ground.
The prince had always been more interested in singing than fighting, but that didn’t mean he was incapable. On the contrary, he was quite comfortable with a blade in his hand.
Once he had one, the dance was short. His wrath and worry made quick work of the last two men.
“Otto!” he exclaimed, dropping to a knee beside the fallen guard. “If you die, Katy will kill me.”
“Would be—a waste,” Otto groaned without opening his eyes. “She wouldn’t—too practical.”
“Stay with me.” Axel looked frantically around, then grabbed his knife from the ground and cut the sleeve from an attacker’s shirt.
Wadding it up, he pressed it to the wound in his friend’s back.
“I’m fairly certain her temper would take over at that point.
Help!” he yelled as loud as he could. “We need help!”
Seconds passed like hours as he staunched the wound. Otto’s strangely bulky cloak made it hard to tell if the bleeding had slowed, but he didn’t dare remove pressure from the wound to adjust. He needed a physician, but no one was responding to his cries.
“We have to move,” he said apologetically, switching the torn sleeve to his right hand and pulling Otto’s left arm over his shoulder. He bit back a moan at the strain on his injured arm. “Can you help me get you up?”
While Axel straightened, Otto shuffled his knees. “Leg,” he mumbled. He managed to get his right foot on the ground and give a weak push, but he immediately collapsed against Axel with a cry.
A quick glance revealed red skin through a tear in Otto’s trouser leg. Right. He’d already been hurt. “It’s all right. I have you.”
Axel took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his friend, and lurched to his feet. Otto’s head lolled forward, but he managed to take some weight on his left leg.
“All right. One step at a time,” Axel murmured, as much to himself as to Otto. Slowly, they stumbled down the alley until they reached the street. Axel turned in the direction that seemed most promising. “You’re heavier than you look. How are you doing?”
There was no response, but Otto still bore some of his own weight. Axel took that as a good sign.
After endless steps, they reached a populated road. Axel leaned against a wall for a few moments to catch his breath. “Few more,” he panted. “Just a—few.”
Someone screamed as he staggered around the corner.
The general hum of a busy street swelled to a dull roar as people gathered around them.
He fought to raise his head; his arms were shaking, and his legs burned from half-carrying a heavy man for—he didn’t know how long.
“We need—the castle,” he panted. Otto sagged against his side, and the pain in his arm was excruciating.
He could only imagine how his friend felt. “The castle. Need—physician.”
The clatter of carriage wheels stopped next to him. “You poor man! We can—He has a sword!” a woman shrieked.
Sword? Axel couldn’t summon the energy to be surprised at the blade he now saw in Otto’s hand.
Always the guard, Axel dimly thought. If I were in his condition, I would have dropped it by now.
As it was, his boot-knife and borrowed sword were back in the alley; he’d forgotten about them in his concern.
“Won’t hurt you,” Axel mumbled, swaying on his feet. “Royal guard.”
“He’s right, look at his jerkin!”
“Is that—No, it can’t be!”
The clamor bounced off Axel’s weary ears. Someone eased him away from Otto and helped them into the carriage. More gasps at the blood soaking Otto’s back.
“Need—pressure on it,” Axel forced out, leaning forward to press the reddened cloth against the wound.
“Shh, I’ll take care of it.” A gentle hand took the cloth from him and arranged it over the wound. “You rest now, and let my husband bind your arm.”
“His leg first.” Axel flopped his right hand in Otto’s direction. “Too much blood already.”
A larger hand gripped his shoulder and pulled him away. “Of course. We’ll take care of him, too.”
Satisfied, Axel slumped against the corner and closed his eyes as the carriage jolted forward.