Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
THE COLLECTION
Clement appeared at my side in an instant.
Black slashes were carved into his neck, his tunic torn at the shoulders, the skin underneath charred. He ducked, dragging me to the floor and covered my body with his.
The candles all extinguished with one invisible gust, the moonlight in the courtyard suddenly strangled by the dense clouds. Darkness choked us.
Screams erupted from all sides. Bodies stampeded toward the exits, panic thick in the air.
Spirits swooped from the ceiling, tearing at Clement’s back.
Penetrating ice-cold spears ripped into my exposed flesh, sizzling my skin.
He rolled to cover more of me, squeezing the air from around my body and forcing the spirits to recede.
Heavy bolts thumped across the main doors. The fear grew, the guests now fleeing for the courtyard.
“Behind the altar,” he hissed in my ear, “there’s a passage.” His body rocked as the spirits swarmed. He dug deeper, pressing me further to the ground as he bit back the pain.
“Lilyanna! I can’t leave her.”
“She wants to be here. As long as she survives the night, she’ll be fine.”
Somewhere in the distance, the prince yelled an order for the spirits to find me over the churning mass of people. One by one the fireplaces blinked back to life, congealed gray smoke dissipating.
“We need to go now. I’m not arguing with you, Tam.”
Bony fingers locked around my ankle. I kicked out, hitting nothing but a dense cloud of pressure. It yanked me backward, and I slid out from under Clement.
He grabbed my wrists and dragged me forward. My leg stretched, my tendons extending. My ankle bones ground together in the spirit's grip. Clement pulled harder and my leg shot free. He dragged me to my feet, his arm encircling my waist.
We raced toward the dark altar, the candles swooshing to life behind us, the light biting at our heels. The shadows soared overhead, forced into the corners and away from the heat.
My slippers slid on the stairs, but Clement kept his grip until we rounded the altar. He flung open a trap door in the marble. “In. Now.”
Stale air belched from the pitch-black shaft, and I opened my mouth to argue, but he kicked my legs from under me and threw me into the opening.
Seconds later, he collapsed in the dirt next to me and the lid slammed shut above. Mold and ash swirled into the air.
“Move. They’ll chase us.” He shoved me forward, the passageway barely high enough to stand.
The walls clutched at me, rending holes in the sheer fabric of my dress.
We descended sharply downhill before snaking left then right.
Small eyes in the wood panels allowed brief glimpses of familiar rooms and snatches of perfume, smoke, or decomposing scraps.
I was in the walls. Again.
Clement kept pushing me forward, his shoulders stooped, his breath panting against my neck. “We’ll go out through the sewers. The spirits can’t leave the castle. If we keep moving, they may not catch us.”
“May?”
He barked a laugh and shoved me harder. “I’ll get you out, I promise.”
“And you?”
I slammed into a wall, Clement colliding with me. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “This way.” We moved to an opening on the left, treading more carefully as the ground levelled out. The temperature dropped with every step.
“I can’t smell sewage. Are you sure this is the right way?”
“These old tunnels don’t work anymore. The prince keeps them open so he can sneak in and out of the castle. They spit out just inside the boundary, underneath those large gargoyles. It’s barely ten yards to the street from there.”
So, that’s how he’d snuck up on me. “I hope Lilyanna’s okay.
” The guards would have surrounded the prince, and the Queens’ Guard protected his mothers, but who would be with her?
I’d spent weeks caring for her and now abandoned her to whatever Fate had laid out for her.
“Maybe the prince doesn’t know what happened.
We could still try and leave the normal way. ”
“The spirits would have told him. The castle is going to lock down any second. Keep moving.”
The prince’s voice echoed through the tunnels in a distorted whisper. “Tamara. Oh, what a scene you’ve caused at my wedding. You can’t run, you know. You can’t hide from me in my own home.”
“Keep going,” Clement urged.
A puddle of moonlight swirled gray in the darkness shone up ahead.
He pushed me forward, his hand never leaving the small of my back.
As my toes touched the light, a metal gate slammed down.
Clement piled into me again, crushing me against the rusted bars.
The earth shook. Dank mud and dust and cobwebs rained down from the ceiling.
The prince’s laughter echoed around us.
“Ignore him.” Clement gently moved me aside, then grabbed the bars and shook, achieving nothing except an eerie rattle. “Damn it!” He took my hand and spun down a smaller tributary. “This fucking way then.”
Up ahead another gate slammed down. He cursed again and dragged me back the way we’d come.
He paused at a fork, frustrated breaths loud and raspy in the stillness.
The middle was the way we’d come, the right sloped gently upward in the vague direction of the new castle, and the left plunged downward into pitch black.
“We go up,” I said. “We need to get out.”
“No.” He strode toward the left tunnel. “The deeper we go, the less control the castle has. Then we need to head south to reach the gates. Where’s that compass he gave you?”
I tugged up the hem of my dress, revealing the slim holster that I’d turned inward so the bulge wouldn’t be present against the sheer fabric.
I’d have much preferred to have worn my knife, but as the prince made me wear this revealing dress, I wouldn’t have been able to hide it, so I’d made do with the solid metal compass thinking I could bludgeon someone with it.
I flipped open the gold lid and rapped it against the stone wall. The needle quivered, emanating with a slight phosphorescence. It spun clearly toward the small engraved ‘south’ and Clement’s dark, miserable tunnel that went further down.
I planted my feet and folded my arms, but he’d seen the result.
“Please.” He gripped my shoulders, lowering his face to mine. “Trust me. I promised I’d get you out, and I will. That’s the best way.” He kissed me gently, his manipulative tactics rewarded when my body softened.
He tugged my arm, and I grudgingly fell into step behind him, one hand fisted in the back of his tunic. He waved his arms in front of him, sleeves swishing in the darkness. I crept after him, picking my feet up high, my spare hand trailing along the hewn dirt wall.
The tunnel rapidly closed in on us. Clement’s shirt stretched in my grip as he doubled over, squeezing himself forward. Musty droplets sprung from the ceiling and oozed onto my skin whenever I brushed against the walls.
How easy it would be for the castle to squash us right now. To bury us down here amid tons of rubble. Would it mean our spirits would be trapped too, or would it be enough of a burial to allow us passage onward?
In answer, the castle groaned behind us. The floor trembled and the walls inched closer. Rocks and earth sprung loose, pelting us, before tumbling downward into the never-ending pit.
I flung my arm over my head, closing my eyes as dust stung my corneas, tears streaming down my cheeks. Clement barreled onward, tugging me out of the tunnel and into a circular vestibule.
Slivers of moonlight pierced the darkness, fogging as it hit my breath.
The rusted rungs of a ladder scaled the wall in front.
Behind us, the rocks ground to a halt, carefully layering themselves in an impenetrable barrier like maggots feasting on an open wound, leaving no skin untouched, blocking our retreat.
I stepped backward, away from the ladder and a blinding pain seared through my skull. Crushing pressure slammed into my temples, my vision darkening. I stumbled forward again, and the tightness vanished.
Tentatively, I eased backward. The pressure returned, but this time, it morphed into dozens of voices. The words merged into an incoherent chant. I focused on the rhythm, opening my senses, allowing my mind to accept the intrusion.
Go back.
Clement studied the ladder with his arms crossed and feet planted, completely oblivious. He turned to frown at me.
I moved forward, the pressure around my skull releasing once more and the sound vanished. I wiped my face, gasping and gesturing toward the wall. “We should go back. They want us to go that way.” My finger shook as I waggled it toward the ladder. “Not up there.”
“We can’t go back. We need to get out.”
I moved in front of him to reclaim his attention. “No, but—”
He shushed me, motioning for me to stay behind him. I stomped alongside him and glared until he sighed. “You can’t trust them; they still obey him. Wait here, I’ll go first. Check that it’s safe.”
The blocked tunnel behind us quietened. The rocks had plugged the gaps, and the dust settled as if it had been present for hundreds of years. Creeping veins of diamond glistened in stray shards of moonlight.
A light, tempting breeze seeped down from above.
I scoffed. “No way. I’m not staying here by myself.”
I moved for the ladder, but Clement grabbed me, my feet dangling in the air. He spun and settled me behind him before turning back and climbing the rungs quickly. The ladder screamed, grinding its teeth under his weight.
I scurried up behind him, too close to react to his muffled warning.
Cold hands latched around my wrists, my ankles, my neck. My back hit the ground with such force that my spine was only spared from shattering by the carpet of snow. I tried to scream but icy tendrils squirmed into my mouth, snuffing out any sound and blocking my air.
I gasped, thrashing under the invisible weight. I dragged in oxygen through my nose, my nostrils flaring, breaths not enough to smother the rising panic.