Chapter 43 The Shadows #2
She looked up at him in disbelief. “Except if you had done that, the Magistry would have received custody of me right off the bat. You said yourself that I might not even be alive.” Hazel thought his actual words were something more along the lines of having saved her ass, but she wasn’t going to throw that in his face right now.
“I am just glad you got here when you did.”
Oswald groaned behind them, and Slaide silenced him once more with the snap of his fingers.
“We don’t have a lot of time. More guards will be coming around soon.”
“More? What happened to the ones at the door?” she asked in earnest.
“They’re dead,” he answered flatly.
“Good.”
Slaide couldn’t help but laugh. “My, my. You’ve been hanging around me for too long, talking like that. I like this version of you.” He mussed her hair.
She ignored the quip and looked at the floor. “Well, what are we waiting for, then? Let’s go.” Hazel stood, chains jangling.
Slaide stood and took her hands in his. “Did you get the key? And my letters?”
“I got them. But I haven’t had a chance to make sense of any of it. They dragged me out of the other cell moments after my cat friend delivered the decoder.”
He looked perplexed. “Did you just say cat? As in the cat? The weird one?”
“Hey, he’s not weird. But yes… Did you not send it tied to my cat?”
“That sly girl.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t me. I asked Phaedra if she could figure out a way to get it to you. The slaves have tunnels all throughout this castle, and they keep interesting company. Hence the cat, I suppose.”
“Gods, I love her!” Hazel exclaimed.
“Indeed. She really is something.”
Hazel grabbed his arm, and Slaide shook his head knowingly.
“We don’t have time. Once I get you to a safe place, I will see what I can do.
But I had a plan in place to get you out tomorrow, when…
” He looked toward Agnes’s dark cell. When they put her to the stake.
He didn’t have to say it, she knew. “That plan included getting them out, too.”
“How were you going to do that?”
“I’m going to blow these dungeons to shit.” He smirked.
A grunt sounded from the other cell. Not a grunt, a laugh.
“Agnes?” Hazel called.
“That one has a big mouth and a bigger ego,” Agnes mumbled, smirking.
“But, really, Dark One, I’d love to know how you plan to blow this heavily fortified dungeon to shit. As if that hasn’t been tried in the past.” She stepped into the firelight, a condescending scowl etched onto her face as she assessed Slaide.
Hazel noted her use of the phrase “Dark One” again and found it perplexing. Slaide visibly stiffened as she said it. The lighting was low, but there was no hiding the unease it caused him. However, unlike he had in the past, Slaide didn’t correct her. Didn’t demand she not call him that. Strange.
Slaide stared at Agnes, and she him. Something like recognition passed between them. Slaide looked at Hazel, then back at Agnes.
“No,” Agnes replied. “I’ll only slow you down.
” Hazel looked at both of them, confused.
Did I miss something? “I appreciate the thought, even if it is just a bold attempt at making up for your past transgressions.” She sighed then.
“I’m tired. A sort of tired neither of you will understand for a long, long time.
As I explained to Hazel, my time has come, and I am at peace with my fate. ”
Her heart broke all over again. Agnes was all she had left.
Her mother, her father… and now the only matronly figure she’d ever known.
It was all the more painful knowing in advance, as opposed to having it sprung on her.
Her heart wanted nothing more than to drag Agnes with them against her wishes.
But in her head, she knew it would never work.
Voices sounded down the hall, beyond the main dungeon doors.
“Shit,” Slaide said. “Out of time. We have to go, now!”
Agnes gave them a curt nod, and Hazel stifled another sob, knowing she would never look upon Agnes’s warm face again.
Slaide urged Hazel along gently but firmly, forcing her to leave Agnes to her fate.
Slaide and Hazel ran deeper into the dungeons. The main entrance was no longer an option, but as Hazel soon found, there was more to the old castle walls than their plain stone exterior led on. These walls held secrets.
They reached what she thought was a dead end.
Slaide tapped on certain stones in a pattern she couldn’t follow, and before she knew it, the stones were shifting, turning inwards on themselves, and revealing a crawlspace.
He entered first. Once Hazel was within, Slaide tapped on the low ceiling twice, and the stone doorway returned to its unassuming state. She rubbed her eyes in disbelief.
It was dark. So dark that she swallowed deeply, desperately needing something to ground her.
Slaide remained statue-still for a few moments, which gave her eyes some time to adjust. It was hardly enough.
Just beyond the wall, the voices of flustered guards grew louder, their shouts frantic and calling out the escape.
Just as quickly, their voices faded into the distance.
Without a doubt, they’d scurried from the dungeons to raise the alarm.
Urgency found them again. Slaide grasped her hand in the darkness.
“Here’s the deal, sweets. You’re going to do everything I say the very moment I say it, no hesitations. Got it? Good. From here on out, we don’t talk unless it’s urgent.” There was something comforting in the return of strictly business Slaide. A sense of familiarity.
She nodded her agreement before mumbling “yes” when she reminded herself it was so dark he likely couldn’t see her head movement.
He led her on then, winding through the dark tunnel for far too long. Did he know where he was going? Of course he does. That sort of thinking is going to get you killed, she thought.
At last, they reached another dead end. Slaide turned to her and spoke quietly.
“Now comes the fun part.” She could hear the grin in his voice. Light was filtering in between the stones, not quite enough to see, but enough to suggest it was no longer night. Meaning there would be fewer shadows for them to hide in, and more people moving about the castle. This was suicide.
“Trust me.” And she did… sort of. Maybe it was less trust and more of a lack of options. She’d have to revisit that when her life wasn’t on the line.
Slaide repeated the same sequence as before, knocking on seemingly random stones. Once more, the stones rotated and rearranged themselves to form a small opening.
To Hazel’s surprise, they stepped into someone’s living quarters.
There were three pallet beds on either side of the cramped space.
Hand-sewn sheets appeared to be stuffed with straw, which by the smell of the room, was beginning to mold.
A few of the beds had the luxury of a stained pillow or threadbare blanket.
There was a community chamber pot in the far corner.
Her cheeks reddened as she determined where they were. Slave quarters.
“All the resources and wealth the king has,” she hissed, “and he forces them to sleep like this?”
“You’re right to be angry, but understand this: these are the ones who are treated well. You don’t want to see where the rest are forced to sleep.” He rushed around while he spoke, and just as Hazel was about to ask what he was looking for, he held up a knapsack and a change of clothes for her.
She jangled the manacles. “How do you expect me to change like this?” Her voice was just above a whisper, a little too loud.
This earned her a chastising glare. “Tell me you at least have the keys to these, or maybe you can tappy-tap on them like that little trick you did with the magic doorways back there? You know, wave your hand and make them fall off? Anything?”
But the look on his face was enough. Slaide Elias did not have the keys, and there was no magic trick to make the iron shackles fall from her wrists.
“Then how do you propose I change?” No sooner than she’d said it, Hazel became acutely aware of her mistake. Slaide was going to relish in the way she had phrased that.
But to her surprise, he held his tongue.
There was no snide remark, no biting sarcasm about how he could “help her with that.” And she was glad for it.
Because while she’d recently found herself in some precarious, deliciously sinful situations with Slaide, her mind could not currently fathom the idea of a man’s body pressed against hers.
Not after… no, she wouldn’t focus on that right now.
He truly looked stumped on how he could help her.
“It’s okay,” she said at last. “We don’t have a choice. I need your help.”
His movements were cautious and deliberate as he moved to help her remove the soiled shift. However, they quickly discovered her shackled hands posed an issue there as well.
“Just cut it off,” she spoke flatly.
That caught him off guard. “What?”
“Tear it. Cut it. I don’t care what you do.
Get this disgusting thing off of me.” Because maybe, just maybe, the shock was beginning to set in.
She was feeling panicked, losing control.
And she was no risk to anyone as long as she wore the irons, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t break down into a useless, sobbing mess when she needed to stay strong.
So Slaide unsheathed his knife and went to work, the sharp blade slicing through the paper-thin fabric with ease.
At last, the dirty piece of cloth fell in a heap at Hazel’s feet. She shivered as the air met her exposed flesh.
Hazel turned around, wearing nothing but her underclothes, and was surprised to find Slaide had averted his gaze. She was glad for it, unsure how she would feel to see the feral longing in his eyes knowing she did not currently return the sentiment.
“Slaide, we still have a problem.” She could manage to shimmy into the reinforced, boiled leather pants of her fighting leathers well enough, but her bindings once again created a complication in putting on any sort of top.
She opened her mouth to explain just that when she was interrupted by a knock at the door.
Rap-tap. Rap-tap. Rap-tap.
Hazel froze.
Slaide moved to the small single door, hand hovering over the dagger on his hip. A curious tendril emerged from the shadow he cast on the floor, slithering like a snake toward the door. It spread so thin Hazel could hardly see it as it slipped beneath the door. A moment later, it retracted swiftly.
Whoever it was, they must have been expected. Slaide unlatched the door and cracked it open to confirm the visitor with his own eyes. Satisfied, he let them in.
It was Phaedra.
And in her hand, she held a key.