Chapter 11
CHAPTER 11
N eve and Eleksi rode for Klatos from the farm early the next morning. They left their horses in the care of a stable just beyond the city’s high stone perimeter wall.
“Klatos has changed,” said Neve, looking around at the streets of the capital city from beneath the hood of her cloak. She and Eleksi walked side by side. “The turn of the season brought more than orange leaves and apple cider.”
“This is Queen Meliohr’s doing,” he replied. “She seeks to instill the city with fear. A taste of what’s to come, I daresay.”
Royal guards manned every corner, wearing new heavy armor. They glared at passersby, creating a tense atmosphere despite the impending harvest festival. The produce displays and autumnal banners decking the shopfronts weren’t enough to overcome the imperious gloom cast by the guards.
A chilly breeze wound through the streets, scented with oceanic salt from the bay. The sun was hidden by endless stretches of low-hanging gray clouds.
The guards unnerved her. That morning in the shepherd’s hut, Neve and Eleksi discussed their plan to fake her death for the queen. Sequestered in the cozy and isolated hut, the plan had seemed reasonable. But now, walking the cobblestoned streets of Klatos surrounded by eagle-eyed guards, the plan felt flimsy and bound to fail.
“Relax,” murmured Eleksi as they made their way to the palace. “They aren’t looking for you, specifically. I doubt they know about you at all. The queen is too paranoid to spread word of your existence, let alone give a description of you. There are still many in the palace who disapprove of her reign. She’ll keep you a secret for as long as she can.”
Neve knew he was right, but her nerves persisted. In mere hours, Eleksi would be presenting her deceased body to the queen. Both their lives depended on her ability to perform the Glamour spell flawlessly for an unknown length of time.
Using a Glamour to imitate another person—a living, breathing, moving person—was hard enough. But to mimic oneself, only dead, presented different challenges. Neve realized that she’d been too cavalier about the risks.
What if someone poked or prodded her? If she experienced any pain, her focus would waver and the Glamour could break. The queen might handle her body in some way, to ensure Neve was truly dead.
But the potential rewards were immense. Should Neve and Eleksi pull off the ruse, they would have bought their freedom. The queen would stop pursuing Neve, and Eleksi’s failure to kill his mark would remain undetected.
The sorceress would effectively be a fugitive, of course. Returning to Starlight Gardens was out of the question. If she went back, word would reach the queen, who’d promptly send more assassins to kill her.
By discovering her father’s identity, Neve’s life had been changed in a complicated web of ways.
The city crackled with the energy of the bodies and minds of thousands of people. Living at Starlight Gardens seemed to have made her more sensitive to the energetic onslaught. Neve found herself walking close to Eleksi, because his focused, contained energy calmed her.
“How will we enter the palace?” she asked. “I’ve only attended events before, and there were always guards everywhere.”
“There are many ways, but we should enter through the kitchens today. They’ll be hectic, because of the festival, allowing us to slip by unnoticed. Once inside, we’ll need to be very careful, though. I’ll go ahead of you to the drawing room, where I’m to meet the queen, to ensure the way is clear. Until the time is right, we must keep you away from Meliohr and the head of the royal guard. He’s her most trusted accomplice, from what I can tell.”
“And then what happens? I perform the Glamour and we simply leave the palace?” Neve nibbled her lip. “That sounds too easy.”
Eleksi glanced at her. “If trouble arises, we will deal with it. Why second guess yourself? You are plenty capable.”
“You sound like my Guide, Fouzia. She says I don’t lead by instinct, and it costs me.”
“Your Fouzia may be right. But that’s something you can practice.”
“How?”
“By being decisive.” He rubbed his throat, which still showed traces of black from Neve’s deathly grip. “When you cursed me with death, did you labor over the thought? Or did you simply do it?”
“I simply did it.”
“See? And it saved your life.”
“But I nearly killed someone.”
“Perhaps that someone had it coming.”
Neve chuckled. “Alright. I’ll keep that in mind.”
“You have power, Neve. Don’t be afraid to use it when you need to.”
Eager to stay off the main roads, she showed Eleksi several shortcuts through back alleys en route to the palace.
“You know the city well,” he noted. “Better than I do, and I’ve spent lots of time skulking around these streets.”
“When I was younger, I used to explore the city alone for hours at a time.”
“Why? What were you looking for?”
She paused. “I don’t know, exactly. I just had the vague notion that I’d know it if I found it.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
He regarded her in silence for several moments before speaking again.
“Where did you live?” he asked.
“The northern side of the city, far from the bay.” Neve pointed uphill. “From the roof of our building, only the highest turrets of the palace are visible. Where did you grow up?”
Her question was innocuous enough, but she’d pieced together enough of his past from their conversations to know that his childhood was a loaded topic. But then, so was hers, and they were discussing it. There was no harm in asking where he was from, was there?
Eleksi looked straight ahead. “I come from the western regions. A small village. You wouldn’t have heard of it.”
There was a finality to his tone that suggested he didn’t want to say more on the subject. While she respected his privacy and asked no further questions, her curiosity was piqued. What kind of childhood had produced a man like Eleksi? He was single-minded and sharp and possessed many talents. More than that, he used those talents to kill people for gold. What drove a person down that path?
The streets became congested close to the palace. Locals and travelers alike packed into the taverns, and food stalls filled the footpaths. Above it all, the palace gleamed despite the sky’s dreariness, as if the golden stones were lit from within.
“You remind me of the High Magus,” she said, the realization striking her.
He arched a jet-black eyebrow at her. “How so?”
“In the way you carry yourself. It’s a kind of remote self-possession that I’d never be able to replicate, nor could most people. Like you’re very sure of yourself.”
Eleksi digested her words. “I have to be sure of myself. I wouldn’t have survived, otherwise.” He snickered. “The High Magus would make a prodigious assassin.”
Neve shuddered. “Could you imagine? Thank the gods for not giving him that particular ambition.”
The palace was surrounded by a high wrought-iron fence, topped with gold finials. Guards patrolled the perimeter at every few paces. At the gates, they directed the carts, horses, and merchants who bustled in and out.
Neve and Eleksi loitered near the shops and taverns opposite the palace to survey the scene.
“The entrance to the kitchen is around there,” he said, inclining his head slightly at the right side of the castle grounds. “How strong are you?”
“Excuse me?”
“The easiest way to gain access to the kitchens would be to ride with one of the carriages. But you’d have to suspend yourself from the beams in the canopy, and stay high enough to remain out of sight. The guards will open the cart and check the contents.”
“Oh.” She glanced at the long lines forming at the gates. “It could take some time to get through. Perhaps I should use a Camouflage spell?”
“Won’t that weaken you?”
“It’d use a good measure of my energy, yes.”
“Conserve yourself. You need your strength for the main event.”
“Then how will I get to the kitchens?”
“We’ll find a way.” His eyes swept over her. “Let’s get closer to the carriages.”
They crossed the road and loitered in a nondescript alleyway near one of the gates.
At least a dozen horse-drawn carts were awaiting entry at the gate. Coachmen hopped down and greeted each other, trading gossip and sips from flasks. None paid particular attention to their loads.
Neve supposed the coachmen were mostly delivering food and drink. They wouldn’t be too concerned about thieves, particularly so close to the palace guards.
“The one with the navy-blue canopy,” said Eleksi. “Come on.”
Before she could ask how, exactly, they would find a way, he crossed to the carts. Swallowing her anxiety, she hastened after him. As shifty as she felt approaching the carts from the street, stopping and colluding with Eleksi on the way would be even more suspicious. She prayed he knew what he was doing.
At the cart with the navy-blue canopy, he grabbed Neve’s wrist. She yelped in surprise as he hauled her through the flaps of the canopy. He leaped in after her.
“Did anyone see?” she whispered in horror.
“If they did, we’ll know about it shortly.”
Eleksi stood perfectly still, his head cocked, listening. Neve crouched between the wooden boxes packed into the cart. Through a gap in the lid of a box, she glimpsed shiny red apples.
To calm herself, she concentrated on slowing her heart rate. If she had any hope of fooling the queen with a Glamour, she’d need to focus. Practicing sorcery at Starlight Gardens was very different from performing in the energetic soup that was Klatos.
When there were no shouts of suspicion, Eleksi’s stance relaxed. He surveyed the cart’s interior, testing the fortitude of the upper beams with firm tugs. Neve stood, eyeing the beams doubtfully.
Perhaps he meant for her to hide in a box. But they seemed full, and were hammered closed with nails.
The cart swayed as the coachman climbed into the seat with stomps of his boots. The reins flicked smartly against the horse’s rump. Eleksi put his finger to his lips, imploring her to say nothing. She gave him a bewildered look, because she knew very well to keep quiet.
The cart lurched and began trundling toward the palace. Before long, guards would open the canopy’s flaps and peer inside. They had to get out of sight.
Eleksi gripped a beam and lifted himself, maneuvering in midair until his back lay flush against the ceiling.
The sorceress raised her brows in disbelief. Concealed in the shadows of the cart, with his black clothes and uncanny skill for stillness, he would survive a cursory inspection. But what about Neve?
“Here,” he breathed.
He held out his spare hand, the silver spider glinting from his thumb.
Trying valiantly to ignore her doubts, she took his hand. She stifled another yelp as he lifted her into the air. In a series of deft movements, he turned himself over so that he faced the ceiling, while pulling her body on top of his. On either side of her, he grasped the beams.
Neve’s face rested against Eleksi’s bulging pectoral muscle, with the canopy ceiling at her back. He kept them both suspended, his body rigid with tension and his boots hooked into the beams.
For lack of anything better to do with her hands, she clutched the fabric of his shirt.
“So, this is what you meant when you said we’d find a way,” she murmured.
“Do you mind very much?” he replied in a quiet, wry voice.
“Not very much, no.”
“Good, little witch.”
Neve was glad for the shadows concealing her deeply blushing face.
He adjusted his body fractionally, ostensibly to improve his grip on the beams. She felt his muscles flex and ripple beneath the weight of her own body. He smelled like leather, silver polish, and the forest surrounding Starlight Gardens—earthy and fresh. There was something else too, something indefinable and almost animalistic in his scent that made her stomach flip.
The cart made slow progress, stopping and starting as guards checked each cart in the line.
“Am I too heavy?” she whispered over the grind of cartwheels against cobblestones and the calls of guards.
“Please,” he replied with a soft snort. “I could do this all day.”
The cart shuddered to a halt.
“This is the one,” came a stern male voice directly outside. “Open it up!”