Lady Night, page 16
"What do you suggest we do, then?"
Jared looked about and spotted a pair of boots lying haphazardly on the floor by the coat stand.
"Those could have been booby trapped too, you know?" Will remarked as Jared picked up a boot.
"Shut up."
He drew his arm back and threw the boot at the cloth draped object. Not hard enough to knock it over, but just enough that the boot bounced off harmlessly and crumpled to the floor. They waited a moment, but nothing happened. The boot didn't burst into flames, no bolt of magic lightning scorched it to a crisp, and no knives came shooting out of the walls.
"Okay," Jared said. "There we have it. No booby traps."
Will let out a breath of laughter.
"What?"
"You're just so—never mind."
Jared made a mental note to question Will about it later, but for now, they had a job to do.
They crossed the room, stepping over the boot and came to stand before the object draped in cloth. Somewhat hesitantly, Jared reached out and grasped the cool and velvety cloth in his hand and drew it aside.
There was nothing beneath it.
Nothing but empty space . . . and a piece of paper pinned to the wall by a thin knife.
"What the hell?" Will said disbelievingly, as Jared stepped forward to read what was written on the paper.
So close.
Almost as soon as Jared had finished reading those two words, something unexpected happened.
The room around them began to flicker and change. The chamber with its onyx walls, bookshelves, and two desks had faded away to be replaced with the windowless brick walls and cramped space of a dungeon cell. Torchlight flickered against the walls, their only source of visibility. The floors were flooded in murky, black water that came up to their knees.
"What—" Will spun around in a circle. His expression bewildered. "What just happened?"
"I don't . . . know?" Jared said, sounding just as disorientated as he felt. "But I think we should—"
Whatever he had been about to say was forestalled when something shot out of the water and grabbed Jared by the wrist.
15
The ground caught up to Darus in no time. It felt as if in one breath, he was falling through the air and in the next, he was hitting the floor with a jarring thud. He was distantly aware of Aurelia landing next to him, but somehow with much more grace, like a cat landing on its feet. Cora flew down shortly after to resume her perch on Aurelia's shoulder.
Darus picked himself up, ignoring the points of pain along his body from where it had collided with the hard floor. Looking around, he saw that they now stood in the middle of a great hall with stone masoned walls, and two long tables stood parallel to each other on either side of the hall, both covered in a thick layer of dust, as if they had not been touched since long before Darus was even born. There was a dais with three shallow steps at the very end of the hall. Two high-backed chairs stood side by side and seated in one of them, with their legs draped casually over one of the armrests, was the red-eyed man—Draken.
Darus was instantly on guard, pulling his sword from its sheath once more, the sound of scraping metal ringing throughout the hall.
"When I was a boy," Draken started, sounding as casual as a cordial host speaking to their guests. "My aunt taught me that it was very rude to enter someone's home without being invited first." He stood up from the chair. "She may have despised me, but she seemed determined to at least instil me with some proper manners."
"And where were those manners when you broke into my shop and burned it to the ground with me still inside of it?" Aurelia demanded.
"I said she was determined, but I never said she succeeded." Draken stood and began making his way down the dais steps, hands in his coat pockets. "Now I assume you are here to—what? Arrest me? Clap irons around my wrists and drag me off to rot in some prison cell?"
"And if it was, would you come amicably?" Darus asked, not lowering his sword.
Draken smiled, like one would at a pet they found amusing. "What do you think?"
"I like to think of myself as a fairly optimistic person, so you tell me?"
"Oh, by the Goddess," he heard Aurelia mutter to herself.
"I do have one question for you, though," Darus said.
Draken cocked his head to the side. "Hm?"
He knew that now probably wasn't the right time. That almost anyone else would tell him that he should be solely focused on capturing this man and nothing more. That what he was about to say now could wait. Only, it couldn't, not to Darus. Because how was he to know whether he would get the chance to ask again?
"Nine years ago, in the valley outside of a town called Windfell, a man and a woman were murdered, and only their son survived. Their names were Alexander and Erica Draco . . . was it you who murdered them?"
He heard the hissing of a sharp intake of breath beside him, but Darus was too fixated on Draken and what his response would be to pay it any sort of mind.
And finally, "Yes. It was me."
It was an answer that Darus had been prepared for, one he had been expecting, even. Yet hearing the words straight from Draken's mouth and knowing for sure that he stood before the man who murdered his son's parents—
"Why?" The word was out before he could even think to stop it.
"I had my reasons."
Draken had barely finished speaking before there was an explosion of fire that momentarily deafened Darus. He felt something land on his shoulder and realised it was Cora. Aurelia had conjured the sudden torrent of fire and sent it hurtling straight for Draken. It consumed him within seconds and then kept raging, lighting up the hall and searing the air.
What surprised Darus the most, however, was the look on Aurelia's face—full of unadulterated rage. He'd become accustomed to seeing Aurelia present such a calm and almost aloof demeanour, that witnessing such a change was akin to seeing a rock crack open to reveal a crystal that sparkled with a multitude of colours.
Finally, the fire ceased, leaving the stench of smoke and Aurelia's harsh breathing in its wake.
But where Draken should have been nothing more than a burnt out corpse, he stood whole and completely unharmed. Not one stitch of his clothing had been singed. He lowered his arm from where he had been using it to shield his face, as if from a mere cloud of smoke and not an inferno. Darus thought that he could see a red shimmer in the air around him. Did he shield himself with magic?
Draken looked at them flatly. "Rude."
An animalistic sound tore from Aurelia's throat before she was racing across the hall, more magic already crackling at her fingertips.
Darus had no choice but to charge after her.
* * *
The water splashed as Jared and Will raced through the maze-like corridors of the dungeons. They turned a corner but were brought up short when all that awaited them was a brick wall.
"By the Goddess!" Jared shouted in frustration. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"
"I don't think we are," Will said.
Almost immediately, they heard the sounds of rattling and splashing water behind them.
"Move!" He shoved Will out of the way in time to avoid being impaled by a spear-wielding attacker.
The attacker stumbled past them, their momentum carrying them forward. The torchlight illuminated their form and revealed them to be a skeleton. A skeleton with empty, black eye sockets and a ragged tunic hanging off of its brittle bones.
A skeleton that could stand up and move and wield spears.
And it wasn't the only one.
More animated skeletons, some carrying rusted weapons and others crawling through the water on all fours, came surging towards them.
The one that had attacked them with the spear opened its jaw and let out a rattling wail as it lunged at Jared and Will once more. Jared was the one to intercept the attack with his sword, while Will dealt with the others.
He caught the tip of the spear with his blade and felt the rough stone scrape against metal before forcing it up and away. While the skeleton's guard was open, Jared swept his sword out in an arc, severing the rotted tendons that connected its spear wielding arm to its shoulder. The skeletal arm and the spear fell into the water with a splash.
Jared moved with the speed and precision that had been hammered into him at the Academy. "Don't give your opponent a chance to regroup," the words spoken by a former Professor rang through his head even now. "Allowing them to regroup might only spell the end for you."
He kicked out at one of the skeleton's legs, hard enough that he was sure he heard the bone crack as the skeleton was brought to its knees. Jared delivered another kick, this time to its head, sending it flying into the nearby wall, cracking in two upon impact.
The skeleton's body shuddered once before whatever was animating it seemed to leave and it fell lifeless, disappearing beneath the water.
Jared shouldn't have let his guard down. He knew that was a disastrous thing to do in the middle of a fight. Another thing he had been warned about at the Academy, yet he did it anyway, allowing one of those skeleton creatures to grab him from behind and bite down on his unprotected neck.
He cried out at the pain, but it was fleeting. He felt the skeleton being ripped away from him just as quickly as it had latched on and Jared spun around to see Will, Changed, and holding the skeleton's head between his jaws.
Its struggles ceased when Will bit down hard enough for its skull to crack and break. He let it fall carelessly from his mouth once it went still.
"Are you all right?" asked Will, Changing back and stepping closer to inspect where the skeleton had undoubtedly left a nasty bite mark on Jared's neck.
"I'm fine," he said, putting his own hand to the throbbing wound. "We should get moving, before more of those things show up. There has to be a way out around here somewhere."
A doubtful look flashed across Will's face, and Jared ignored it. He refused to pay attention to his own unhelpful thoughts that told him that whatever strange magic had gotten them down here and brought those skeletons to life might also mean they were trapped down here forever.
* * *
Darus flew out of range of the red lightning that speared his way and answered it with a breath of fire.
Draken easily blocked the fire from where he stood in the centre of the now ruined hall. One of the long tables had been thrown against a wall and the other was barely more than a mangled heap of splinters.
Aurelia conjured six daggers out of the air and sent them hurtling toward Draken's unprotected back. Before they could even so much as touch him, Draken disappeared in a burst of red fire and reappeared behind Aurelia, a huge, crimson scythe in his hands.
Darus was there, leaping over Aurelia's head and diving on top of Draken before he could use the scythe to cleave Aurelia in two. He pinned Draken to the ground as Draken, in turn, jammed the staff of his scythe between Darus's teeth. Darus bit down and jerked the scythe out of Draken's hands.
But Draken only smiled up at him. "Tell me, how is that boy doing? Derek? That was his name, wasn't it?"
Hearing his son's name spoken from this man's lips gave him pause—how did he know Derek's name? Why did he want to know about Derek?—and that brief distraction was enough for Darus to be caught by surprise when there was a red shimmer in the air around him and he was flung backwards, only coming to a stop when his body crashed into the wall behind the dais.
The force of it was hard enough to knock out not only his breath, but the Change from him. As he collapsed to the floor, pain echoed throughout every muscle in his body.
When he looked up, it was to see that Aurelia had once again engaged Draken. Only this time, she was attacking him with a shortsword. As she stabbed and dodged spells, she moved with the dancer-like grace and swiftness Darus had seen in other Wood Elves when they fought, and had even seen in Derek.
It looked as if Draken could only barely keep up with her movements. When he fell for one of her feints, Aurelia opened up a long gash on his face that could very well have taken his eye out had he not been quick enough to pull back at the last second.
For a moment, Darus almost believed that Aurelia would manage to overpower Draken with her speed alone. That was until a ring of crimson fire exploded to life around Draken and Aurelia was forced to leap back.
"Well, this has been entertaining," said Draken, picking his fallen hat up off the floor. "But I am getting rather bored now. I think I'll be heading off."
"Do you seriously expect us to simply let you leave?" Aurelia demanded between panting breaths.
Draken looked highly amused. "Do you think you can stop me? You've spent all your magic and hardly have a drop left in you."
"Don't write me off so easily," said Darus as he came to stand at Aurelia's side.
"It's too bad the rest of those Guardians didn't get here sooner," said Draken conversationally. "You might have actually had a chance at capturing me."
Darus was left momentarily gobsmacked by the statement. "What do you—?"
"They've just arrived outside the fortress gates. But I'll be long gone by the time they enter these halls." With a last, serpentine smile at Darus, he added, "Take good care of Derek for me. I'll be around to collect him soon enough."
A bolt of fear lanced through Darus as the words sunk in. Aurelia shouted a wordless cry of rage and lunged for Draken. The fire flared again, this time consuming Draken whole, and when it burnt out, he was gone.
"Fuck!"Aurelia cried, throwing her blade at the ground where Draken had just stood.
Draken's departing words still rang through Darus's head. He would come for Derek? But why? Why? What did that bastard want with Derek?
A low rumbling brought Darus out of his panicked thoughts. It was quickly followed by a shaking so fierce that it nearly knocked him off his feet.
"What is happening?" He heard Aurelia say above the noise.
Her question was answered by one of the iron chandeliers falling to the floor, along with a part of the ceiling in a shower of plaster and stone and an ear-splitting, metallic clang.
"The fort," Darus realised. "It's coming down!"
* * *
Jared slammed the skull of another skeleton against the wall—he'd lost his sword sometime ago—and cracked it to pieces easily enough.
Immediately after, another skeleton collided with him from behind, forcing Jared to lose his balance and fall through the water.
Beneath, the water was so murky that Jared couldn't see a thing except for the head of the skeleton that was pinning him down. It snapped its jaws in front of his face, as if hoping to bite a chunk out of him—and then went completely still.
Its teeth stopped gnashing and the surprising strength behind its skeletal frame vanished and Jared was able to push it away and sit up, gasping in air as his head broke the water's surface.
"Jared!" There was more splashing as Will rushed to his side and hauled him to his feet.
"Wh—What happened?" said Jared, pushing his sopping hair out of his eyes to get a look at the skeletons that now lay still in the water around their feet.
"I'm not sure," Will said. "One minute I was fighting the rest of them off and the next they just . . . collapsed."
"Strange. I—Is that a door?" Ahead of them, where only moments ago there was only an endless corridor, was clearly a wall with a door embedded in it.
"It can't be," said Will in a voice that was equal parts disbelief and hope. "That was not there before."
But the pair didn't waste any time in racing toward it. Jared grabbed the iron handle, and the door opened with no resistance to reveal a windowless stairwell.
Jared let out a breath of laughter.
At the same time the shaking started.
* * *
Deep cracks appeared in the walls at an alarming rate. Dust and bits of stone were raining down. Darus and Aurelia had to get out of here. Fast. Lest they wanted to find themselves crushed beneath a mountain of rubble.
He saw Aurelia stumble back to avoid the falling chunk of stone. Darus had no doubt that if her magic wasn't nearly depleted, she could have cast a spell that would've had them outside of these walls in no time.
Over the roaring of the collapsing hall, Darus heard the cawing of a raven and looked toward the other end of the hall, where he spotted Cora hopping along the sill of one of the arched windows. With an idea quickly taking root, Darus Changed and soared across the short distance that separated him and Aurelia before grabbing her and lifting her off her feet. She didn't shout or struggle, but held fast to him as he hurtled towards the window, swerving past falling debris along the way.
He ducked his head over Aurelia's just before he shot through the window, and the glass shattered around them.
* * *
Jared and Will ran out into the courtyard just as the archway collapsed behind them. From there, they Changed and flew high into the sky, safely away from the ensuing wreckage.
They watched from above as the fort collapsed at an alarming rate. One of the watchtowers fell, sending up a cloud of dust in its wake. Wasn't that where Darus and Aurelia were supposed to be? Did they get out in time, or had they been crushed beneath all of that rubble?
Before Jared's mind could race toward any more morbid conclusions, Will made a noise beside him and used his head to indicate at something below. Further down the mountain, safely out of the way of the collapsing fort, was a group of Guardians, easily distinguishable by their uniforms. Jared recognised Charles Decorus and Alistair, and Elijah Hargrade, amongst others.
With a burgeoning relief, Jared also spotted Darus and Aurelia standing with them. Both looked a little worse for wear, but they were alive. They had all made it out alive and—for now, at least—that was all that mattered.
16
The night of Orville's Nativitas masquerade party had finally arrived. Once the sun was set and Mayor and Lady Boeheart had set off themselves to attend the party, Derek, Rosalie and Arabelle snuck away from the Manor. They made their way through the winding streets, keeping to the shadows and out of sight. Not that it was too difficult, the air grew much colder at night and no one wanted to stay outdoors if they could help it.
Jared looked about and spotted a pair of boots lying haphazardly on the floor by the coat stand.
"Those could have been booby trapped too, you know?" Will remarked as Jared picked up a boot.
"Shut up."
He drew his arm back and threw the boot at the cloth draped object. Not hard enough to knock it over, but just enough that the boot bounced off harmlessly and crumpled to the floor. They waited a moment, but nothing happened. The boot didn't burst into flames, no bolt of magic lightning scorched it to a crisp, and no knives came shooting out of the walls.
"Okay," Jared said. "There we have it. No booby traps."
Will let out a breath of laughter.
"What?"
"You're just so—never mind."
Jared made a mental note to question Will about it later, but for now, they had a job to do.
They crossed the room, stepping over the boot and came to stand before the object draped in cloth. Somewhat hesitantly, Jared reached out and grasped the cool and velvety cloth in his hand and drew it aside.
There was nothing beneath it.
Nothing but empty space . . . and a piece of paper pinned to the wall by a thin knife.
"What the hell?" Will said disbelievingly, as Jared stepped forward to read what was written on the paper.
So close.
Almost as soon as Jared had finished reading those two words, something unexpected happened.
The room around them began to flicker and change. The chamber with its onyx walls, bookshelves, and two desks had faded away to be replaced with the windowless brick walls and cramped space of a dungeon cell. Torchlight flickered against the walls, their only source of visibility. The floors were flooded in murky, black water that came up to their knees.
"What—" Will spun around in a circle. His expression bewildered. "What just happened?"
"I don't . . . know?" Jared said, sounding just as disorientated as he felt. "But I think we should—"
Whatever he had been about to say was forestalled when something shot out of the water and grabbed Jared by the wrist.
15
The ground caught up to Darus in no time. It felt as if in one breath, he was falling through the air and in the next, he was hitting the floor with a jarring thud. He was distantly aware of Aurelia landing next to him, but somehow with much more grace, like a cat landing on its feet. Cora flew down shortly after to resume her perch on Aurelia's shoulder.
Darus picked himself up, ignoring the points of pain along his body from where it had collided with the hard floor. Looking around, he saw that they now stood in the middle of a great hall with stone masoned walls, and two long tables stood parallel to each other on either side of the hall, both covered in a thick layer of dust, as if they had not been touched since long before Darus was even born. There was a dais with three shallow steps at the very end of the hall. Two high-backed chairs stood side by side and seated in one of them, with their legs draped casually over one of the armrests, was the red-eyed man—Draken.
Darus was instantly on guard, pulling his sword from its sheath once more, the sound of scraping metal ringing throughout the hall.
"When I was a boy," Draken started, sounding as casual as a cordial host speaking to their guests. "My aunt taught me that it was very rude to enter someone's home without being invited first." He stood up from the chair. "She may have despised me, but she seemed determined to at least instil me with some proper manners."
"And where were those manners when you broke into my shop and burned it to the ground with me still inside of it?" Aurelia demanded.
"I said she was determined, but I never said she succeeded." Draken stood and began making his way down the dais steps, hands in his coat pockets. "Now I assume you are here to—what? Arrest me? Clap irons around my wrists and drag me off to rot in some prison cell?"
"And if it was, would you come amicably?" Darus asked, not lowering his sword.
Draken smiled, like one would at a pet they found amusing. "What do you think?"
"I like to think of myself as a fairly optimistic person, so you tell me?"
"Oh, by the Goddess," he heard Aurelia mutter to herself.
"I do have one question for you, though," Darus said.
Draken cocked his head to the side. "Hm?"
He knew that now probably wasn't the right time. That almost anyone else would tell him that he should be solely focused on capturing this man and nothing more. That what he was about to say now could wait. Only, it couldn't, not to Darus. Because how was he to know whether he would get the chance to ask again?
"Nine years ago, in the valley outside of a town called Windfell, a man and a woman were murdered, and only their son survived. Their names were Alexander and Erica Draco . . . was it you who murdered them?"
He heard the hissing of a sharp intake of breath beside him, but Darus was too fixated on Draken and what his response would be to pay it any sort of mind.
And finally, "Yes. It was me."
It was an answer that Darus had been prepared for, one he had been expecting, even. Yet hearing the words straight from Draken's mouth and knowing for sure that he stood before the man who murdered his son's parents—
"Why?" The word was out before he could even think to stop it.
"I had my reasons."
Draken had barely finished speaking before there was an explosion of fire that momentarily deafened Darus. He felt something land on his shoulder and realised it was Cora. Aurelia had conjured the sudden torrent of fire and sent it hurtling straight for Draken. It consumed him within seconds and then kept raging, lighting up the hall and searing the air.
What surprised Darus the most, however, was the look on Aurelia's face—full of unadulterated rage. He'd become accustomed to seeing Aurelia present such a calm and almost aloof demeanour, that witnessing such a change was akin to seeing a rock crack open to reveal a crystal that sparkled with a multitude of colours.
Finally, the fire ceased, leaving the stench of smoke and Aurelia's harsh breathing in its wake.
But where Draken should have been nothing more than a burnt out corpse, he stood whole and completely unharmed. Not one stitch of his clothing had been singed. He lowered his arm from where he had been using it to shield his face, as if from a mere cloud of smoke and not an inferno. Darus thought that he could see a red shimmer in the air around him. Did he shield himself with magic?
Draken looked at them flatly. "Rude."
An animalistic sound tore from Aurelia's throat before she was racing across the hall, more magic already crackling at her fingertips.
Darus had no choice but to charge after her.
* * *
The water splashed as Jared and Will raced through the maze-like corridors of the dungeons. They turned a corner but were brought up short when all that awaited them was a brick wall.
"By the Goddess!" Jared shouted in frustration. "How are we supposed to get out of here?"
"I don't think we are," Will said.
Almost immediately, they heard the sounds of rattling and splashing water behind them.
"Move!" He shoved Will out of the way in time to avoid being impaled by a spear-wielding attacker.
The attacker stumbled past them, their momentum carrying them forward. The torchlight illuminated their form and revealed them to be a skeleton. A skeleton with empty, black eye sockets and a ragged tunic hanging off of its brittle bones.
A skeleton that could stand up and move and wield spears.
And it wasn't the only one.
More animated skeletons, some carrying rusted weapons and others crawling through the water on all fours, came surging towards them.
The one that had attacked them with the spear opened its jaw and let out a rattling wail as it lunged at Jared and Will once more. Jared was the one to intercept the attack with his sword, while Will dealt with the others.
He caught the tip of the spear with his blade and felt the rough stone scrape against metal before forcing it up and away. While the skeleton's guard was open, Jared swept his sword out in an arc, severing the rotted tendons that connected its spear wielding arm to its shoulder. The skeletal arm and the spear fell into the water with a splash.
Jared moved with the speed and precision that had been hammered into him at the Academy. "Don't give your opponent a chance to regroup," the words spoken by a former Professor rang through his head even now. "Allowing them to regroup might only spell the end for you."
He kicked out at one of the skeleton's legs, hard enough that he was sure he heard the bone crack as the skeleton was brought to its knees. Jared delivered another kick, this time to its head, sending it flying into the nearby wall, cracking in two upon impact.
The skeleton's body shuddered once before whatever was animating it seemed to leave and it fell lifeless, disappearing beneath the water.
Jared shouldn't have let his guard down. He knew that was a disastrous thing to do in the middle of a fight. Another thing he had been warned about at the Academy, yet he did it anyway, allowing one of those skeleton creatures to grab him from behind and bite down on his unprotected neck.
He cried out at the pain, but it was fleeting. He felt the skeleton being ripped away from him just as quickly as it had latched on and Jared spun around to see Will, Changed, and holding the skeleton's head between his jaws.
Its struggles ceased when Will bit down hard enough for its skull to crack and break. He let it fall carelessly from his mouth once it went still.
"Are you all right?" asked Will, Changing back and stepping closer to inspect where the skeleton had undoubtedly left a nasty bite mark on Jared's neck.
"I'm fine," he said, putting his own hand to the throbbing wound. "We should get moving, before more of those things show up. There has to be a way out around here somewhere."
A doubtful look flashed across Will's face, and Jared ignored it. He refused to pay attention to his own unhelpful thoughts that told him that whatever strange magic had gotten them down here and brought those skeletons to life might also mean they were trapped down here forever.
* * *
Darus flew out of range of the red lightning that speared his way and answered it with a breath of fire.
Draken easily blocked the fire from where he stood in the centre of the now ruined hall. One of the long tables had been thrown against a wall and the other was barely more than a mangled heap of splinters.
Aurelia conjured six daggers out of the air and sent them hurtling toward Draken's unprotected back. Before they could even so much as touch him, Draken disappeared in a burst of red fire and reappeared behind Aurelia, a huge, crimson scythe in his hands.
Darus was there, leaping over Aurelia's head and diving on top of Draken before he could use the scythe to cleave Aurelia in two. He pinned Draken to the ground as Draken, in turn, jammed the staff of his scythe between Darus's teeth. Darus bit down and jerked the scythe out of Draken's hands.
But Draken only smiled up at him. "Tell me, how is that boy doing? Derek? That was his name, wasn't it?"
Hearing his son's name spoken from this man's lips gave him pause—how did he know Derek's name? Why did he want to know about Derek?—and that brief distraction was enough for Darus to be caught by surprise when there was a red shimmer in the air around him and he was flung backwards, only coming to a stop when his body crashed into the wall behind the dais.
The force of it was hard enough to knock out not only his breath, but the Change from him. As he collapsed to the floor, pain echoed throughout every muscle in his body.
When he looked up, it was to see that Aurelia had once again engaged Draken. Only this time, she was attacking him with a shortsword. As she stabbed and dodged spells, she moved with the dancer-like grace and swiftness Darus had seen in other Wood Elves when they fought, and had even seen in Derek.
It looked as if Draken could only barely keep up with her movements. When he fell for one of her feints, Aurelia opened up a long gash on his face that could very well have taken his eye out had he not been quick enough to pull back at the last second.
For a moment, Darus almost believed that Aurelia would manage to overpower Draken with her speed alone. That was until a ring of crimson fire exploded to life around Draken and Aurelia was forced to leap back.
"Well, this has been entertaining," said Draken, picking his fallen hat up off the floor. "But I am getting rather bored now. I think I'll be heading off."
"Do you seriously expect us to simply let you leave?" Aurelia demanded between panting breaths.
Draken looked highly amused. "Do you think you can stop me? You've spent all your magic and hardly have a drop left in you."
"Don't write me off so easily," said Darus as he came to stand at Aurelia's side.
"It's too bad the rest of those Guardians didn't get here sooner," said Draken conversationally. "You might have actually had a chance at capturing me."
Darus was left momentarily gobsmacked by the statement. "What do you—?"
"They've just arrived outside the fortress gates. But I'll be long gone by the time they enter these halls." With a last, serpentine smile at Darus, he added, "Take good care of Derek for me. I'll be around to collect him soon enough."
A bolt of fear lanced through Darus as the words sunk in. Aurelia shouted a wordless cry of rage and lunged for Draken. The fire flared again, this time consuming Draken whole, and when it burnt out, he was gone.
"Fuck!"Aurelia cried, throwing her blade at the ground where Draken had just stood.
Draken's departing words still rang through Darus's head. He would come for Derek? But why? Why? What did that bastard want with Derek?
A low rumbling brought Darus out of his panicked thoughts. It was quickly followed by a shaking so fierce that it nearly knocked him off his feet.
"What is happening?" He heard Aurelia say above the noise.
Her question was answered by one of the iron chandeliers falling to the floor, along with a part of the ceiling in a shower of plaster and stone and an ear-splitting, metallic clang.
"The fort," Darus realised. "It's coming down!"
* * *
Jared slammed the skull of another skeleton against the wall—he'd lost his sword sometime ago—and cracked it to pieces easily enough.
Immediately after, another skeleton collided with him from behind, forcing Jared to lose his balance and fall through the water.
Beneath, the water was so murky that Jared couldn't see a thing except for the head of the skeleton that was pinning him down. It snapped its jaws in front of his face, as if hoping to bite a chunk out of him—and then went completely still.
Its teeth stopped gnashing and the surprising strength behind its skeletal frame vanished and Jared was able to push it away and sit up, gasping in air as his head broke the water's surface.
"Jared!" There was more splashing as Will rushed to his side and hauled him to his feet.
"Wh—What happened?" said Jared, pushing his sopping hair out of his eyes to get a look at the skeletons that now lay still in the water around their feet.
"I'm not sure," Will said. "One minute I was fighting the rest of them off and the next they just . . . collapsed."
"Strange. I—Is that a door?" Ahead of them, where only moments ago there was only an endless corridor, was clearly a wall with a door embedded in it.
"It can't be," said Will in a voice that was equal parts disbelief and hope. "That was not there before."
But the pair didn't waste any time in racing toward it. Jared grabbed the iron handle, and the door opened with no resistance to reveal a windowless stairwell.
Jared let out a breath of laughter.
At the same time the shaking started.
* * *
Deep cracks appeared in the walls at an alarming rate. Dust and bits of stone were raining down. Darus and Aurelia had to get out of here. Fast. Lest they wanted to find themselves crushed beneath a mountain of rubble.
He saw Aurelia stumble back to avoid the falling chunk of stone. Darus had no doubt that if her magic wasn't nearly depleted, she could have cast a spell that would've had them outside of these walls in no time.
Over the roaring of the collapsing hall, Darus heard the cawing of a raven and looked toward the other end of the hall, where he spotted Cora hopping along the sill of one of the arched windows. With an idea quickly taking root, Darus Changed and soared across the short distance that separated him and Aurelia before grabbing her and lifting her off her feet. She didn't shout or struggle, but held fast to him as he hurtled towards the window, swerving past falling debris along the way.
He ducked his head over Aurelia's just before he shot through the window, and the glass shattered around them.
* * *
Jared and Will ran out into the courtyard just as the archway collapsed behind them. From there, they Changed and flew high into the sky, safely away from the ensuing wreckage.
They watched from above as the fort collapsed at an alarming rate. One of the watchtowers fell, sending up a cloud of dust in its wake. Wasn't that where Darus and Aurelia were supposed to be? Did they get out in time, or had they been crushed beneath all of that rubble?
Before Jared's mind could race toward any more morbid conclusions, Will made a noise beside him and used his head to indicate at something below. Further down the mountain, safely out of the way of the collapsing fort, was a group of Guardians, easily distinguishable by their uniforms. Jared recognised Charles Decorus and Alistair, and Elijah Hargrade, amongst others.
With a burgeoning relief, Jared also spotted Darus and Aurelia standing with them. Both looked a little worse for wear, but they were alive. They had all made it out alive and—for now, at least—that was all that mattered.
16
The night of Orville's Nativitas masquerade party had finally arrived. Once the sun was set and Mayor and Lady Boeheart had set off themselves to attend the party, Derek, Rosalie and Arabelle snuck away from the Manor. They made their way through the winding streets, keeping to the shadows and out of sight. Not that it was too difficult, the air grew much colder at night and no one wanted to stay outdoors if they could help it.
