Kingdom's Fall

Chapter 11, Part 2

When Aiden woke up, he was in a cell. From the stone wall, and the damp, he knew he was underneath the palace. There weren’t many places to hold a prisoner in the city that a man couldn’t buy, talk, or simply break his way out of if he knew what he was doing, and as poor luck would have it, he was in one of them. He sat up and tried not to count the dark spots that the movement summoned in front of his eyes. He reached up with one hand and winced as his fingers touched the tender lump on the side of his head, the echoes of the contact sending sparks of pain bouncing around the inside of his skull.

“Between us, we’ve got a matching pair.” Gray’s voice came from the corner, and Aiden wondered how much longer the old soldier had been awake. Army men were thick-headed by legend, but he hadn’t realised it had its roots in the truth.

“What happened?”

“Your pet Islander, that’s what happened,” Gray said. “Or should I say, Morwen’s pet Islander. Got in the door behind us and knocked our heads together. The Gods only know what he did to those guards in the hallway.”

Einar. Somehow he’d known they were going after the princess. The memory of his daughter had driven him to protect her, even though she was just a shell for a demon. “Shit.”

“You said it.”

“So what happened?”

“Not a clue,” Gray said. “I lost interest in things right after your man clapped one of those big hands of his round my head and threw me at the wall. I’ll tell you this, though, it doesn’t look good.”

“The king dead with a hole in his throat and us standing over him?”

“Exactly. They’ll hang his death on us, then hang us for good measure. And whatever that thing upstairs wearing the princess was before, it’s the queen now.”

Aiden lurched forward, trying to get to his feet. A wave of dizziness swept through him, and he clung to the wall as he waited for it to pass. “We need to get out of here.” Walking the wall hand-over-hand, he made his way towards the cell door.

“Not much point trying it,” Gray said. “I’ve been round enough times already. Our best bet is to sit down, and wait.”

“Wait? What for? They’ll fill this room with guards before they haul us out.”

Gray raised an eyebrow. “You don’t think we’ll be out of here before then?”

“Not unless you’ve got a tunnel dug under your arse, no.”

Gray clicked his tongue, like a disappointed schoolmaster. Aiden watched in amazement as he leaned back against the wall and closed his eyes, as casually as if he was in his own bedchamber. “You’re still a little groggy, Aiden. Wait a while and you’ll see.”

Aiden went and checked the door anyway.

Kara found the right door on the second attempt. The first one led off into a corridor at ground level, which didn’t make sense when she was looking for a dungeon. The word itself sounded subterranean, so where the vague directions she’d managed to wheedle out of the castle staff failed, the dingy-looking steps spiralling downward appeared to be her best shot.

She’d got rid of the dress as soon as she had found a way out of the hall. In all the confusion, the back-and-forth of guards and officials and everyone else who had a duty to look as important and busy as possible in a crisis, she had ducked out through a humble-looking doorway and found herself in the cramped network of corridors that the servants used. The luckless page who stumbled across her trying to get her bearings was grabbed and shaken vigorously until he agreed to show her where the servant’s quarters were. One quick change of clothing later, her hair knotted up on top of her head and stuffed tight under a maid’s bonnet and she felt like a different woman altogether. On the downside her disguise meant she might have to do some work, but with the castle beyond the servant’s run in an uproar, the majority of the castle’s staff were huddling in the kitchen to make sure they were first to hear the gossip that was flowing in. Kara played it dumb, hanging nervously on the edge of a group of new, younger staff who had been shunted into one corner to stay out of harm’s way. As the story of the king’s assassination spread, the mood in the room started to turn sour. Afternoon gave way to evening, and the ranks began to thin as no-one wanted to stick around on the off-chance of more bad news arriving. By the time dinner rolled round and a tray for the prisoners was prepared, Kara was one of the few people left. It hadn’t taken a lot of effort to accidentally turn over a tray of food and earn herself the dubious honour of delivering the traitors their evening meal.