In the Eye of the King's Needle

Chapter Five

It was an insult, I realize as I leave the dining hall with a guard the lady had called over. When the prince instructed her to lead me around the castle, he'd treated her like a servant. I'm not sure if it was an intentional slight, but it explains some of her behavior.

I watch for any sign of a door that leads out of the Needle, even if I don't plan on acting on it while the guard is around, it would be good information to have. 

The guard had been one of a dozen lining the walls of the dining hall, and the lady hadn't addressed him by name, which I could hardly blame her for since they all looked so similar in their helms and armor. A longsword is strapped to this one's back. A solid man with a long reach and at least fifty pounds on me, he would be formidable in a straight fight. Better to keep waiting on an opportunity to run.

He brings me to a staircase, and as we begin walking down it, my stomach sours. The halls are poorly lit and the foot traffic light. I can't imagine that these steps lead to anywhere I would want to go. 

"Where's Balsa?" I ask nonchalantly, not wanting to give him any hint of my growing suspicion. 

The guard huffs a gruff laugh. "You want to see the bastard that brought you in?"

"Hmm... I suppose I shouldn't," I say, noting the fact that this guard knew Balsa by his first name. It'd been a bit of a gamble, but if the prince knew him, I thought maybe he was more than a standard servant. With magic like that, I'd be frightened if he was ordinary. 

I'm on alert, so when we reach the bottom floor and the guard swings suddenly round, fingers grasping for my throat, I manage to duck around him in time.

I didn't get a look at this floor, and now there isn't any time, so the extent of my awareness is that we stood in a sort of spacious hallway. 

The lightning of battle floods my senses, quickening my pulse. He whirls and lunges in a flash of disconcerting speed common to men as big as he is. I dance backward down the hall. 

I don't have a weapon, but I can't fight this man barehanded. 

My essence enhanced eyes dart throughout the hall with only one thing in mind. Anything to give me an edge. 

The guard prepares an obvious right hook. I duck under the swing, jamming my arm against his and throwing my weight upward in the hopes of sending him off-balanced beyond me. 

He stumbles down the hall. 

My head screams from the old ache as I search, standing light on my toes. So much empty ground... There! A flash of something long and pale. 

The guard snarls at me--that mouth being the only thing I can see under the helm. I take a breath at the same time, watching his muscles bunch. 

My heart skips a beat as I dive into one of the rooms, rolling and coming up with the stick I'd found. I swing as soon as I come up, catching the guard just below his knee. 

He shouts, but catches a handful of my hair anyway. Viciously leering, he yanks. 

I lurch forward stumbling. Fuck.

He pulls me upright, gritting his teeth. "Fucking nuisance." 

Pain racks my jaw as he cracks me one with his heavy gauntlet covered fist. 

My vision warps and blurs at the corners as if I was dreaming. The white light flickers in my mind's eye. A grown rumbles through me, but I hardly feel it come from my mouth. 

In the dream, the light reaches out and burns me. 

Awareness snaps back into me. The guard has dragged me a ways down the hallways by my hair and an arm. My scalp sears while my arm throbs in its socket. 

The hallway, I see it now. The rooms that line it are cells of metal bars. 

Cages. 

My blood freezes in my veins, and the flush of animal madness steals over me. 

Essence flashes into my limbs as I grab the guards arms and curl my body up to him. I slam my heel into the knee he now favors from my earlier blow. Bones snap like twigs in both our bodies. 

No time to appreciate the pain, I lunge at him while he screams and dig my teeth into his throat. Tearing it out breaks my jaw and a fair number of my teeth, but the guard lays there dying in a growing pool of blood fed by the fountain I'd made of him. 

I pant and growl and groan as I watch him die. 

Someone will find him eventually, then I'll be punished. Maybe killed. 

Fuck, I hadn't anticipated this attempt on my life. It was too early for an escape--I didn't now anything about the layout of this place. I had no route and no clue about the Needle's security. 

Fuck. Shit. 

I can't make sense of this. Why bring me here just to kill me? But no, now that I think about it that guard still has his sword strapped to his back. He'd meant to lock me up, maybe, but why not do that from the beginning?

Fuck. Fuck. 

His blood soaks slowly into the material of the thin-soled shoes Balsa had leant to me. A wave of unease washes over me. It's been a long time since I've killed someone. I can't stop staring at him. 

The last time, I'd bloodied my hands in Mother's garden. I can still feel the slickness on my skin. 

She came outside as I knelt there, snarling like a fox with my hands still on the shard of glass I'd jammed into the woman's chest. 

The woman had come from the road. She'd reached for me. Tugged lightly on my hair. 

Mother hadn't wanted to speak. 

I growled at her, too, and pulled the shard of glass from that woman's body. 

"Mrs. harrow was a friend of mine," Mother said, and she didn't sound angry, but I tightened my grip on the glass shard anyway. Adults knew how to make their tones tell lies. 

Her lined face was so weary, I managed to feel sick through the violence thrumming within my little body. 

"I'm sorry, child," she said. 

I felt so cold and confused, kneeling their shaking amongst the flowers. 

Slowly, she approached, and I don't know why but I let her. "I've failed to make you feel safe her. It's my fault."

She didn't cry, but I did as she took the glass from my hand and looked at the gashes I'd pressed into my palms. 

"You don't have to kill anymore," she said. 

Maybe Mother was a liar after all.