Artemis and Caspian: The Spy

Chapter Forty Seven

Hearing her laugh was too much, Cerberus slammed the door in the Lady's face. Damn her to hell. He tried not to wince and placed a hand on his side. The pushing movement sent a pain like no other shooting up his ribcage. If he was cursing people, then damn Lady Kendra while he was at it. He was growing impatient.

In the weeks of his recovery, the Lord was inconsolable, doing everything in his power to ignore the physician's orders for bed rest. By the time he was cleared, Cerberus had already made arrangements to go to Celestia. It took him less than twenty-four hours to leave, but now that he was in this hell hole, it was hard to remember why he wanted to come in the first place. If nothing else, it was fun to gloat. Even though she refused to give him satisfaction, Lady Azura had trouble hiding her true emotions, and it brought him a sick sense of joy to rub Celestia's failure in her face every morning. This morning though had gone differently.

He didn't know how, but news from Calatan's front reached her somehow. Cerberus scowled as he made a mental note. If he could find the sorry person responsible, he'd flail him. Azura took great pains at first to rub it in subtly under a cool demeanor before she decided to throw decorum out the window and laugh at his expense. That's when he decided to slam the door in her face. No matter, visiting his favorite prisoner wasn't the reason why he was here anyway. Grumbling to himself, the Lord strode down the hallway, slowly making his way to the south wing. He didn't even acknowledge the guard posted at a tower entrance as he stood at attention. Brushing past him, Cerberus marched up the stairs, making it a point to ignore the pain still festering in his body.

He knew whatever he was doing wasn't working. He'd lost the battle. With Heliatra and Meridan on their side, it didn't matter how inexperienced the Calatinians were. He'd lost too many soldiers. He needed an edge, something that could make up for their lack in numbers, something to make him invincible. Cerberus knew Celestians were fiercely superstitious and out of all the realms, with the possible exception of the world's inappropriately named 'saviors', they were the most connected to the gods. Whispers in the woods told him that the people of Celestia believed his failure was the result of a curse, placed upon him by these deities as punishment for messing with their order. At first, Cerberus scoffed at the notion. His father firmly believed the gods existed only in the minds of people to keep them from achieving greatness. He brought up his son to believe the same. But the Lord was getting desperate.

With the army he wielded now, invading Calatan again was impossible and going on to take the other two realms? A suicide mission. He needed the proud sun realm to fall. Perhaps something in these books would give him the answer. The Lord didn't know exactly what he was looking for but he figured he'd know it when he found it. He could use a dose of cosmic luck.

The walk up the stairs seemed shorter today, probably because the Lord was so lost in thought. Putting his hand on the small wooden door, he shoved it open. He was greeted by a small pile of books strewn across a desk from the day before. All of them were useless. Cerberus took a heavy seat, letting a few of the documents hit the floor as he ran two rough hands through his hair. It was time to get back to mind-numbing hours of tedious dullness. This was impossible. Sighing, he flipped through paper, skimming titles to no avail. All of it was nonsense. Stories of the past, ways to appease the gods for minor misdemeanors, how to read prophecies in bones and other junk like that. He needed something more powerful. Growing impatient, he threw a book at the shelf, taking his anger out on the leather-bound demon refusing to give him what he wanted. The book slammed against the wall with a hollow thump, surprising the Lord. Curious, he pushed himself out of his seat.

The walls of the library were made of solid wood, why did they sound hollow? Pushing a few books off the shelves, he ran a hand over the back wall, knocking on a few places to test the strength. It all felt normal to him. There was a part though that looked different from the rest. Running his palm over it, the Lord felt it jut out of the wall just slightly with four distinct corners making up a door. Got it. Knocking a few times, Cerberus was near giddy when he heard the sound reverberate through. This part was hollow.