Descendants of the Kings (Book 2)

Ch 38: More glass than wall

For all their worry and preparations to not be seen by the villagers of Bellmare, in the end, it wasn't necessary.

The nasty weather made it so that in their journey to the manor they crossed paths with only a handful of humans, all of them too busy trying to get home away from the cold to notice the three elves in their midst.

Ella ought to have been relieved, but it only served to heighten her tension. Every minute that passed, the restless energy coursing through her body grew. By the time they reached the forest that surrounded the manor, she was just waiting for someone to come at them with pitchforks.

The Blackwell manor was surrounded by a large, private forest that separated it from the rest of the town. Full of deer, bucks, pheasant and other hunting animals, the villagers were allowed to walk in it, but they could not hunt nor forage. 

Right down the middle, a wide lane for carriages and horses curved and sloped up to the manor. It led to a pair of massive wrought iron gates, which in turn gave way to the vast acres of the property.

A handful of guards flanked the gates, receiving the carriages and making sure to clear everyone who came in and went out. A security measure that would have been hard to fool, given that she wasn't on the guest list. But Ella didn't intend to take the conventional road.

Off the beaten path, hidden by the thickly woven trees, Ella led them through another passage bordering the perimeter of the wall and bypassing the gates. Her horse, borrowed from Cedric's farm, came to a stop just at the fringe of the forest, on the other side of the property.

"Here we are," she said under her breath, as the towering brick walls of the manor came into view.

Aedion swung down from his horse and came to her side, gently lowering her from the animal to keep her from ruining her dress. She stood, straightening her attire, and observed the enormous property, the walls spanning its entire massive perimeter.

For a moment, she simply stared, finally acknowledging that she was here again,
after all that had happened. It felt like one of her dreams—surreal and uncanny.

"Alright there?" Aedion said quietly, touching a hand to her elbow and breaking her out of her reverie.

She hummed in response, shaking her head to get rid of the momentary fuzz. Aedion didn't look convinced, but he didn't press.

"What do we do now?" Gidden asked, lowering from his horse. He adjusted his hat and stared at the wall contemplatively. "How do we get inside? Is there some sort of back entrance?"

"Of course there is, but even back doors have security. I would never go through there—what kind of a clod do you take me for?" Ella sniffed. "No, our way of going in is decidedly less noticeable."

"See those towers over there?" Ella pointed at various watch towers mounted on the thick brick walls, just barely visible from their vantage point. "Those are guards. This is one of the only blind spots in their vision. It also happens to be the weakest."

Unable to hide her smirk, she called them over, laying herself flat against the brick. "If you keep your body close to the wall, they can't see you; the guards' concern is the larger perimeter. The terrain is too rough for most people to try and sneak in, and even if they did, it's near impossible to scale the wall. You'd be shot down if you tried. However, we don't need to do that, because I have a way in."

She stopped in front of a section of the wall covered by crawling ivy and shrubbery and grinned. Fitting her body behind the shrubbery, she stuck her nails into the ivy and peeled it aside, revealing a large, ground-level hole.