Serpent in Shackles

Chapter Forty

I splashed my face with water, cooling the warm skin and soothing the puffiness of my eyes. My clothes were covered in dirt and sweat, but I didn't bother changing.

Moonlight poured in through the window of my bedroom, telling me it was time.

I slipped from the room, quietly making my way through the palace. The hallways were silent and empty, as always. But I still tiptoed and surveyed the area carefully.

I didn't pass a single soul on my way to the prison. The cold stones rubbed against my clothes as I peered around the corner and scanned for guards. Only one guard stood outside the heavy, wooden door. His hand rested at his sides, his focus entirely astray, nowhere near ready to grab for the sword strapped to his back.

Slowly he turned away, gazing down the opposite hall. I moved in fast and silent. I held a hand tight to his lips, muffling his calls for help. My arm snaked around his neck, holding tight enough to block his airway. He struggled against my hold, arms patting his sides as he tried to reach for a weapon. He shifted on his feet, trying to slip from my grip, but to no avail.

His eyes fluttered shut as he fell into a temporary sleep. I glanced over my shoulders for any sign of another guard coming to check, but not a single one appeared. Slowly, I lowered the sleeping guard to the stone ground, laying him gently on his back.

The keys rattled together as I pulled the ring from his belt and shuffled through them to find the one for the door. My grip tightened around the keys, muffling their rattling sound as I pushed the door open.

It didn't take long to find Caeden. He was in the first cell on the right, next to the door. He sat against the back wall of the cell, wrists and ankles chained together.

When he saw me, he quietly rose to his feet, holding the chains tight to keep from making noise, and tiptoed over to the front. "You can't be here."

"I'm here to help you escape," I whispered.

"No, you can't do that. If you get caught, they will kill you."

I fumbled with the keys, trying them all on the lock one by one. "I'll be fine. You saved my life before. Let me save yours now."

The locked clicking, turning with the final key. I held in my cheers and pushed the metal door open, glancing behind me for any new guards. Their setup of prison guards was terribly ineffective. The same ring that held the key to the prison, held the key to the cell, and the key to the chains tugging at Caeden's wrists.

"Why are you helping me?" he asked, watching me unlock the chains.

"Because it's not right. Humans and monsters are not born to be enemies. We choose to be. Which means we can also choose to not be."

The chain dropped, but he caught them just in time before the hollowed echo of metal clinking against the ground could bounce against the stones. Quietly, he lowered them to the ground and then I unlocked the ones at his ankles.

A whistling sound floated down the hall. We flew back through the threshold as a guard strolled down the hall toward us. Before he could reach the prison, Caeden knocked him unconscious with his powers.

I still didn't know what his powers were, but at that point, I suppose I never would. And that strong presence was still there, but it no longer bothered me the way it did. If anything, it left me feeling cold and hollow when it was gone.

We continued through the halls toward the back of the palace. We only encountered a few guards on our way, which Caeden knocked unconscious the same as he did with the first one.

The heavy iron door was the only thing separating him from his safety. From life. He heaved it open and as soon as we made it through the door, we sprinted fast and didn't look back until we reached the same old lean to, in the middle of the forest.

The tightness in my legs only worsened as I finally came to a stop. With my palms pressing against my knees, I bent forward gasping for breath.

But the monster beside me appeared as unstirred as always. Breathing barely elevated and not a bead of sweat on his face.

"This is where we met," Caeden mumbled, leaning back against the front beam. "And where you made up that terrible lie about Leonard the butcher."

I coughed a laugh, finally catching my breath. "Leonard the butcher is real."

He lifted a brow in question.

"Leonard the butcher is a real person in the town near the palace. But obviously he was not my fiancé."

A slight shake of the head. "I should have known. You're not creative enough to come up with such a lie on the spot."

With the limited remaining strength I had, I gave him a gentle shove. But he only barked a laugh.

A new tightness had my teeth clenched, jaw aching as I bit back any tears trying to force their way out. Laughter. Joy. Feelings I had only recently begun to experience. Feelings that were soon to be ripped from me, leaving behind the empty puppet shell.

"Don't forget," I said. "You need to buy a couch with a foot rest for the sitting room."

"Why? There is a perfectly suitable coffee table there." The slight smile on his face crept away as he prepared himself for the answer he didn't want to hear. "Now that you're back here, I can remove the mark from your chest."

"No." There wasn't an ounce of hesitation in my voice as I pressed my hand to my chest. "I don't want you to."

He nodded and smiled, pleased with my answer. But then sadness filled his eyes too. "You know I can't come back here, right? If I do, they'll just capture me again. I can't risk putting you or my team in danger."

"Does this mean we'll never see each other again?"

He moved to me. The soft hold of his hands on my cheeks brought me almost to tears. With his forehead resting against mine, I could feel his breath, feel his heart hammering against his chest, feel the words as he spoke them. "I'd like to hope life wouldn't be so cruel to us, Princess."

My throat chafed as I continued to hold in my sobs.

"Besides," he said. "I told you I would fly you over the Kingdom one day. And of all the promises I've made in my life, that is the one I intend to keep."

"I'll be waiting for you, Caeden." I closed my eyes, savoring the warmth of the monster beside me for the last time. "Every princess needs her knight."

The cold breeze bit at my bare cheeks, but all I could hear was a crinkle in my hand.

One heartbeat he was there, and the next, he was gone. Just like that day we met.

An envelope laid in my hands with my name written across the front. But I was afraid to open it. It would be the last piece of him that I had.

The envelope crinkled as I dug my nail into the seam, ripping it open across the top. A bunched up silver chain was tucked into the corner. I pulled out the chain, letting it hang from my fingers. Morana's pendant dangled at the bottom, sparkling in the moonlight.

An eternity of love and friendship.

I slid the chain over my head, letting the necklace rest against my chest, against the mark that once filled me with anger, but now filled me with memories of the monster who put it there. And then I pulled the folded piece of paper out of the enveloped, which read:

"It would have been the greatest honour of my life to watch you grow old and have my heart broken by you a second time, Princess."

Forever Yours,

Caeden

END