The Red King [Book II]

IX

There was a queer little passage in the Ankaid Palace that James hadn't remembered from his youth. There'd been many of them, of course, slithering through the walls and under floorboards, mapping a network that James had crawled through like a rodent as a child.

ㅤThese passages existed in most castles and mansions, generations of them chiselled and built as they'd been forgotten by wave after wave of paranoid nobles who were scared of their own families. Sometimes fresher passages connected to the old, rediscovered when carving the new.

ㅤIt was an assassin's inexorable cheat, an unfair one. One could've miscredited James' knowledge to his mentor's legacy, but that was wrong. Rather than his mentor, it'd been his father who'd taught him of them. Because, unlike the rest of the nobility, King Leonardo had not been scared of his family.

ㅤBetween Julian and Fabian, their father had challenged them to find new ones. It hadn't been a serious suggestion, but it'd given them both something to compete and have fun with. They explored the palace to report their findings to their smirking father at the dinner table.

ㅤBecause of all of this, although they were akin to catacombs with their dead ends and sudden pits, animal skeletons dusting inside for hundreds of years, James knew every single corner. The fire from fifteen years prior hadn't touched many of them, with little Fable having repaired the ones that had crumbled. Burnt wood and the damaged walls from fifteen years ago had uncovered more of them still.

ㅤJames was in the attic. The wooden timbres holding the roof were no more than a decade old. Whilst in the cellar, he'd found a newly uncovered tunnel in the wall, and it'd pushed a spiral stone staircase stories up to here.

ㅤThere was a single alcove with one small window. James weaved through the beams in dim light to reach it. A wooden bench was built into the cavity, sanded smooth and painted a sharp unstained white.

ㅤJames sat there. Sunlight passed through the round porthole, built in a child's line of sight. A stained glass fluffy lamb played in its centre, circled in imperfect muntins and transparent glass. Panes uneven and cracked in places, its crudity mirrored its imperfect craft from when it'd been created. This had once been a child's bedroom from a dated time.

ㅤThe narrow view travelled far, soaring past the city's river, over the temple and settling on patient mountain tops. Only the bell tower was higher.

ㅤI can't see the soldiers training from this high,' he mused. His sword coldly ignored this, or perhaps she didn't hear.

ㅤAlthough she'd always been a heavy sword, James hadn't realised the burden of its weight until recently. She was clunky on his hip, jabbing into his side as he sat.

ㅤWas it Fabian who'd found this place, or had a soldier made it his secret hideout? 'I wonder...'

ㅤIt was peaceful, above the noise. Or, it would've been, but James didn't cope in silence.