The Stolen Throne

Chapter Ten - Broken

"But how did Esmeralda let you down here? And how did you get the key?" Lucy asked urgently, she was still gobsmacked that her friends had managed to release her so quickly. She'd barely even been locked up.

"Not now. We get out of here and I'll tell you everything and anything you want." Elise promised, grabbing Lucy's hand and pulling her towards the end of the corridor, which seemed to be a dead end. "Ah," Lucy realised, "Your tunnels."

Elise grinned mischievously, "Of course. How else would we escape?"

"I didn't think there were any ways out from down here. I always thought there were no tunnels or passageways this low in the castle." Lucy said, watching as Elise stepped forward, pulling a small dagger from underneath her skirts. She nicked her hand with the blade and then smeared the red liquid onto the stone wall in front of them. Where her blood made contact with the wall, a small ring of blue light appeared. Gears groaned and creaked as the wall slowly swung backward, revealing a staircase.

"Blood magic." Elise offered as an explanation to the questions in Lucy's eyes, "My family set a whole system up with the most secret tunnels only being accessible by blood so that if the tunnels were rediscovered, only a select few tunnels could be accessed from the outside. The tunnel that Edward uses to get in and out of the castle is the only one that you can go down to actually leave the castle with just a key."

Lucy shook her head as if trying to defog her mind, "There's a lot of things I don't know about you El."

Elise smiled slightly, saying, "Come on, we have to go if we're to meet the others before sundown." She led the way into the tunnel, shutting the door behind Lucy once she'd gone past her. Waiting for the door's lock to click shut, Elise paused. Satisfied that the door was safely shut, Elise lead the way up the spiral staircase, grabbing an already lit torch as she went. The walls were dark and made of granite and Lucy's footfalls echoed as they hit the stone steps.

"We need to get to the ground floor and out the tunnel as quickly as possible or we won't make it out of the city before curfew falls. They've doubled the guards as it is, but they put even more guards on duty after nightfall. We think they believe civilians are trying to escape the city."

"Where has Esmeralda got all of these guards from? Surely she didn't have enough Black Guards to more than double the number of guards on duty at night?" Lucy questioned as they raced up the stairs.

"I don't know where they've come from, but a load of new guards have come into the city. She has hundreds of official Black Guards and even more that are unofficial. At the moment we don't know how many soldiers she has in total but it's a lot more than we anticipated." They'd reached the top of the stairs and Elise led her left down a torchlit corridor.

"How is that-" Lucy was cut off by Elise clamping a hand over her mouth. Gesturing to the silhouette of a door to their right, "Whisper if you have to, we're too close to the most used corridors." Elise whispered.

"Fine." Lucy whispered, opting to keep quiet for a while.

The silence was broken by a low grumbling that caused Elise to stop and draw her dagger.

"Don't worry," Lucy murmured a little sheepishly, "It's just my stomach."

"Of course!" Elise whisper-shouted, "It must have been days since you last ate." Elise dove her hands into her skirt pockets and pulled out a few small rolls of bread and an apple.

"And you just happened to have some food in your pockets?" Lucy quietly asked, skeptical.

"I was sent with food for you. I definitely remember someone shoving it into my pockets but I don't remember who." Elise shrugged, continuing to walk.