The Midnight Storm (A New Dawn #2)

Chapter 30 - Nick

Foot by foot he shuffled through the corridor, his arms in front of his body. He felt the metal belonging to one of the scones, the silken touch of the marble wall, a rough corner—the wooden frame of the portrait of a young Captain Andrew—he shouldn't touch. Four steps, then another one, just to be sure. He reached towards the wall but caught only air. It threw him off balance. He slipped. Bang! His elbow against the painting.

Swish-swish sounded the wooden frame against the marble. In a few decades, people would laugh. Look, a young Captain Andrew with the elbow mark of Nicolas the Blind, ward of King Thomas.

He cursed all seven Gods of Sin; this wasn't a good day. Not that it meant much. On good days, his right eye managed to distinguish vague outlines from flickering shadows, enough to navigate through the castle without endangering himself or his surroundings. But there were more bad days. Days when the darkness dominated, when the chirping of larks marked the dawn of a new day and the familiar sound of the army bugle brought back falsified memories that became increasingly comforting the more they popped into his head.

The camaraderie of his patrol outweighed the rivalry. Cleaning the pots that hadn't been clean in half a century had been valuable lessons of the Goddess of Humility. Even the stern morning inspections were but minuscule stains on the uniform of knowledge that the Academy had taught him.

There came a clunking noise, followed by a swift bang that hurt. His head had collided with a hard object. The next sconce—he should have known.

The Gods would still test him, but eventually, he would get his sight back. A few years serving the Ician Crown Prince, then return to those overcrowded, hard wooden benches at the Academy and engage once more in the lengthy discussions with the Captain that left his peers speechless. He could finish his treatise on the best strategy to keep a magician army at bay (a sea of ironclad one-man pitfalls, starting three miles from the walls of Sundale) and graduate a Lieutenant before King Thomas' departure to the heavenly halls and Seb's coronation.

Only then would he become Seb's General. And Alana's husband.

On his way upstairs to her, the castle outwitted his senses twice more. The end of the corridor came sooner than expected, and he hit his head hard against the door. Then, as he climbed the spiralling staircase and sought the support of the balustrade, he missed. His body smacked against the iron, his nose so close to the handrail he smelled the wood polish that had been applied over a fortnight ago.

For the rest of his trip, he clutched to the balustrade. He didn't fancy breaking his neck and that of the figurines of the Gods. For the sake of his eyes.

"Alana." He was panting when he finally entered the royal quarter. "Alana, are you here?"

He didn't add that he was missing her company, that she hadn't come to visit him yet that day. The padding of feet in the distance meant the guards were patrolling the area. There were other noises. Two voices, squabbling. Father and daughter.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll mention it to the Healers. It's fine—I'm fine," King Thomas grumbled.

"Do so, Papa. There's nothing fine about you no longer feeling your finger," Alana said.

Nick stretched his arms and moved forward, towards the commotion. He called out for her.

A silence. Then suddenly. "Nick?"

"Yeah, I came here all by myself."

The feet came closer. Not the familiar clicking sound of heels, but the pounding of army boots.

The guards.

"Something wrong, Nick?" asked Lieutenant Patrick.

"No," he said.