Displaced

Chapter 26

Arlette tossed the keys to Sofie and sprinted down the hallway after the man she'd once called her friend. At the end of the hallway lined with cells, she came across a guard station. At first she thought it empty, but on closer inspection she found three dead bodies hidden away in a corner. All three had only a single mark on them, a puncture wound as thick as her thumb. Two had the holes in their foreheads while the other's was straight through her heart. The elf didn't fight like the Jaquet she knew, but it seemed he was just as deadly.

"We need to get moving," said Peko behind her. "There isn't much time before the alarm is raised."

She turned around to find her imaginary friend standing behind her, a worried look on his face. "You're out," she observed.

"That's not important right now. You need to escape."

"Later," Arlette replied, looting a large dagger from the nearest corpse.

"Later? You can't be seriously thinking about what I think you're thinking about."

"This is my one chance."

"You'll never make it."

"Then I'll go out how I want to, not how they want me to."

The sounds of several pairs of feet on the cold stone floor made her tense up, but she quickly realized it was just Sofie and Pari. Peko vanished just as the pair entered the room, looking about in confusion.

"Who were you talking to?" Sofie asked.

"Nobody," Arlette replied. "You're just confused."

"I am confused! What the hell is going on? Jaquet was an elf? Was it him the entire time? What was he doing here? Why did he-"

"Sofie, be quiet for a moment and listen," Arlette interrupted, grabbing the other woman's shoulder with a tight grip. "I want you and Pari to go find a place to hide yourselves down here. When I'm done I'll come find you and we'll all get out of here together."

"When you're done with what? What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to end this."

"You're going to... Arlette, no! You can't!"

"If I don't come back in a few hours then you two are on your own. I'm sorry."

"Arlette! Wait! This is crazy!"

Arlette paid no attention to the young woman's words as she dashed up the stairs towards the castle proper, a Kutrad female servant's outfit, along with another person's face, forming around her, hiding her filthy body from view. The castle's underbelly was immense, with not only dungeons but storage cellars branching out into the depths of the earth, but Arlette just kept going upwards until she emerged into a large chamber at ground level. The light of the three moons shone through the stained glass windows, adding to the torches hanging from the walls.

Arlette didn't know exactly where in the castle she was, but she did know where she needed to go. Up. Towards the back of the castle stood a tower, with the only way in or out being a stone bridge hanging high off the ground connecting it to the castle proper. The tower was guarded on the castle side of the bridge, as well as by others on the ground to make sure nobody could climb up its smooth stone sides. A Xoginian landmark known to the public as the King's Tower, it had been built with protection through maximum isolation in mind, and it got the job done. If you wanted to kill the King, you first had to fight your way into the castle. Then you had to fight your way through the castle. Finally you had to fight through the guards at the bridge, and then get into the tower itself. All that was a nearly impossible task for a single person.