Chapter 40

Kosha glanced upward.

The stone ceiling appeared perfectly solid and unbroken, retaining no visible trace of the opening that had swallowed him.

Finally able to draw air into his lungs, he gasped violently while his dilated eyes searched the impenetrable gloom.

Without warning, the glowing lizard popped cleanly out from between his parted lips.

The trauma of the fall had caused Kosha to forget that the magical creature was still inside his mouth. Strangely, the incorporeal entity had left no physical sensation, texture, or foul taste upon his tongue.

The lizard landed on the stone tiles and shook its tiny body vigorously, as though flinging away the phantom moisture of Kosha’s saliva. It then trotted into the darkness with a brisk, purposeful gait. Because the spectral creature possessed neither physical substance nor mass, its hurried claws made no sound against the stone.

With no other viable means of survival, Kosha followed the flickering green beacon and allowed it to lead him deeper into the hidden bowels of the castle. The entire sequence felt so profoundly and terrifyingly surreal that Kosha could not prevent a wild, desperately pathetic hope from taking root.

Perhaps this is only a vivid nightmare.

If it is a dream, where did the hallucination begin?

Had the Internal Affairs guards already captured him in the library? Was he presently suffering from feverish, escapist delusions brought on by some exquisitely cruel form of royal torture?

The possibility sent a violent shudder along his spine.

Or perhaps… did I never leave the West Wing at all?

Maybe he was still safe inside Lucien’s opulent chambers. Perhaps he had finally surrendered to the prince’s velvet-soft demands that he remain for the night and was currently tangled in the heavy silk sheets, sleeping safely beside him.

The instant that embarrassing domestic fantasy crossed his mind, reality supplied a brutal correction.

Kosha walked face-first into a solid stone wall. His forehead struck the masonry with a resounding crack.

“Agh…” he whimpered, rubbing his throbbing brow with unnecessary aggression.

Glancing to his right, he spotted the glowing lizard perched expectantly atop a tarnished brass doorknob, staring at him with unwavering attention. It possessed no discernible facial expression, yet its unblinking gaze unmistakably conveyed the profound, silent pity one reserved for a hopeless idiot.

Did it just read my pathetic mind?

Deeply embarrassed, Kosha flushed and hurriedly averted his eyes from the judgmental creature before wrapping his hand around the brass handle.

To his surprise, the heavy door opened outward with silent, well-oiled ease.

Stepping across the threshold, Kosha emerged into an open-air corridor whose outer flank lay fully exposed to the cutting night wind.

He crept forward and peered cautiously over the stone railing.

His stomach dropped.

The lower courtyards lay at least three stories beneath him, far enough that any fall would almost certainly be fatal.

Kosha looked sharply to the right and immediately recognized the grand cloister bridge he had crossed earlier on the way to the East Wing. Judging from the architecture, the bridge stood at least two or three floors above his present elevation.

Should I go right and search for a service staircase leading upward?

He scanned his surroundings for guidance and only then realized that the spectral lizard had vanished as abruptly as it had appeared.

“…Lizard?” he called in a desperate, breathless whisper.

Only the howling wind answered.

Paralyzed by the fear that he might have accidentally trapped his sole guide inside, Kosha leaned back through the doorway and searched the shadows.

The hidden chamber remained drowned in suffocating darkness. Not a single trace of the luminous creature remained.

He was entirely alone.

Abandoned in the hollow, freezing corridor, Kosha wrapped his thin arms around his torso and trembled violently.

He could not remain there, cowering in indecision simply because the spectral guide had deserted him. He did not possess even the most rudimentary understanding of what the alien creature was, and it was painfully obvious that the entire heavily guarded wing constituted hostile political territory for anyone aligned with Lucien.

Steeling his fraying nerves, Kosha forced himself to move with desperate purpose.

Although notoriously incapable of even basic navigation, he resolved to locate a staircase leading toward the central keep. From there, he hoped to find the main bridge and somehow slip back into the West Wing.

His tactical plan proved laughably ambitious.

Once the open corridor ended and gave way to an enclosed hallway, Kosha lost every visual reference to the outside world. Without the night sky or exterior architecture to orient him, he could no longer judge his elevation.

He found a spiraling stone staircase and began to climb, but the ascent seemed interminable.

By the time his burning lungs forced him to stop, a grim realization had settled over him.

Far from reaching the bridge, he had probably wandered directly into the highly restricted and heavily patrolled interior of the main tower.

He had no choice but to hide.

Should I have waited near the trapdoor?

Pressing his back against the damp stone, Kosha recalled a lesson from his isolated childhood. His late nanny had always warned him that if he ever became lost in the village, he must never wander around searching for her. He was to remain where he was, and eventually she would find him.

A royal fortress had eyes everywhere. Surely Mailot or Eydric would send someone to search for him.

His desperate rationalization shattered beneath a harsh metallic clank from the far end of the corridor.

A faint orange glow flickered against the masonry.

An elongated, monstrous shadow bled around the corner, heralding the approach of a patrol.

Kosha had no time to think.

Driven by raw adrenaline, he forced his frail body into the minuscule gap between a rounded structural pillar and the outer wall. The recess was so narrow that even someone as gaunt and underfed as Kosha struggled to wedge his shoulders inside. The corridor offered no other concealment. He curled into a painfully tight ball and held his breath, his eyes wide with terror as the approaching shadow swelled to monstrous proportions.

A moment later, the figure emerged from behind the stone corner.

The stranger was wrapped in a dark, floor-length hooded cloak. Surprisingly, despite the towering and threatening shadow cast upon the wall, the person beneath the fabric possessed a remarkably small and delicate frame.

The rhythmic metallic noise announcing the figure’s approach came from the rusted iron ring of a hand lantern, which swung wildly from one gloved hand.

The cloaked stranger advanced with rapid, agitated steps.

As the figure neared Kosha’s pathetic hiding place, the lantern’s dim halo gradually illuminated the face beneath the cowl.

It was a woman.

Rich black curls spilled freely from beneath the hood and cascaded to her narrow waist. Kosha recognized her face instantly. It had been seared into his memory during his days in the lower village.

The woman appeared deeply anxious. Her eyes darted toward every shadow as she hurried through the corridor, never noticing the terrified mage wedged into the architecture only inches away.

The rusted lantern ring swung erratically with every step.

Clack, clack, clack.

Within the confined hallway, the metallic grinding became deafening. Mercifully, the noise perfectly concealed Kosha’s ragged attempts to breathe as he pressed both hands over his mouth to suppress a gasp. Kosha followed her retreating figure with wide, disbelieving eyes, his lungs burning from lack of air.

When she disappeared into the gloom, his hands slipped from his face and his lips parted in an involuntary whisper.

“Melda…?”

But how could she possibly be here?

His mind raced, struggling to reconcile the impossible sight.

Melda was merely the humble daughter of a poor blacksmith from Osterbeek village. How could a commoner wander freely through the heavily fortified and restricted heart of Osterbrache Castle in the dead of night?

Kosha remained frozen in his hiding place long after the light of her lantern disappeared around the distant corner. At last, with his cramping muscles screaming in protest, he carefully unfolded his aching limbs and crawled out from behind the pillar. Still dazed and utterly unable to reconcile what he had witnessed, Kosha stood blankly in the middle of the corridor.

Without warning, a massive, rough hand seized the back of his robes and yanked him violently into the darkness.

Kosha’s mouth opened to release a reflexive, bloodcurdling scream, but a thick leather gauntlet clamped over his lips before any sound escaped. Before he could struggle against his towering assailant, a fiercely familiar voice hissed directly into his ear.

“What the hell are you doing down here?”

Kosha tilted his head back against an armored chest and peered upward through the gloom.

The harsh, angular features of the familiar young knight slowly came into focus.

Eydric had pulled Kosha flush against his body, pinning the mage’s arms to his sides with a crushing grip while keeping his mouth firmly covered. Despite the freezing air within the stone corridor, the knight was drenched in cold sweat. His short, sharply cropped black hair clung damply to his brow.

Recognition brought an overwhelming rush of relief.

Believing himself finally rescued from the nightmare, Kosha relaxed obediently and allowed his exhausted body to go completely limp in Eydric’s arms.

The knight stared down at the pliant mage for a long, heavy moment. Something unreadable and strangely conflicted flickered through his dark eyes.

The expression vanished almost immediately.

After confirming that Kosha had no intention of resisting or fleeing, Eydric slowly loosened his crushing hold and stepped away.

“Hah…” He dragged one gloved hand down his exhausted face.

Standing awkwardly beside the towering soldier, Kosha grew increasingly restless beneath the oppressive silence.

“I am so incredibly sorry,” he ventured, his voice trembling. “I truly was trying to return to the West Wing, but…”

Eydric merely stared at him.

The knight’s silence became suffocating.

“I was going straight back,” Kosha repeated desperately, shrinking into himself, “but I became completely lost in the dark.”

The mage had spoken nothing but the absolute and pathetic truth. Given the chaotic and potentially treasonous circumstances, however, there was no way to know how sincere his bumbling excuse sounded to a seasoned military man.

***