Page 79 of Wicked Thieves
But it was Esna’s words in the hothouse that had remained with her.
What were they planning?
She tossed and turned in bed until she grew frustrated. Shoving the blankets aside, she took to pacing the small length of the room before looking out the window. There wasn’t a sliver of light in sight, the blanket of darkness covering the courtyard and land beyond the castle walls.
With a sigh, she turned around to resume pacing until her eyes landed on a small letter opener buried beneath an old letter the last assistant must have left behind in her hurry to leave the castle. Picking it up, Anelize walked over to the doorand ensured the lock was in place before plopping back down onto the bed.
Rolling up the sleeve of her nightgown, she drew a small line on the upper part of her arm where no one would notice. A bead of red pooled out of the cut and power hummed through her, coaxed awake by her conjuring.
Closing her eyes, she cast out her power as far is it could go. There were two heartbeats down the hall to the left of her door, slowly moving further away. Guards. The lights emanating from them dull and quickly forgotten. She stretched it out further, seeking through the darkness to find one that was familiar. Searching for the one that she knew better than any other.
When she didn’t find it, Anelize nearly gave up when a quick heartbeat suddenly caught her attention as a hue of color rushed down the hall, approaching her door. Erratic and uncertain, spiked with a healthy dose of adrenaline. There was only one person she met these past two days who could have that sort of unsteady balance in his heartbeat.
Horia.
Opening her eyes, Anelize stood and quickly pulled on her clothes before footsteps rushed past her door and continued further down the hall. As she continued conjuring, she managed to keep track of the erratic heartbeat as she slowly eased the door open and peered into the hall. She managed to steal a single glance of Horia before he rounded the corner.
Carefully, she stepped into the hall and made to follow him by keeping her pace quick enough to not draw any attention to herself should she run into a guard at this hour. If the physician was out, there was no reason why she shouldn’t be as his devoted assistant. Right?
Following the sound of his heart, Anelize managed to spot Horia disappearing down a spiraling set of stairs that led to a single opened archway. Into the ward at the back of the castle’s main entrance, she realized. It was relatively empty with no sign of Watchmen walking along the fortified walls that surrounded the castle. Nothing save for a small structure with a set of lancet windows to her left…and a tower. The same tower where Horia was currently slipping into in his haste, consumed by the vast darkness beyond.
Mindful of any eyes that may be watching her, she hurried across the yard and stood before the looming archway where a set of stairs that led up and down to other levels. Anelize listened to his heart as it sounded mere moments away from stuttering to a stop from somewhere below.
As she descended the steps, she couldn’t help but share the same sentiment as she gradually left behind the light of the moon and followed him down.
Down she went, until she wondered if she would reach the very end of the earth before finding the physician again. Mercifully, there was a single torch lit at the bottom of the stairs, and it was the only one she noted with dread sinking in her stomach. It’s flickering flame doing little to truly illuminate the long corridor before her lined with heavy oak doors reinforced with iron on either side.
Anelize slowly made her way into the corridor, aware of every little sound she could hear in the darkness around her. Eventually, she noticed there was a single door opened at the end of the corridor where Horia’s voice came on an echo to her. “Come, come. We must make haste. I promise you no harm will befall you. Don’t you wish to see your family again?”
“My family?” a voice croaked moments later. The person who spoke sounded too tired, weak.
The dread Anelize felt only amplified. It was entirely too dark for her to see exactly where Horia had led her, and the doors surrounding the corridor held no bars or windows to see inside.
To gauge what sort of horrors she’d unknowingly wandered into.
The sound of footsteps descending the stairs behind her made the hair on her arms stand on end as her head whipped back toward the entrance. As the sound of Horia’s voice grew louder, more insistent, so did the footsteps.
Finding very few options, Anelize tried one of the doors around her until by sheer luck one of them had been left ajar. She managed to slip inside and ease the door closed save for a small sliver just in time before the sound of footsteps came to a halt.
Then she heard the stern bellow of a Watchman say, “I know you’re here. Come out before I gut you.”
The breath stilled in her lungs. Her heart refused to beat, her body locking up and deeming itself utterly useless at her panic of being discovered.
“Did you hear me?” the Watchman barked louder this time.
She had to think. If she said she was following Horia, would he willingly accept her feeble lie? Deem that she was merely curious to follow in the great royal physician’s footsteps one day? Even she thought such an excuse was laughable.
She would be captured and killed within mere moments, and it would have all been for nothing?—
“Ah, it’s you,” Horia said, sounding closer this time as if hehad finally stepped out of the room he’d been in. “Perhaps you could help me get the prisoner out of this dank cell where he may get proper rest.”
A cell.
Prisoner.
These were cells.
Anelize forced herself to calm her breathing with the knowledge that this was the place where they kept prisoners.
