hands in the bucket, after which he wrapped them with strips of his own shirt sleeve.
Soon, they were ready, and though they didn’t look like a group of well-to-do nobles, neither would they be easily mistaken for a group of newly released torture victims, provided one didn’t look too closely.
“May I?” Crymson pointed to Alocar’s sleeve. For an instant, she feared he’d say no, but then he nodded, gruffly, and held it out for her. She grabbed it, end dangling where his hand should be, and pinned it back, securing it with a few small needles she kept in her dress collar.
Clearing her throat, Willow stood. “I’ve been instructed to guide you to the King’s private chambers, where they shall be dining. Angras owns a few of the guards, but you’ll have to make it quick.” A scream. Willow cocked her head. “You should not have left her in such a position.”
“She deserves it,” Alocar said.
Willow looked at him incredulously. “I meant alive.”
“At any rate, time is of essence, so let’s be off. Talk to nobody. Ears open, heads down, especially you, priestess,” said Willow, nodding to Crymson’s bruised face.
Leaving the hallway behind, they walked up a set of stairs that turned at sharp angles and through three doors that Willow unlocked with a key on a necklace. People passed to either side, some dressed in noble’s splendor, noses in the air, others obviously servants, bustling by with diverted eyes.
They even passed a few guards, their attention gliding over Crymson and the others as if they were nothing more than objects in a room. Good for nothings. The only thing all had in common with each other was that they gave Crymson and the others no more attention than they would a passing stranger, only occasionally nodding at their guide.
The flooring leveled out, and daylight from huge windows suffused Crymson with a feeling of warmth, a relief after the cool dungeon. To the left, she saw Isaac walking alongside, his eyes almost closed and a hum on his lips.
Soon, they arrived at a set of double doors, gold painted metal outlining them, square panels inlaying its interior, each depicting part of a story, the last panel showcasing a knight holding the severed head of some sort of beast, fur sprouting from its cheeks and incisors long as a man’s pointer finger.
Two guards stood in front of the doors. One lifted a hand in greeting. “Hey, Rodnick, the Prince is expecting their company,” Willow said. Rodnick, an average-sized man with a blonde beard and the world’s least interesting hazel eyes, nodded, and then drew his sword and ran it through his companion’s neck. Crymson dropped into a crouch, looking down the hallway, but Willow put up a hand. The stabbed guard fell, blood leaking down the sword and onto the floor.
“I’ll take care of the body,” said Willow, fingering a stud in her ear. “I can give you a while. Another couple of our men are on their way to fill in, make it look like nothing is amiss, but the change of guard will take place at some point, so don’t dally.”
Willow hesitated. She put a hand Rodnick’s forearm. “Good luck.”
The room wasn’t large, but its grandeur more than made up for its lack of size. Their heels resonated on a tiled floor composed of geometrically precise cubes, each interconnected with another, whites twisting into blacks so that it looked like the ground was rising into the air, a heady feeling that Crymson only avoided by focusing on the scene before her.
At the front of the room was a set of small stairs, each only a few inches tall, leading up to a table behind a railing, where sat who Crymson could only assume was Prince Remson, a young man with black hair and a slightly too strong jaw, his eyes a penetratingly stark blue. Before him sat his father, thinner than she’d imagined a king would be but possessed of an expression she thought a king might have at finding his dinner interrupted.
Guards, dressed in black with traces of silver, stood around the table, five of them in all. Their faces were expressionless, almost slack, even as their eyes shifted to take in the newcomers.
“Rodnick, what is the meaning of this?”
“You’ll have to ask them, Your Majesty.”
“Alocar Leyton?” The King squinted, as if disbelieving his eyes. “Is that you?”
“It is, Olen. I’m sad to say it’s come to this.”
“Come to what? Where is Melanie? Where is my wife?”
Ignoring him,