The guard was dead.
Chapter 5
Blood ran hot down the blade onto Ambrose’s hands, marking her with her crime.
Run.
Run.
Run.
She pushed the shock from her mind and stilled her racing thoughts as the panic that came with the realization of what she’d done crashed into her. The light was gone as well as any trace of it, but with how bright it had been, it’d likely woken up the entire palace. While that moment had been what she needed to save herself, she had torun.
Without giving herself any more time to think, she ran back to where she’d dropped her dressings and grabbed her gown from the floor. Pulling some of the fabric around her head to cover her face, she ran as fast down the halls as her feet could carry her.
She was almost halfway down the west wing, and the dorms would be all the way to the end and off to the right. No doubt servants were already stirring from the commotion, wondering what that light had been.
Out of the question.
Behind her was the main part of the palace—almost a small city in its own right—and the guards’ dorms were all the way in the right wing on the opposite side of that.
She had time.
She had to be fast. And unseen.
The corridor walls slipped away beside her, paintings of faces andlandscapes a blur of color racing with her. She took a few deep breaths and allowed some of her vital focus to slip to her feet. With a small spark the tapping her feet created muted without another sound. Silence echoed in the space around her as she listened for the sound of any disturbance. When she reached the end of the corridor, instead of taking the usual and familiar right that would’ve taken her to the comfort and safety of her own bed, she banked left.
Over the years, Ambrose had mapped out most of the palace inside her head. Even if she’d only seen a room once, or just barely passed a hallway, she never forgot where it was. Created for the purposes of housing and entertaining nobles, as well as training the best fighters across the kingdoms, the palace was a giant dragonstone example of the beauty and strength that Eltoria admired. But if one paid attention—the way Ambrose paid attention—they’d see what she saw. The palace wasn’t just a tribute to the Grand Arena and the fighters that trained there.
The palace itselfwasan arena.
One created by an architect who could’ve been nothing less than brilliant.
Ambrose always worked diligently, volunteering for jobs all over the palace. The royals assumed it was to make up for her behavior, but she was slowly building, room by room, brick by brick, the image in her mind.
She’d spent so much time doing it she even started to find some of the palace’s secrets. Secrets like corridors in the walls that servants used to use in a more ancient time when the royals didn’t want them seen as well as heard. When they had to use a system of mazes inside the walls of the palace that were abandoned, but still there to this day.
As far as she knew, Ambrose was the only one who knew of, or remembered, their existence. Those secret tunnels had helped her escape to the forest to train with Adym countless times. Tonight, she needed them to save her life.
Unfortunately, this hallway had always been too close to the servant dorms and too far away from the main palace for her to ever find an excuse to be there. With everything she knew, this hallway had no secret passages and it was all a deadend. Nowhere to run.
Throwing the idea from her mind, she pressed on. There was no other choice. There simplyhadto be tunnels. She’d find them. And no one would expect her to be down there, so that would buy her time. The wing she found herself in was cold and abandoned. With only the moon to shine through the windows onto the cobwebs and dust that claimed a kingdom of their own. The hallway that reached out in front of her seemed like it hadn’t had a visitor in a very long time.
She reached into the darkness until she felt the smooth surface of the wall. She lost her candle and wasn’t skilled enough to light a firelight, and didn’t dare, even if she could. So she was left using the little light the moon gave her.
She ran down the wing, eager to put as much distance between herself and the servants as she could. Annoyed and confused shouts carried down to her which meant the servants on the other end of the wing had to be waking.
Her side ached where her rib was still healing and stars burst into her vision. Frustrated, she threw herself against the wall and tried to even out her breathing. Laying herself flat against it, she willed the shadows that she had no control over to protect her, one last time. If just for tonight. Her lungs burned with each breath and her rib throbbed angrily. Heart thundering, she clutched a hand to her chest, closed her eyes and let the dark surround her for a moment.
“It’s time, young mage.” A whisper carried on the wind found its way to her.
“Who’s there?” Her eyes snapped open and she frantically looked up and down the hall for whoever could’ve spoken, but was met with nothing but dead air and an empty hall.
From the shadows, something bright reached out towards her from down the corridor. A golden thread unwound from the depths of the hall and stopped right in front of her. Glowing with a subtle light, warmth radiating off of it. A comforting warmth.
Is this real?She couldn’t be sure.
It was beckoning her.
