Page 116 of The Sun King's Noon

The portcullis cranked open. Richard glanced over his shoulder in time to see soldiers pour out, barrelling through the mass.

Oh, Kaelen. What have you done?

CHAPTER 42

The streets behind the market were empty. Most of Vexmara was still crammed into Antlershield Square, and the narrow lanes that wound east lay quiet but for the slap of Richard’s boots on flagstone and his pulse thundering in his ears.

Behind him, faint but rising, was the rhythm of bootfalls. Many bootfalls. The Estaran guards had cleared the square, and now they were flooding through the side streets.

Organised, Richard thought bitterly. It would have taken his own soldiers double the time to get through that square’s throng.

His hood slipped, and he yanked it forward again without breaking stride. The houses here were tall, pressed shoulder to shoulder, ivory-stoned and balconied. Richard rounded the corner at full pelt.

And slammed into a firm chest. He pitched backwards, arms windmilling, but a sturdy arm caught him at the waist and pulled him close.

“By the gods! My?—”

“Have you no sense?” Richard fisted the front of Kaelen’s tunic. “You are running straight towards them.”

Kaelen’s hood was also drawn, his bow looped around his back, and sweat beaded his temples. He tightened his grip on Richard’s waist.

“Then, you must not be with me. Go left, and I shall draw them away?—”

“Do not be ridiculous.” Richard seized Kaelen’s hand. “Come.”

They ran. Hand in hand, fingers laced so tightly that Richard’s knuckles ached. Richard’s mind raced ahead of his feet, sorting through what he remembered of Vexmara’s eastern quarter—he had walked these streets once with a delegation, half-listening to a guide, and now he cursed himself for every word he had not bothered to remember.

“My king, please.” Kaelen tugged at their hands, breathless. “If we are taken together, you?—”

“I am not leaving you,” Richard said through pants. “Hurry.”

They turned a corner, and turned again into a row of merchants’ houses. A washerwoman with a basket on her hip flattened herself against a pillar as they shot by. Richard’s lungs burned, and he couldn’t help but notice that Kaelen matched his pace despite having longer legs.

A wider street opened before them, flanked by terraced houses with pillared porticoes and bay windows. Richard whirled into a smaller alleyway, and?—

his stomach plummeted.

The alley ended in a wall. At least twelve feet high, covered with brown ivy, with no gate or opening. The sides were walled off.

Kaelen unsheathed his sword and faced the alleyway’s entrance, shielding Richard with his back.

The bootfalls had multiplied. They echoed, seeming to come from every direction at once.

Richard drew in a deep breath. There was no other option. He would have to unveil himself as the King of Ardenia and plead leniency for Kaelen. Marius would not dare to touch him, though they’d not be sailing to Singers’ Teeth —

A scrape of metal made Richard’s head snap down. Three paces to their left, set into the paving, a grate had lifted. It tipped sideways, disappeared into the dark below, and through the hole, a small, hooded head poked up.

“Well, whatcha waiting for?” the woman hissed. “Come on!”

Richard shoved Kaelen towards the hole. Kaelen sheathed his sword and went first, dropping into the dark. Richard followed, planting both hands on the lip of the opening and swinging his legs through. Once he was through, the woman slid the grate back into place.

A click. The lattice settled. Richard and Kaelen had to crouch to avoid scraping their crowns on the ceiling. Above, bootfalls thundered into the dead-end street.

Richard’s breath hitched. Through the iron lattice, he could see the moving shadows of legs. Six pairs, perhaps seven. Clipped commands—‘Spread out, check the doors, search the houses’.The footsteps retreated, and the street above fell quiet.

The hooded figure raised her hand, manifesting an orb of light that spilled a yellow glow around them.

Richard’s brows rose. A sorcerer.