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Oh no.
As silently as I could, I made my way to the door through which Randal had left, trying hard not to let the sound of my feet hitting the stone give me away. Though the bolt was huge and old, it slid easily aside. I peeked out into the small hallway but saw nothing out of place, nobody injured or hurt. For a moment, I waited, thinking and listening, and then I saw it… a trickle of blood coming down the steps from beneath the second door that led to where I stood.
No, no, no, no.
I was naked; I knew I had to cover myself before I went any further. Trembling, I searched the room for my things, but didn’t find them. And then saw a neat pile of simple clothes there in the corner, and I knew they must have been left for me. I finger-combed my messy hair as best I could and slid into the skirt. It may have been plain, rather than showy, but it was soft as silk and fit me perfectly. I slipped on the shoes, and a cotton blouse with sleeves that billowed and narrowed, and then left the dungeon and ran up the small stairway, avoiding the trickle of blood on the stone.
As I worked the second bolt free, I prayed that whatever had happened hadn’t meant Randal was hurt. Opening the door, my heart leaped up into my throat. I was both relieved and shocked to find a different man slumped, dead, on the other side of the doorway. He was dressed as a guard, and, I guessed, was the man who had come to get Randal earlier that day. But I didn’t know for sure, nor did I know why Randal would be a man who had a private guard to do his bidding.
The hallway outside the dungeon was dank, dark, and empty. For the moment, anyway. But I knew that whoever had killed the guard was surely after me—they’d come for me at the farm and they’d come for me here. Though I didn’t know what was happening exactly, I had a gut feeling that I was in big, big trouble. I closed the dungeon door, searching for a key to lock myself inside, but saw none. Randal had them with him, surely.
I knew I wasn’t safe here. I was a lone deer in a wide-open meadow—a perfect target. I looked down at the man in the pool of blood at my feet, feeling a wave of terror spring up from deep in my stomach, hollowing me out with fear. I was bait here. Trapped. If I waited, I would be cornered. I knew I had only one choice.
Run.
The dark hallways were confusing and nightmarish, long and twisting, and as one led to another, I started to realize Randal hadn’t told me the whole truth about where we were. This old building wasn’t just some outhouse or warehouse.
No.
As I followed the long stone corridors and empty halls, I knew exactly where we were: Ironhaven Castle. I knew I had to be right—where else could we be? But the realization made my head spin with so many new questions. Why had he brought me here? What did he mean when he said that the building belonged to his family?
Exactly who was he that he had private rooms in the kingdom’s finest and best defended stronghold? But there was no time to wonder about such things. I had to find my way to safety, and I had to do it fast.
Somehow I found my way to a small door and into a tiny stairwell with worn and slippery steps. I tripped up them, clinging desperately to a rickety old banister, and then slipped through the soft folds of a thick velvet curtain, meant to keep out the cold in winter and the heat in summer. Blinking against the sudden light and sounds, I found myself in an opulent hallway full of maids and servants rushing to and fro, carrying silvery trays and gleaming, half-finished glasses of sparkling wine.
It was disorienting at first, all these people and all these things; my whole universe for the past few days had been limited to Randal and our small and perfect world. All of this outside, it seemed so noisy and foreign. And unwelcome.
But inhaling deeply, I steadied myself. From a nearby rack, I took two glass jugs of milk to help myself blend in. I was already, thankfully, in plain dress that easily passed for a servant’s, and nobody gave me a second glance. As the servants and people passed me, I heard snatches of hurried conversations.
The king is dying. His bastard will take the crown.
I rounded a corner, searching for an exit.
The king’s bastard is an animal — have you ever seen him? A monstrosity. An abomination. A curse on the land.
