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Too late to notice we’d been surrounded while we were arguing.
Too late to stop the sneers and smiles spreading on the men’s faces around us.
“Let the royal guard scare you?” a deep voice said from behind me. I shivered, realizing the man was close enough for his breath to flow down the nape of my neck.
Nicole stood like a caged animal, frantically looking around her.
Before we could make another move the guard was on us. I yanked myself to the side, but a guard grabbed my hurt arm and I screamed, falling to my knees.
“Cora!” Nicole shouted as she was grabbed around her waist and flung backward.
I watched two guards bind her hands with rope as I could feel they were doing to me.
Tears streamed down my face as the pain shot through my arm from my wrist. I didn’t dare try to twist free from the rope shackles since every miniscule movement brought a fresh round of pain.
I screamed, but this time when my mouth opened, a rag was forced inside and pulled tightly around my head. I twisted my head, craning my neck as much as possible to prevent the guards from securing the gag, but it was futile.
We were caught. And there was absolutely no way out.
My eyes met Nicole’s before the guards laughed and shoved us forward, surrounding us in a tight circle as we walked.
Back to the castle.
Nicole and I glanced at each other every few paces, her gaze flitting around like she was trying to think of some way out.
I racked my brain for any training, any piece of information that might be helpful. I stumbled a few times, crying out in agony, but was forced to keep moving. Thoughts were barely able to form themselves completely as the exhaustion from everything threatened to take control of me.
I had no idea where we were on the castle grounds. This part was completely unfamiliar to me, and as we walked I wondered if Nicole knew them. She had to for how long she’d been here.
But where were we? And how would they serve us our punishment before throwing us back into the cell with the others?
The guards entered a single stone door far enough away from the opening we’d exited from that it made me wonder if they knew about it at all.
They had to. But in the off chance they didn’t, perhaps we’d simply have to try again.
My stomach clenched at the thought. I wasn’t sure I could make it again.
But I was spared from thinking how I’d make it through the hell currents because we didn’t get taken back to the jail cell at all. Or the chambers I’d been brought to before being thrown in them.
Instead, Nicole and I were shoved and paraded into a circular room, lit the entire way around by torches.
A very official-looking man sat at a desk in the center, idly watching us and writing a few things in a notebook as we approached.
He looked down his glasses at us, clicking his tongue as we approached. “Where on earth did you find these things?”
Things. I wanted to correct him, but I didn’t have the energy to even stand my ground right now.
“Murph saw them crawling from the river nearly drowned,” the guard who had been far too close by the river informed the official watching us.
The man’s eyes flared, like a fire had been lit inside somehow. I could practically see the flames inside dancing around in delight at the prospect of two new people before him.
I turned my head in an effort to glean Nicole’s attention. I wasn’t sure how much we should say. If we said we’d been in the jail cell now, they’d look in it for how we escaped.
Maybe if we didn’t make it back, others would eventually try to escape and maybe be more successful than we were.
“Should I make room in the cells?” The guard who had manhandled Nicole stepped forward, shoving into her and pushing her aside as he moved to stand before the man at the desk.
The man rose, snickering in a way that made me tremble as he placed his hands down on the table and leaned forward. “Not for them,” he rasped. Then his lips twitched as he spoke, this time more to himself than the guard. “No, not for them. They were outside the castle somehow. They’re more dangerous.”
Dangerous?
I shot my gaze straight for Nicole, who met mine. Her eyes were like a mirror to mine as we both took in the crushing weight of waiting for where they’d be keeping us now.
“Where to?” the guard closest to me asked.
“Too dangerous,” the man repeated.
This time, I had no doubt the fire in his eyes that flared up as he spoke was a crazed lunacy begging to come to the surface.
“They’ll both be put to death.” A malicious smile spread across his face, and I fell backward, held up by the guards standing behind me. “Immediately.”
