Chapter 7 - The Duke's Web
The cavern felt impossibly small. The only light came from Elia’s iron lantern and the two torches held by the Duke’s masked guards, casting long, monstrous shadows against the limestone walls.
"Seraphina," Elia said, peering around Cassian’s shoulder at the Duke's daughter. "You don't have to do this. You were raised in the light of the court. Do you truly want to murder your own kin for a crown built on ash?"
Seraphina’s finger tightened on the trigger of the crossbow. Her aristocratic face, usually so composed, twisted into an ugly, venomous sneer. "Kin? You are a kitchen wench who crawled out of a sewer! I spent twenty-two years learning three languages, memorizing the treaties of the continent, starving myself to fit into silk corsets, and preparing to rule this miserable kingdom! And you think you can walk into the Great Hall with dirt beneath your fingernails and take it from me?"
"You were preparing to be a puppet, Seraphina," Cassian said, his voice ringing with pure contempt. "Your father never intended for you to rule. The moment you married me and bore an heir, you would have suffered the same 'sudden illness' my father suffered."
Seraphina flinched, her eyes darting uncertainly toward her father for a split second.
"Do not listen to his poison, daughter," Valen commanded smoothly. "Shoot the girl. The Prince we can handle with steel."
"Wait!" Elia shouted, stepping out from behind Cassian before he could pull her back. She raised the leather-bound journal high above her head. "I have Martha’s journal! I have the cipher of the Eastern Covenant! The moment this book reaches the High Council, your name will be stripped from the annals of the realm, Valen! You will be drawn and quartered for high treason!"
Valen let out a soft, mocking laugh that bounced off the damp stone like the skittering of rats.
"A dead laundress's diary?" Valen chuckled, taking a slow step forward, his hand resting casually on the pommel of his rapier. "Do you truly believe the High Council cares about parchment? Power does not reside in ink, little girl. Power resides in iron, in gold, and in the sheer will to do what the weak call monstrous."
He raised his hand, signaling the twelve inquisitor guards.
"Kill the Prince," Valen ordered casually. "Take the girl alive. I want her to watch the Solstice ceremony from the shadows before we slit her throat at midnight."
The guards lunged.
Cassian moved with explosive ferocity. He didn't wait to be surrounded; he charged directly into the center of the narrow tunnel where the guards' numbers worked against them. His broadsword became a whirlwind of gleaming steel.
The first guard took a horizontal slash to the neck, collapsing with a choked gurgle. Cassian spun, using the dead man's falling body as a shield against a thrust from a second soldier's halberd, driving his pommel savagely into the man's jaw.
*Twang!*
The crossbow snapped.
The iron bolt hissed through the air, missing Elia’s ear by an inch and shattering against the stone wall behind her in a shower of sparks.
"Reload!" Seraphina screamed, fumbling with the mechanical crank of the weapon.
Elia didn't freeze. Five years of surviving in the brutal hierarchy of the palace scullery had taught her that hesitation meant death. She grabbed the heavy iron pry bar Cassian had used on the lock.
With all the strength built from hauling fifty-pound wash kettles every dawn, Elia swung the iron bar in a sweeping arc, smashing it directly into the knee of a guard who was trying to flank Cassian.
The soldier shrieked as his kneecap shattered, collapsing onto the wet floor.
"Behind you!" Elia yelled.
Cassian ducked beneath a wild sword stroke, spun on his heel, and ran his blade clean through the chest of a third attacker. But there were still eight guards left, and the Prince's wounded shoulder was bleeding profusely, soaking through the linen bandages and turning his leather brigandine slick and dark.
"The cistern!" Cassian breathed, parrying two blades at once, the shock jarring up his arm. "The release valve, Elia! Turn the iron wheel!"
Elia dropped the pry bar and scrambled toward the massive, rusted iron wheel suspended over the stone basin.
"Stop her!" Valen roared, drawing his rapier, his composed facade finally cracking into pure rage.
Elia threw her entire body weight against the wheel. The rusted iron bit into the flesh of her palms, refusing to budge. She grunted, her boots slipping on the slick moss of the floor.
*Click.*
Seraphina had reloaded. The crossbow was leveled directly at Elia’s temple from ten paces away. "Die, sewer rat," Seraphina whispered.
Elia gave one final, desperate heave, screaming with every ounce of fury and grief she had carried her entire life.
*CRACK.*
The ancient gears sheared inside the wall.
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A sound like an exploding dam detonated beneath the stone floor. The iron sluice gate of the Third Cistern slammed open, releasing twenty thousand gallons of pressurized mountain runoff that had been dammed beneath the palace for centuries.
A monstrous wall of black, freezing water erupted from the drainage grates, blasting into the cavern like a liquid battering ram.
