I unfasten the unfortunate corpse’s armor and discover a dagger strapped to his chest. Still sharp. His gleaming mail was mostly protected from the elements, too. I toss it to Alistair and tell him to put it on. The prat takes off his abused velvet jacket and rolls it carefully before placing it into the pack. Then he shrugs into the protective garment with an oddly merry jingle.
I hold out the dagger.
“Don’t lose it. Might come in handy.”
“We’re not following that arrow.” He pokes the scabbard into his belt. “That is a trap.”
“Yeah, Highness. We are. Unless you want to be torn apart by giant hawks. Or go home.”
Reluctantly, he follows me deeper into the underbrush.
Not ten minutes of slashing later, we arrive at an archway carved into the stone wall. Inside, the lowest step nearly obscured by a pile of dead, dry leaves, a stairway winds upward into the darkness.
“I don’t like this.” Alistair’s mouth is set in a flat line.
“Got any better ideas?”
Hefting the pack, I hold out the torch. “How badly do you want to awaken the Sleeping Beauty, Alistair?”
He hesitates before answering, “I’m starting to think that no maiden is worth this.”
“I told you that at the bottom of the mountain.”
Inside the passageway, we soon need the torch. It burns with a pungent, acrid tang that smothers my ability to smell anything else, including my own soiled clothing, and the smoke makes my eyes water. Impossible to stay downwind of it in this cramped space. We shuffle upward, blind and vulnerable.
Like the exterior, the staircase is a series of steep switchbacks. I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve doubled back, inching upward.
The dimness lightens gradually until the passageway spits us out onto a ledge big enough for the two of us to stand up comfortably. Time has worn away what must have once been a stone railing.
I go to the edge and stare out at the vista below, a luxury I didn’t allow myself previously.
“Look how far we’ve come.” Alistair sounds more cheerful than I’ve heard him in hours. “All we have to do is get through that door, and we’ll find my queen. I’m sure of it.”
Unmoved by the sunset sky painted in ribbons of vivid color above velvety forests, the prince tries the handle.
“Locked. Why would someone tell us to come all the way up here, only to confront us with a locked door?”
“Either they didn’t know it was locked, or this is a trap.” Kneeling, I begin taking out the supplies we’ll need to survive the night. “Care to bet which?”
For once, Alistair has no smart response. It seems to be belatedly sinking in that this quest isn’t designed to test his mettle before allowing him to claim the maiden. It’s designed to kill him.
To kill us both.
Why did Alistair’s great-great-grandfather place his cursed bride in an impenetrable magic castle?
Why fill the castle grounds with fae beasts?
Why make the door so thick? To keep monsters out, or to keep something worse in?
I haven’t heard that odd scuffling sound since we entered the passageway.
“What’s the plan, Kill?”
My shoulders ache as I flex to raise the dulled axe, eyeing the thick wood panel. Alistair plucks the smooth wood handle from my hands like it’s a toothpick and hefts it high. The blade winks in the fading light.
“Allow me. You’ve been swinging that thing all day.”
A smile tugs at the corners of my mouth. He can be gallant, when he wants to be. Alistair’s a prince with all the flaws and arrogance of a man warped by wealth and power, but he is the one person in the world I’m willing to die for.
