The stairsdown to the dungeons were coated in a thin membrane that caused my shoes to slide a bit as we walked down them. Alric stalked down the stairs with his sword drawn and his back to me. I didn’t have a weapon on me and was thankful for his protective nature. If I’d been alone, would I have thought to bring a weapon? Probably not, but my thoughts didn’t immediately go toward the threats that could arise in the castle. I assumed, for the most part, I was safe here. There was nothing safe about going down to the dungeons. I couldn’t have imagined the coffers? Wouldn’t that have been easier?
A torch sat lit at the end of the long winding staircase. Alric handed it to me and we looked both ways. There were two tunnels on each side of us and they were both dark and freezing cold.
“Do you think it’s down here?” I whispered.
Alric shook his head. “No, but this is one of the best adventures I’ve had since we got here. I haven’t been able to find anything like this.”
“Which way do we go?” We peered both ways, unsure of what we would find or if there was even anything to find. There was a deep feeling in my chest that we would find something, but I kept my thoughts to myself. I didn’t want to hype Alric up too much. This whole thing was giving me a bad feeling.
We chose to go left because of what felt like a draft coming from that direction. If we were going to find anything, I imagined it would because the castle let something in but what did I know? We crept down the long, black hallway—past various empty cells. Each held a fresh bale of hay and a chamber potin the corner. They didn’t stink as it was probably thousands of years before that anyone was housed here but I wrinkled my nose all the same.
Flashbacks of being dragged down the stone steps in the fraud kingdom flashed behind my eyes. Every scream ripped from me, every whimper torn from my throat, every morsel of pain I felt seemed to come back with the echo of our footsteps on the stone floors. I winced with every one. After a few trembling shuffles, Alric stopped and turned back to me. Shadows danced across his face in the torchlight.
“Are you okay?”
He knew what I went through to a certain extent in the dungeons at the hands of General Nova. I nodded my head, unconvincingly.
Very carefully, he placed the torch in a holder on the wall and approached me like a wounded animal. “What she did to you was wrong, but we are not there.”
He must have seen the haunted look in my eye as he reached forward and wrapped his hands around my biceps. “You went through a horrible trauma and I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to go back. I should have thought about that before we even came down here.” He let go of me with one hand and ran it down his face. “I’m so sorry, Juniper. I don’t know why I didn’t think of this.”
My voice shook as I replied, “I didn’t think of it either. I didn’t think seeing these cells would invoke such a reaction. It was a long time ago.”
“Not long enough.”
He pulled me in for a tight hug and I took comfort in the warm earthy scent of him. He was a great friend to me and I couldn’t wait to give him back some of his freedom. All I wanted was the best for him and my other friends too. The best wasn’t serving at my feet, it was out there living their lives on theirown terms. He ran his hand down my hair and I closed my eyes, breathing it all in. My shoulders slumped at the contact, I hadn’t known just how badly I needed a hug—how badly I needed the comfort, until then. He released me and we both stared down the hallway awaiting us.
“Do you think you can make it or do you want to go back?” He asked as he stared into the dark abyss. “And if you don’t want to continue, there is nothing wrong with that either. If you need to go back to your room and have a self-care day, no one will be the wiser.”
I squared my shoulders and shook my head. I would do self-care later, my people needed me and I wouldn’t leave them hanging.
The hallway seemedto go on for miles. There was nothing but a draft that led to nothing and empty cells.
“I wondered when a new Mage Queen would rise up,” A voice hacked from one of the darkened cells. I stumbled backwards into the bars of another cell and pressed my hand to my chest. Alric swung the torch around to shine into the cell but it didn’t matter, the cell was completely blacked out. We’d been so lost in the other empty cells that we hadn’t realized this one you couldn’t even see into it.
“Who are you?” Alric’s voice came out as a growl.
Whatever it was in the cell let out a hacking cough before answering. “I am a no one. I’ve been in here for so long that everyone I’ve known and loved is long and dead. I should be long and dead.”
“You were imprisoned during the last Mage Queen’s rule?”
Another wet hack met our ears. “Yes, I don’t know how long it’s been but I would imagine I should have died a long time ago.”
“How are you still alive?” I braced myself against the bars and stood up to my full height once again.
“The castle,” the person or creature rasped. “It makes sure I’m fed and clothed and clean. I don’t want to be but it ensures it. I get force-fed if I don’t eat. I’m magically cleaned if I don’t bathe. I have no choice in how I am to live or how I am to die.”
“What got you thrown in here?” Alric pressed the torch against the bars and the thing hissed but we still couldn’t see him. I wondered if it was the creature’s magic or the castle’s protecting us from what we’d find.
“Does it even matter?”
“Yes,” Alric and I said at the same time.
“War crimes. Treason. When I saw the blight affecting the queen, she wouldn’t listen. She pushed for dark magic just as much as the other kingdoms. She didn’t care when she felt the first touches of the darkness. When I told her advisors, I was thrown in here. They’d already been touched by the curse. No one cared anymore and the gods took them all from this earth. Do you think its a coincidence that the castle still stands and the subjects still roam but yet the city outside of this building was a crumbling, ruined mess?”
“How would you know that?” Alric sneered.
There was a shuffling sound on the other side of the bars, but we still couldn’t see who or what was in there. “The castle tells me things.”
