On the opposite side of the drawbridge from Roselake, Kilena led Targath through the grassy outskirts. The broad kingdom’s outlying terrain proved treacherous to navigate, especially each time he pushed her head under the grass at the first sight of a guard along the rampart.
At the castle’s rear, overgrown grass arched over the ground like waves and reached Kilena‘s waist instead of her knees. Arms up at her sides like wading through a river, she stepped carefully. Her eyes shifted from the ground directly in front of her to the castle and its walls that merged with the rampart, watching for any guards. Progress toward the heavy stone door that blocked the emergency exit from intruders continued slow but steadily. Suddenly, Targath gripped Kilena’s shoulder and yanked her back a step. She nearly drowned in the sea of weeds before he pushed her upright.
Concerned, she questioned, “What? Why are we stopping now?”
Targath scoffed and aimed his index finger ahead of them to no one spot in particular. “Are you telling me you can’t see the traps?” His hand wagged back and forth. “This entire area between us and the castle is covered in pits.”
“I see no traps,” Kilena insisted, and then stepped forward again, eyes squinted. Nothing about one section of grass stood out differently from another, a seamless weave of cascading chartreuse and tawny brown.
“Suit yourself,” Targath said, raising his eyebrows and crossing his arms loosely against his ribs. “But how are you going to save the world if you break a leg?”
Targath stood in place while she pulled ahead, scouting every blade of grass out of place. Hidden inside the unkempt field were patches of grass laid flat like a blanket. He gauged Kilena’s trajectory with scrutiny, which led her directly toward one such patch. Targath’s shoulders deflated with a sigh as he resigned his contempt to her tenacity, and swiftly caught up to her.
Kilena’s next step made to firmly land, but her leg abruptly dropped lower than the ground under her other foot. She continued downward, bracing to take a face full of dirt. The grass gave way, revealing sharpened, wooden spikes aimed skyward at the bottom of a dark pit. Panic seized her heart. Her arms circled. The weightlessness of flight. And then her forearm was snatched. Yanked roughly backward, she struck an unyielding, upright surface. When Targath’s arms wrapped around her, shoulders and all to keep her stable, she leaned against his torso to catch her breath.
A smug voice just above her head asked, “Do you believe me now?”
Kilena’s wide, sapphire eyes peered over the edge of the pit and found impaled skeletons, people who had attempted this same trek and met their death centuries ago. Swallowing a lump, she looked up at him with her head tilted back. “Yes. Thank you, Targath. Forgive me for not believing you,” she said, and then made to step aside. His tense arms resisted her release, but then he wrapped his charcoal fingers around her gauntlet covered wrist.
“Apologize by letting me lead you the rest of the way, alright?”
Kilena nodded, and through Targath’s guidance they arrived at their destination without further incident. The rear escape door was an unassuming stone slab from the outside, and only one seam indicated the door’s outline. A gap wide enough for the two of them to squeeze their fingers into for leverage. Together they worked to pry open the heavy stone door far enough to peer inside. Huffing and puffing from the exertion, Kilena’s heart sank. “It has not been used in so many years, the passage has collapsed here from disrepair.”
“We could bomb it open,” Targath suggested, turning his hand over so that his fingers fell in the direction of the door. The smirk he flashed meant the idea was intended as joke.
“Absolutely not,” Kilena firmly declined. “We are not trying to get caught. We are, however, trying to hurry.”
“Let me take a better look.”
Kilena stepped aside from the partially opened door, providing space for Targath but remaining close. He poked his head through the opening, his pupilless eyes adjusting quickly to the darkness to perceive that which she could not. “Actually,” he said, drawing his head back to look at her, “there are signs someone else already tried infiltrating the castle through this way and set off a trap that caused the cave in.” Abandoning the initial route into the castle, he moved away from the partially open door. He aimed his index finger off to the side. “Look there. That shaft is where the drainage water comes out from the castle. There is always an access from there into the castle for maintenance.”
Disgruntled, Kilena sighed, “I had sincerely hoped to avoid the sewers.”
“Would you prefer to dig out the rubble and find a maggot ridden corpse or crushed skeletons?”
Kilena slipped and stumbled while ascending the hill toward the sewage outlet. A long, narrow canal that passed under the castle on a slight decline before spilling into the moat below, leaving the dirt grimy with excrement. The pair dragged and pushed one another until they stood firmly on the rotten planks running along side the chute. Rusting iron grating with spaces large enough for Kilena to fit her arm through blocked their path. Each time she inhaled, the stench choked her and the proceeding cough echoed up the tunnel. Out of breath, she asked, “What do we do now?”
Targath, much more composed than the knight, slipped his dagger between a section where the iron intersected, and popped it apart. An entire section of the iron bars clattered on the floor at their feet, leaving an opening wide enough for them to crawl through. “Princesses first,” he said with a wave of the dagger.
Holding her breath, Kilena kneeled down and crawled through the opening. The buckler on her back snagged protruding piece of iron. After mirthfully observing her struggle to make progress, repeatedly catching on her gear, Targath pressed down on her back to detach her. She stood on the other side to wait, but once he joined her she swiftly continued along the gangway for maintenance. The moldy planks creaked and sank beneath her weight. Her eyes produced tears to heal from the burning assault of the pungent smell, her chest aching and her stomach churning. Nearly at a run, each second more she spent in the drains under the castle stretched longer. At the top of a set of wooden stairs, Kilena led Targath to a door with no lock. On the other side, they walked into the castle’s scullery.
Kilena sucked in a deep breath tainted only by strong soaps while the maids and servants stared at them in bewilderment. Suddenly, they clambered as a group to the opposite side of the room, shouting about a monster. She turned her attention to Targath, witnessing a fearful response to his presence.
“This way,” she urged, waving her arm and picking up into a jog. She knew the paths in this castle like the back of her hand. From there, the door on the right led to the kitchens, and then to a direct path into the great hall where the king entertained with banquets. One more door in the way to reaching the throne room, and when Kilena reached it she barged straight through.
The doors creaked and yawned open wide, offended stares greeting her. King Heldric Rose pushed up from his throne, abruptly ending his words to the man with fiery hair and copper skin to address the intruder. “Kilena Maverick? I- ah- apologies, for this interruption, Kade of Ainsley.”
An arrogant smirk mixed with mischievous yellow eyes glinted toward the knight. “No need, your majesty,” Kade responded dismissively.
“Kilena Maverick, the embarrassment of the Iron Rose,” a man condescendingly taunted, his armor clinking as he marched up behind her and Targath. “Please continue your meeting, your majesty, I will escort this pest and the distasteful company she keeps out of the castle immediately.”
Kilena turned sideways, her left shoulder to King Rose and her right to the other man. “Sedrik, no. No, you must listen,” she implored, her head snapping from the blonde man toward the throne. Her torso heaved, and she spoke between gulps of air. “I will wait my turn, but I must speak, with his majesty, about a dire situation.”
“You are not permitted to enter the castle, peasant,” Sedrik grunted through his teeth.
“On what grounds is Kilena banned from the castle? She and her father were both faithful knights of the Iron Rose,” the king declared, speaking with authority. “For the sake of her father’s service, I will at least hear her out. That is an order Sedrik.”
“Yes, your majesty,” he grumbled in displeasure. Sedrik reached a hand out and slammed it down on Kilena’s shoulder to take her off balance. He gripped against the metal plating, arm tensing to yank her around.
A dark hand snatched his elbow, squeezing the weak point of his armor and applying immense pressure until he grimaced. He followed the hand to find Targath’s bold, yellow eyes. “I suggest you never lay a hand on Lady Maverick ever again,” he said with an eerie calm.
Sedrik scoffed, his deep set eyes narrowing with contempt. “Are you threatening me? An actual knight of the Iron Rose?”
Targath’s voice dropped in both pitch and volume, emanating an undertone of threat. “You and anyone else who thinks to bring harm to someone who has done nothing wrong.”
“Sedrik, escort them to the great hall and they will wait until I finish,” the king sternly ordered.
Sedrik glared at Targath, but put his hands up by his head in surrender. He walked in ahead of them, leading the way out of the throne room to the great hall. He was still in earshot when Targath faced Kilena and spoke. “So that’s the bastard who get you kicked out, huh?”
The door to the throne room closed, Sedrik returning to his post on the other side. “He certainly seems to have a bone to pick with me,” Kilena replied, leaning on a table in a hall to catch her breath.
“If he touches you again, I’ll have a bone to pick with him. And I’ll pick until I dig it out of his side,” he warned with venom. “I can tell by looking at him that you have more skill.”
Straightening up her back, she tilted her head and exhaled, her torso deflating. “I appreciate you saying as much, Targath, but please do try to behave yourself.”
Targath took hold of the back of a chair and dipped his head, gaze landing on a knot in the wood. “Yeah, all right. I’ll try.”
Almost an hour later the man Kilena now knew was named Kade walked out of the throne room. For a protracted second, they locked gazes. That unsettling sensation bubbled up in her stomach as he passed by her with an air of malice.
Kilena Shrelack 