Destroy: (The Blades of Acktar 3.5) Read online

  The eyes hardened. The fingers tightened on the hilt. The hand pressed harder against Keevan’s face.

  A jolt shuddered through Keevan’s body. There was no mercy in those eyes.

  Keevan’s pounding heart finally pulsed into his limbs and hands, giving him the strength to move. To fight. He writhed, but his free hand caught in the blankets. He couldn’t reach his sword. He couldn’t throw off this attacker, small as he seemed to be.

  The knife sliced down.

  Pain carved along Keevan’s face and neck. He gasped. Something wet and sticky caught in his throat.

  The pressure from the intruder’s knee and hand left, but Keevan couldn’t fight back. He shook with each partial, choking gasp.

  He couldn’t breathe. Blackness closed tighter around him.

  He was going to die.

  Adelaide Croft tottered down the corridor. Weeks like this were the bane of the entire castle staff’s existence. King Leon had called an emergency Gathering of the Nobles, and while the nobles discussed policy and politics, the staff tried to keep up with all the cleaning, laundry, and cooking such a large gathering required.

  Addie’s arms ached with all the scrubbing she’d done, and she’d finally finished getting the last of the dirt from the rugs in the hallway, just in time for the princes to tromp through with muddy boots again in the morning.

  All she had to do now was check to make sure the fresh linens had been stocked in the linen closet for tomorrow morning, and she could finally head to her family’s rooms in the servants’ wing branching off the kitchen tower. If not for all the extra work, she would’ve finished her chores long before this.

  The candles in the wall sconces were nothing more than flickering nubs, casting strange shadows against the paintings on the one wall and the doors lining the other side. The moon’s light poured through the window at the far end beside the stairs. It had to be midnight or later. She’d have less than five hours of sleep before she had to be up again.

  With a glance around, she quickened her pace. She wouldn’t feel safe until she’d finished in the linen closet and gotten down the stairs. Mother had always warned her never to enter this hallway after dark. The princes, especially the two oldest, were known for liaisons with the maids, and there were rumors that not all of the maids had been willing.

  She shivered. Surely none of the princes would be up and about at this time of night.

  “Any sensible person would be in bed.” The sound of her own whispered voice eased some of the tension. “I’ll hurry. Mother will send out one of the boys if I’m not back soon, and they’d never let me hear the end of it.”

  She bustled into the linen closet, shutting the door until only a crack remained between it and the jamb. For some reason, having the door between her and the hall made her feel safer, even if it wasn’t much of a defense.

  Of course, nothing was out there. Just shadows and her own imagination.

  In the faint light from the wall sconces, Addie counted the bed linens stacked on the shelves around her, finding them mostly by feel in the near darkness.

  Something in the hall outside the closet squeaked. Addie froze, her heart giving a strange jump-beat. Was someone out there? Maybe Prince Aengus or Prince Keevan prowled the corridors at night, waiting for some unsuspecting maid to wander by.

  Should she stay here? Was this a good place to hide? Or would that be like a mouse waiting in the trap for the cat to come along?

  She tiptoed to the door and peered out.

  Something black moved at the far end of the corridor.

  She stumbled back from the door. Her heart pummeled against her ribs. Someone was there. And if they were prowling the corridors at this time of night, they weren’t up to any good.

  Holding her breath, she peered through the sliver between the door and wall again.

  The hallway remained utterly still. Empty. Shafts of moonlight speared through the high windows near the stairs.

  Had she imagined the movement? And the noise? Wood often gave random squeaks and creaks as it shifted with the changing temperatures from day to night. Even a slight breeze could cause something to flex and groan. Perhaps her worked up mind had played a trick on her.

  “Well, this is ridiculous.” Wouldn’t her brothers get a laugh out of her huddling in a closet over perfectly normal shadows?

  She let out a breath and laid her palm against the door to push it open.

  A black shape moved into the corridor. She stilled. Even her breath halted in her throat.

  Another black shape followed the first, slightly smaller and thinner, though neither of them looked or moved like full grown men. More like boys.

  Moonlight winked dully against something in their hands. Knives. What was going on? Who were these boys?

  Two more black figures trailed behind. They set off silently down the hall she’d come from. Stalking into rooms. Ghosting out again. As one exited a room, a drop of something dark ran along the knife and fell, gleaming, to the rug. Addie pressed a hand over her mouth. Blood.

  A cry rang out from somewhere outside. Far in the distance, shouting shattered the night.

  The four figures dashed past her again, headed for the stairs. More shouting covered any noise their boots might have made.

  She held her breath until they disappeared down the stairs and the corridor in front of the closet lapsed into stillness, except for the growing clamor outside.

  She should stay where she was. That was the safest thing to do. The black-clad boys might come back. There might be more of them creeping about. She clapped her hands tighter over her mouth to keep from talking to herself and muttering her prayers out loud.

  But these were the princes’ rooms in front of her. She’d seen the boys exit with blood on their knives. She had to investigate, just to see if the princes were all right. If they were hurt, she could run for help.

  She eased the door open a few inches and peered out. Nothing. Sticking her head out, she glanced around. Still nothing.

  Creeping into the hallway, she darted for the door directly across from her. Prince Duncan’s room. Her fingers halted on the knob. A maid didn’t just enter a prince’s room, especially not at night.

  But Prince Duncan was only thirteen. He wouldn’t be any threat to her, not like Prince Keevan or Prince Aengus might be if they caught her.

  She’d poke her head in. Just long enough to see if he was all right.

  But when she stepped inside, the sight on the bed halted her. She couldn’t look away—couldn’t comprehend—the blood, the wound, the child’s still body. She couldn’t even bring herself to move closer to check for life.

  How could there be life with so much blood spilled? With a gaping gash like that?

  Whirling, she dashed to Prince Rorin’s room. More blood. Another body.

  She trembled so much she could barely stumble toward Prince Keevan’s room. Her stomach heaved, and she barely clenched her teeth in time to stop herself from vomiting onto the floor she’d spent hours cleaning earlier that night.

  Collapsing to her knees, she braced herself against the wall. What was the point of going in? Of seeing another mangled body?

  They were all dead. Those boys in black had murdered all of them.

  Why? When had the world tipped on its side and tangled in this madness? It didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.

  Was that a sound? Addie swallowed and tried to hold back her gasps. Was she imagining things, or was there a rasping sound coming from inside Prince Keevan’s room?

  She couldn’t go in. She couldn’t face another dead body. That was the job for a soldier or a healer, not a nineteen-year-old scullery maid.

  But if she didn’t go in, and it turned out Prince Keevan was alive or there was something she could’ve done…

  She had to check. She had to see this nightmare through to the end.

  Forcing herself to her feet, she shoved the door open. The same sight assailed her. The prince’s body on the bed
. The glisten of blood in the moonlight.

  The gurgling sound came again. The body on the bed twitched.

  He was alive. This prince was alive.

  Hands clenched, Addie approached the bed. Prince Keevan sprawled on his back, hands pressed to his throat. Something dark dripped through his fingers.

  She should run for the healer. That’s what she should do. But those killers had gone down the stairs to the exit. She might bump into them if she tried to go outside.

  Prince Keevan turned his face toward her, his eyes wide as the moon outside the window. His mouth moved, but nothing came out but a gurgle and dribble of the same, dark substance.

  Blood. She stumbled back from the bed. Her stomach curdled in her throat as the musty smell smacked her nose. The prince’s eyes pleaded with her.

  What was she supposed to do? She wasn’t a healer. So much blood…she couldn’t…

  She didn’t have a choice. Prince Keevan would bleed to death or suffocate if she didn’t do something. There was no one else to help.

  Clambering onto the bed, she knelt beside him. She grabbed a fistful of the sheet and yanked it free from the foot of the bed with the practice of many years of changing sheets and doing laundry. She pressed part of it against his face and throat. Warm liquid squeezed through the fabric and between her fingers.

  Prince Keevan’s eyes, wide and stricken, locked on hers.

  “Breathe.” She gritted her teeth. “Come on. You have to keep breathing.”

  His hands joined hers pressing the sheet against his face and neck. He coughed. More blood. Too much blood.

  What should she do? She didn’t know anything about healing besides the basics of try to stop the bleeding and wait for the healer to do the rest.

  Was there anything she could do to help him breathe better? Should she turn him onto his side where the blood could drip out instead of into his throat? Or would that only make him bleed out faster?

  Suffocate or bleed to death. She didn’t have much choice.

  She grasped Prince Keevan’s shoulder and rolled him onto his side, the same side as the wound. Would it be enough? It had to be enough.

  She couldn’t do anything else but pray. Please keep him breathing.

  Somewhere outside, she could hear shouting. The Queen’s Court below the window lit with torches. Footsteps pounded the corridor outside the room.

  The door crashed open. A man dressed in a uniform, a captain by the silver patch on his chest, burst into the room, the light of his torch reflecting in his brown-gray hair. A squad of soldiers peered through the doorway behind him.

  Addie froze. What did it look like to them? Her crouched on the bed next to the prince, her hands on his throat, blood pooling on the sheets around them.

  Friends or enemies? Would they help? Or would they finish what that boy had started? And kill her too for witnessing it?

  The captain’s eyes widened, and he hurried to the side of the bed opposite of her. “He’s alive.” The words were half a question, as if the captain couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  “Yes! Please help!” Addie didn’t dare move. Prince Keevan’s eyes were closed now, and she wasn’t sure he was conscious. The only way she knew he was alive was the choked gasps shuddering into her fingers. “Someone tried to kill him, and I don’t know why or what’s going on or…”

  The captain snapped upright and spun on his heels to face his men. They had crowded into the room, and now Addie counted six of them. The captain’s hard gaze swept over them. “What you see here and what we are about to do, you must swear never to reveal to anyone. As of right now, the life of the last prince of Acktar rests on our hands.”

  The six soldiers rested their right hands across their chest. A chorus of “we solemnly swear” rang into the room.

  With a curt nod, the captain pointed at one of the men. “Oran, see what you can do for the prince.”

  “Yes, sir.” The soldier approached the bed and leaned over the prince next to Addie. “Let me see.”

  Addie eased her hands away from the prince’s throat. The soldier peeled back the layers of sheets, exposing the gaping slash across the prince’s face and down onto his neck.

  Her stomach twisting, Addie turned away. Even the glimpse she’d seen had been too much. She closed her eyes, concentrating on the captain’s voice as he ordered soldiers to guard the hallway, fetch a length of rope, smuggle a horse out of the castle, and fetch the body of a man called Theodor Kester. Addie could only guess how the captain knew that particular man was already dead or why his body was needed.

  A hand rested on her shoulder, and she started, jerking away.

  The soldier was peering at her. “What’s your name?”

  “A-Addie. Addie Croft. I’m a scullery maid.” She bit her tongue. The soldier didn’t need her whole name and life’s story.

  “Addie, nice to meet you. I’m Oran. I’m going to need an extra pair of hands to save the prince’s life. Can you help me?” The soldier’s smile softened the hard lines of his angular face. The shafts of moonlight carved shadows under eyes and hair that looked dark in the uncertain light.

  Addie found herself nodding. What else could she do but agree? There was no one else, and if the captain’s insistence on making his men swear to secrecy was any indication, she wouldn’t be leaving anytime soon. “What do you need?”

  “Pull the drapes, then light a lamp. I’ll start a fire. The bleeding has to be stopped, and as much as I hate to do it, the wound will have to be cauterized. I don’t have a needle and thread with me.” Oran sliced off a section of the sheet and wound it around the prince’s neck and face. The white fabric stained red within moments.

  Addie reached into her pocket. She could hear her mother’s voice ringing in her ears: A good maid always has a needle, thread, and a few buttons with her at all times. You never know when you have to mend something before the noble folk notice. “I…I have my sewing kit with me. Would that needle work?”

  “Yes, it should. Light the fire anyway. I’ll stitch the section on his face, but the part on the neck will still need to be cauterized. It’s bleeding too much.”

  Addie slid to her feet and dashed from window to window, yanking the heavy curtains closed. As she slid the last one shut, the room plunged into near total darkness, lit only by the glow of moonlight around the edges of the curtains.

  A scraping sound came from the near the fireplace, accompanied by the flash of a spark.

  Addie fumbled in her pocket for her flint and tinder—another of the things her mother admonished her to keep on her person at all times—and located the lamp on the bedside table. In the dark, it took her a few tries to get the spark to set the oil-soaked wick on fire, but it finally blazed.

  Oran would need water to wash the wound before all the stitching and cauterizing began. Addie fetched the water pitcher and basin—the same pitcher she’d filled only a few hours before—and returned to the bed.

  Oran already leaned over the prince, peeling back the layers of makeshift bandaging. “Good. Bring the water over here.”

  How much more blood could the prince lose? Addie swallowed, set the basin on the table, and filled it with water. Locating the soldier’s knife, she cut several chunks from the sheet.

  She did her best to hold her stomach in place while Oran cleaned the wound. The stitching and cauterizing were only worse. By the time Oran wrapped more slices of sheet around the prince’s neck, the captain was pacing by the door and Addie was one dribble of blood away from losing her stomach completely.

  Oran straightened. “He’s ready to be moved.”

  “Good.” The captain peeked out the door and opened it. Two soldiers strode in, carrying a limp body between them.

  Addie pressed herself against the wall while the captain slung Prince Keevan’s still form over his shoulders and the soldiers dumped the body onto the bed. A gash ran across the body’s throat.

  One of the soldiers saluted the captain. “Sir, most of t
he fighting is over. Lord Respen Felix is parading the king’s body about the courtyard, claiming victory. It won’t be long before he sends men to retrieve the princes’ bodies.”

  “Understood. I want the three of you to finish up here. Lengthen the gash onto his face, and make sure he is so smeared with blood no one will be able to distinguish him from the prince. Clean up anything we might have left out of place. Make sure you are long gone before they come for the body. There can’t be any suspicion that the body they find isn’t Prince Keevan’s.”

  Addie sagged against the wall behind her. This went beyond madness. This was…she wasn’t sure what it was. Yesterday, the world had been unchanging. The sun rose on the same world it had seen when it set.

  But tonight…tonight had changed everything. The dawn tomorrow wouldn’t be the same dawn she’d seen every other day of her nineteen years.

  The captain swung towards her. “Addie, was it? Come with me.”

  She hurried to catch up as the captain strode from the door, Prince Keevan draped over his shoulder. In the corridor, they passed the soldier on watch and nodded at him.

  At the base of the stairs, they stepped around the fallen bodies of a group of soldiers that had been set to guard the family wing of the castle.

  After peeking out the door, the captain led the way outside into the Queen’s Court. The moonlight shone along the patch of grass, the surrounding bluestone path, and the fountain trickling silver water. Men dashed about, and Addie couldn’t be sure they were friends or enemies.

  The captain set off at a jog along the perimeter of the Queen’s Court, mostly sticking to the shadows beside the long gallery. Addie hurried to keep up. At the guest apartments set into the outside wall of Nalgar Castle, the captain ducked into a back door and dashed upward to the second floor.

  Here, wails filled the corridor. Addie caught glimpses of some of the highborn ladies, swathed in robes and their hair hanging limp and untended, clinging to each other and sobbing. A few bodies sprawled across the rugs, and someone had thoughtfully tossed blankets over their still forms.