That was all at an end now. Not that he regretted or begrudged it. Only that he knew he’d miss those rare moments of freedom and escape with his friends.
“How’s your knee holding up?” Eno called down to Rayne.
“It’s fine,” his advisor bit out in a hard tone as if he were chewing on the words prior to spitting them at Eno.
“We could take a break and I could check it if you like,” Caelan offered.
“It’s fine. I’m not feeling any pain.”
“Can we take a break anyway?” Drayce panted.
“We’ve climbed only three flights,” Eno argued from his place at the lead of their group.
“Yeah, but we walked a really long way before we started up the stairs,” Drayce whined.
“Let’s stop at the next landing,” Caelan stated, heading off any argument from Eno. It wasn’t so much fatigue and the burning of his leg muscles, but the closer he got to the Godstone, the more suffocating the feel of Tula’s power became. It was growing difficult to breathe, as though a wet blanket were being pressed to his face.
He caught the worried looked from Eno, but his bodyguard didn’t ask and Caelan appreciated it. For now, he wanted to concentrate on simply putting one foot in front of the other. Drayce and Rayne’s bickering became a dull, droning noise in the back of his mind. There were only the steps and the cool slide of the metal railing under his hand.
At the landing, Caelan immediately dropped down, pressing his shoulders to the cold wall and crossing his legs in front of him. With his hands on his knees, he closed his eyes and tried to center himself, or at least clear his mind to a state of blankness. Kaes was suspiciously quiet, just a tiny flicker of energy behind his heart.
He had a sense of green energy swirling everywhere around him, rubbing against him and pushing at his flesh as though it were desperately trying to crawl inside his body. The temptation was to reach out and grab it, but that seemed dangerous without having come to an agreement with the goddess first. Yes, Tula and the Talos family had a long-standing arrangement, but he had questions first. Lots of fucking questions.
After a few minutes, Caelan managed to get a handle on the goddess’s powers, enough that he didn’t feel like she was attempting to suffocate him, and they continued their trek upward.
There were no doorways leading off the stairs, no signs, nothing to indicate where they were or how high they’d climbed. Every few levels, they would take a break, rotating who would scout ahead.
Caelan had lost count of the number of flights they’d climbed when the stairs changed to a long, narrow corridor that ended at a door with no handle. Lovely. It took some careful searching to locate the switch in the floor that soundlessly unlocked the door.
Drayce and Eno took the lead with weapons drawn, moving into the room, while Caelan and Rayne remained in the dimly lit hallway. He strained to hear their soft footsteps and any sign that there might be Empire soldiers waiting for them.
Just when he was sure he couldn’t hold out another second longer, Drayce called out to them, but there was something wrong with his voice. It sounded rough, maybe thick. Caelan jerked free of Rayne’s restraining hand and surged through the narrow opening, his hand already reaching for his sword, but he stopped upon stepping into the light.
It wasn’t New Rosanthe soldiers. The passageway had ended in his mother’s bedroom.
The air rushed from his lungs as he surveyed the bedchamber. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d stood in this room. Had he ever been in here? Yes, when he’d been extremely little, well before he’d been moved to the West Tower.
Unexpectedly, the room looked exactly as it should. Soldiers hadn’t ransacked it or searched for anything. The faintest hint of her perfume still hung in the air as if she’d passed through the room only minutes ago. It was softer than he’d remembered. The room was decorated in pale shades of green with interesting touches of what he now understood was Caspagir blue. The blue of the Wind Stone. Or maybe she’d chosen the blue as a reminder of her close friend, Queen Noemi.
He slowly crossed the room to her large bed with the vibrant green canopy. The sheets and blankets were still twisted as if she’d just risen from bed. What time had the Empire attacked? Early morning? Late at night? He couldn’t remember.
If it was during the day, why hadn’t the maid tidied her bed?
The pillows…there were dents in both sets of pillows as if made by two people.
Hagen?
Right now, he wanted to believe all the rumors had been true. He wanted to believe that her bodyguard had been her lover and that last night together, Hagen had held his mother so fucking tightly before they were drawn to their deaths.