A Power of Old(2)

Right. If we needed to leave, we could go that way.

The guards retreated, and shut the door behind them. Just as that door shut, another opened, and Julian stumbled out looking bleary-eyed. Knowing that I wouldn’t be able to go into any detail—and my mime skills weren’t the best—I added another scribble to my paper and showed it to him.

‘The pestilence of silence. I think it’s one of the weird apocalyptic signs.

‘The final one!

‘Long story!’

Julian reached for his glasses, and then read what I’d written. He looked at me in bewilderment, going through the same motions of trying to speak that we’d all tried a moment ago. I waited till he had finished, patiently showing him the sign again. This time he just sighed with resignation. Yelena was next, coming up from the servants’ quarters. When I tried to show her the paper she flapped her arm at me. ‘Yeah, yeah,’ her expression seemed to say, ‘I got it.”

I hid a smile. That girl was quite extraordinary for a human.

Scribbling again on the paper, I conveyed to the group that we should really go and find Hazel and Tejus—they might have an idea of what this meant in terms of the entity’s rise to full power.

The others nodded, and Yelena started for the door, but I pulled her back, pointing to the servants’ entrance.

We all headed down the narrow steps, and then through a deserted kitchen—some of the stoves had been left on, with great vats of unappetizing-looking stew still boiling. Ash went around dousing the fires with water, and then we made our way back up into the main body of the castle. From what I could see, it looked like all the servants had fled, but the ministers were still rushing around, panicking and wild-eyed. I repressed a smile. They must really be feeling the pain of not being able to mutter to one another.

An imposing male figure was marching along the hallway, ministers moving out of his way as he approached. When he came closer, I recognized the granite face of Memenion. I waved, and he nodded in greeting. As he approached us he peered curiously at Ash, but then turned to me and fished something from his pocket.

It was a letter, creased and stained with a faint splatter of dried red liquid. It was addressed to me in scrawled ink. I turned it over, and the signature of the Hellswan house was stamped on the back—below that were initials. ‘Cdr. V.R’.

Commander Varga?

I looked up at Memenion and he smiled at me sadly. It was him, then. I could feel Ash giving me a puzzled look, and, not wanting to delay getting to Hazel and Tejus, I shoved it in the pocket of my robe.

I’ll read it later.

Not knowing how to thank Memenion, I briefly placed my hand on his arm in appreciation. He looked surprised, jerking it back, so I smiled awkwardly instead. I recalled the king’s wife saying that they weren’t closed-minded about humans, and I had believed her—though I couldn’t help but wonder if our kind took some getting used to, just the way theirs did to us.

We continued our journey, watching more ministers sweep past us in frenzied panic. I didn’t know where they were hurrying to or from—what did they think they could do?

When we got to the stairwell of Tejus’s tower, there was no one around. I briefly wondered where all the guards had gone, but perhaps Tejus had sent them elsewhere…Didn’t he feel that he and Hazel needed protection?

As we walked along the corridor to Tejus’s living room, our path was suddenly blocked without warning. I realized what he had done. There were protective barriers up, blocking the entrance to his room. I sighed, further irked to see a conceited-looking lynx yawning at us obnoxiously before sticking his head up in the air and marching off.

I looked over at Ash in frustration.

What now?

He shook his head at the obvious, but unspoken question. There was nothing to do but wait – it wasn’t like we could call out to them or anything, we’d just have to stay put until they emerged. I hoped it wouldn’t be long.

Yelena and Julian slumped against the walls, folding their arms and looking irritated. Eventually I joined them, not knowing what else to do. Ash paced up and down, intermittently scowling at the smug-looking lynx.

I must have dozed off for a while, because the next moment Ash was shaking me gently by the shoulders. I smiled at him sleepily, still only half-awake. He gestured back at the corridor – the cat was long gone. I jumped up, testing the air where the barriers had been. They were gone.

We quickly woke Julian and Yelena, and hurried toward our destination. Without knocking, we pushed open the heavy wooden doors and strode purposefully into Tejus’s living room.

The first thing I saw was Tejus, standing by the window with a shaken expression on his face. He barely bothered to glance in our direction, looking off into the corner of the room instead. I followed his gaze, registering Hazel curled up in a ball, her face turned in my direction, but unseeing, as if I wasn’t even there. She was wrapped up in a bed sheet, and her usually pale face was even whiter than normal. Her eyes were glazed, and I belatedly realized I was registering the tell-tale signs of extreme shock.