Chapter 141 Escape Attempt
The unhewn stone was slick with condensation and green sea slime. My bare feet, bruised and cut from the Throne Room, found zero traction. I had to press my left shoulder against the freezing, rough cave wall, sliding my body downward inch by agonizing inch.
Every step sent a violent, jarring spike of agony up my shins. My body was rapidly tearing itself apart. The massive magical exertion I had used to melt the iron padlock had drained the last of my mortal reserves. My vision was still tinted with a hazy, red blur from the burst blood vessels in my eyes, and my heart fluttered in my chest like a dying, trapped moth.
I didn't care. I let the physical pain sharpen my focus, turning the agony into a cold, driving fuel.
I am coming, I pushed the thought down the tether. It was a weak, trembling pulse in the dark, but it was anchored in absolute iron resolve.
There was no verbal response from Klaus. His conscious mind had been entirely dragged under by the starvation and the suffocating heat of the iron collar. But I felt a deep, instinctive shudder ripple through the bond—a heavy, protective surge of pure terror. Even lost in the feral fog, his soul knew I was walking into the slaughterhouse, and it was thrashing wildly against its chains to stop me.
Hold on, I whispered in my mind, swallowing the dry, metallic taste of copper coating my throat.
I descended for what felt like hours. The ambient temperature plummeted until my breath plumed in small, white clouds in front of my face. The heavy black silk of my skirt absorbed the dampness of the stairs, becoming a freezing, leaden weight dragging at my waist.
I stopped.
I pressed my back completely flat against the damp rock wall, holding my breath.
Below me, the spiral staircase opened onto a wide, circular stone landing. A single torch flickered violently in the draft, illuminating the heavy iron-shod boots of an Imperial guard.
He was standing perfectly still, his back to the stairs, looking down the dark corridor that led to the deeper cells. He held a thick wooden halberd, his blackened steel armor gleaming in the dim orange light.
I stared at the back of his exposed, unarmored neck.
I couldn't fight him head-on. If I lunged and missed the fatal strike, he would throw me against the rock, and my brittle, exhausted bones would snap on impact. He would shout, alerting Silas and the guards in the lower levels. I needed an absolutely silent, flawless execution.
I looked down at the hem of my ruined dress. I couldn't risk the heavy silk rustling against the stone.
With my left hand, I gathered the front of the heavy skirt, pulling the soaked fabric high up my thighs to expose my bare, freezing legs. I gripped the crystal shard tightly in my right.
I stepped off the final stair onto the landing.
My bare feet made absolutely no sound on the wet stone. I moved like a ghost, measuring the distance. Ten feet. Eight feet. Five.
The guard shifted his weight, the heavy steel plates of his armor clanking softly. He began to turn his head, his peripheral vision catching the sudden shadow moving behind him.
I didn't hesitate. I dropped my gathered skirt and lunged.
I threw my left arm entirely around the front of his steel helmet, clamping my bleeding forearm over his metal visor to yank his head violently backward. The sudden, brutal motion exposed the soft, pale flesh of his throat above his steel gorget.
I drove the crystal shard directly into the side of his neck.
The glass punched through the skin and muscle with a horrific, wet tear. Hot, bright crimson blood erupted instantly, spraying across my face and chest in a blinding, boiling wave.
The guard’s body seized, a violent, rigid convulsion of pure shock. He tried to scream, but the sound died in a wet, gurgling choke as the glass severed his vocal cords. His heavy halberd clattered to the stone floor. His steel gauntlets flew up, desperately clawing at my arm and the sharp glass buried in his neck, but I refused to let go.
I twisted the jagged crystal shard hard, ripping it sideways to widen the artery, and shoved him forward.
His heavy armor hit the wet stone floor with a muffled, heavy thud. He twitched twice, his red eyes wide and panicked behind the visor, and then went entirely still. The thick pool of his blood mixed with the sea slime on the rock.
I stood over him, my chest heaving with shallow, ragged gasps.
My hands shook violently. The hot blood dripping from my chin and soaking into the bodice of my black dress felt sickeningly warm in the freezing air of the dungeon. I stared at the dead man, fighting the dark, dizzying wave of nausea that threatened to drop me to my knees.
I was the Queen of the Sea. My hands were supposed to guide the tides, not butcher soldiers in the dark.
But as I looked at the dark corridor stretching out before me, leading toward the man who had let himself be tortured to protect my kingdom, the guilt evaporated. It was replaced by a cold, abyssal calm. I wiped the hot blood from my eyes with the back of my iron-cuffed wrist.
I crouched down, wiping the slick blood off my glass dagger using the dead guard’s dark cloak. I stepped over his body and walked into the final corridor.
The unhewn rock walls here were completely submerged in the sea's influence. An inch of freezing, black water covered the floor, soaking my bare feet and numbing my toes instantly. The smell of raw sewage and rotting kelp was suffocating.
Through the tether, a sharp, blinding spike of physical agony ripped through my chest.
I stumbled, my shoulder hitting the rough stone wall to catch my balance. The pain wasn't mine. It was a fresh, tearing wound, laced with the sickening, corrosive burn of silver.
Silas. He had kept his promise. The twelve hours weren't up, but the sadistic Commander was already down here, carving into Klaus’s flesh for his own amusement.
I pushed off the wall, moving faster, my bare feet splashing softly in the freezing water. The corridor curved sharply to the left.
As I rounded the bend, the jaundiced, flickering light of a torch spilled out from an open cell door at the very end of the hall.
I pressed my back against the shadows just outside the doorframe, gripping the glass shard so tightly the torn silk dug into my raw palm. I slowed my breathing to a silent, imperceptible rhythm and peered around the rusted iron hinges.
The cell was a nightmare carved into rock.