Chapter 14: The Trap Springs
The stone corridor outside the granary tower was chaos given sound and shape.
Shouts echoed from the courtyard below, disjointed and sharp. Boots pounded on stairs. The air, still cold, now carried the metallic bite of drawn steel and the sour tang of fear. Clara kept her eyes on the back of Kellen’s dark tunic as he moved, a steady, rapid force cutting through the confusion. The dagger in her hand felt like an extension of her own bones—heavy, undeniable, a part of her now.
They emerged onto a narrow, open walkway that clung to the inner curtain wall. The wind here was a physical blow, screaming in off the sea, tearing at her clothes and hair. It smelled of salt and wet stone and something else, something acrid and oily.
To their left, the walkway led to the main gatehouse, a churn of torchlight and silhouetted soldiers. To their right, it narrowed, running toward the seaward battlements.
Kellen went right.
“Where’s Freir?” Clara yelled over the gale.
“Where the fight is,” Kellen threw back, not slowing.
They rounded a corner and the world opened up.
The battlements here were a shattered mess of ancient stone and fresh, dark stains. The sea was a roaring blackness to their right, a vast, hungry mouth. To the left, the sheer drop into the courtyard. And straight ahead, a scene of contained, brutal efficiency.
Prince Freir stood behind the dubious shelter of a merlon, a sleek hunting bow in his hands. He wasn’t dressed for war, but in dark, close-fitting clothes that looked like shadows given form. He nocked an arrow, drew, and released in one fluid motion. There was no visible target, just the night beyond the walls.
A second later, a choked cry answered from the darkness below.
“They took the bait beautifully,” Freir called out, his voice carrying a bright, almost musical edge of satisfaction. He didn’t look at them. His eyes were on the void, scanning. “They’re furious. Clumsy.”
Then Clara saw the rest of the plan.
Along the outer edge of the battlement, crude clay pots sat braced between the stones. Dark liquid seeped from some, soaking into the granite. Rags were stuffed into their necks. The smell of lamp oil was overpowering, cutting through the salt wind. The trap.
A movement to her left made her flinch. Jared was there, leaning heavily against the parapet. His face was pale and sheened with sweat, his green eyes glassy with fever, but they were open and fiercely alert. One hand pressed a blood-soaked bandage low on his side. The other held a sword, point resting on the ground as if its weight was almost too much.
“Status,” he rasped. It was clearly meant for Kellen.
“Scout’s dead. Message delivered,” Kellen said, moving to a position beside Freir, drawing his own sword. He still hadn’t looked back at Clara.
Jared’s gaze, burning with that unnatural fire, slid to her. It took in her stance, the dagger held in a white-knuckled grip, the spatters on her sleeves. He gave a single, slow nod. It wasn’t approval. It was acknowledgment. A transaction completed.
An arrow sliced out of the dark sky. It didn’t come from below. It came from above, from the higher tower across the courtyard.
It whipped past Freir’s cheek, close enough to stir his hair, and shattered against the stone behind Clara.
Before the shards hit the ground, Kellen moved.
He didn’t shout. He pivoted and lunged, wrapping an arm around Clara’s waist and driving her back against the rough, cold stone of the merlon. His body followed, shielding hers, his back to the open night. He was a wall of muscle and leather, pressing her into the unyielding rock. The air left her lungs in a gasp.
She could feel the rapid, strong beat of his heart against her shoulder. Smell the scent of him—cold air, metal, and the faint, clean sharpness of soap beneath the sweat and smoke.
“Archers on the northwest tower,” Freir sang out, already ducking. He sounded amused. “Took their time.”
Another arrow thunked into the wood of a covered rampart above their heads.
“Jared,” Kellen grunted, his head turned, cheek almost touching hers as he scanned the threat.
“I see them.” Jared’s voice was gritted pain. He hadn’t moved from his post. He lifted his sword, a clear, defiant silhouette against the torches below. A target. “Keep her covered. Freir, light it.”
Freir didn’t hesitate. He snatched a torch from a rusted bracket, its flame whipping and spitting in the wind. “Come on, you miserable rats,” he whispered, a smile in his words. “Come and get the cheese.”
He touched the flame to the oil-soaked rag of the nearest pot.
Fire roared to life, a sudden, hungry bloom of orange and yellow. It illuminated the sharp planes of Freir’s face, the deadly focus in his eyes. He kicked the pot with a precise, practiced motion.
It tumbled over the edge of the battlement.
The scream that came up a second later was different from the scout’s. It was pure, liquid agony, joined by others—shouts of panic, the horrific sound of fire catching on cloth and skin. The smell of burning oil and meat rode the wind back up to them.
Clara gagged, turning her face into the stone. Kellen’s body didn’t budge.
“Again,” Jared commanded, his voice raw.
Freir was already moving, lighting the next rag. The night below was chaos now, figures writhing in pools of fire, others scattering back from the base of the wall. The archery from the distant tower had stopped, the shooters likely stunned by the sudden inferno.
Kellen’s pressure eased, just slightly. He still kept himself between her and the open air, but he turned his head to look down at her. His eyes, in the flickering firelight, were complex. The ice was still there, but it was cracked with something else—a reassessment, a flicker of something that wasn’t resentment.
“You alright?” The question was rough, practical.
She nodded, unable to speak. Her throat was sealed shut with smoke and the memory of screams.
“Good. Don’t get used to it.” He pushed off from her, returning his attention to the wall. The moment of protection was over, a tactical necessity, not a comfort.
Freir sent a third pot into the nightmare below. The defensive barrage was working. The direct assault on their section of the wall had broken into disarray.
But Jared was slumping.
The fierce tension that had been holding him upright was leaking away, along with his strength. His sword tip scraped loudly on the stone as he swayed. The hand on his wound was now dark and dripping.
“Captain,” Kellen said, his voice tight.
“I’m fine,” Jared gritted out. But he wasn’t. The fever had him. The loss of blood. His world was narrowing to a tunnel of pain and firelight.
From the courtyard, a new sound rose. Not screams. A unified, advancing tread. The main force of the garrison, finally mobilized and marching toward the gatehouse. The Guild’s surprise attack was over. They were now trapped between a burning hell at the wall and the Empire’s soldiers.
It was a victory. A bloody, brutal, smoldering victory.
Freir lowered his bow, the momentary lightness gone from his face. He watched the soldiers below with the weary eyes of someone who’d seen too many traps sprung, too many battles won at a cost. “They’ll flee now. What’s left of them.”
Jared tried to take a step forward, toward the inner edge to see, to command. His leg buckled.
Kellen was there in two long strides, catching him under the arm before he hit the stone. He took the sword from Jared’s limp grip, handing it unceremoniously to Clara. She fumbled, sheathed her dagger, and took the heavier weapon, its hilt still warm from Jared’s hand.
“The tower,” Jared mumbled, his head lolling against Kellen’s shoulder. “Have to… secure…”
“It’s secure,” Kellen said, his voice lower, final. He pulled Jared’s arm across his shoulders, bearing the larger man’s weight. “Freir. With me.”
Freir fell in on Jared’s other side, taking some of the burden. Together, they began to half-carry, half-drag the captain toward the stairs leading down to the inner yard.
Clara stood alone on the fiery battlement, Jared’s sword heavy in her hands. The wind cooled the blood on her skin. Below, the last of the oil fires guttered against the stone, illuminating retreating shadows scrambling for the forest. The organized tramp of the Imperial guard grew louder, a wall of sound and steel approaching from within.
They had survived. They had won.
She looked at the sword, then at the retreating backs of the three men—the injured protector, the cunning prince, the cold duke who had shielded her with his own body.
She had crossed her line. She was part of this now, for better or worse. The gilded cage was ashes behind her, burned away in the granary tower and on this wind-scoured wall.
What stood before her was something uglier, realer, and hers.
She followed them down.