Page 5 of Caroline the Cruel
“I see you’ve recovered,” he said.
The assassin gripped the scruff atop Caroline’s head, jerking back so hard a bolt of white-hot lightning shot down her neck. “Where is she?” he demanded again, breathing acrid air into her face. Caroline couldn’t see him, but this assassin was a foul creature. “Show me her little hiding spot, bastard, and I may let you live.”
“We separated,” Caroline forced out, then gurgled a cry as the man’s grip tightened on her hair, making fresh tears burst from her eyes. “I swear. She made me go this way.”
Heavy breathing engulfed her as the man considered her answer. “Where did she run off to?” he growled, slamming her back into the wall and wrapping a hand around her throat before Caroline could suck in a breath.
She raked her claws down the assassin’s arms, feeling skin and blood gather under her fingernails, but he didn’t ease the vice-like grip he had on her throat. Her lungs burned, and she was becoming light-headed. He was going to kill her. That was the moment she understood her father was dead. Which meant the queen was dead too. She wasn’t sure if the lack of air or the grief flooding through her would kill her first.
Her arms and legs slackened, and the assassin’s meaty hand was the only thing keeping Caroline pinned to the wall.
King Thom should have been able to use the Gift to stop the assassins. That one of them was slowly suffocating her could only mean one thing. Emmy, her half-sister, who had shoved her out into the passageway as bait for their enemy, was now queen.
Upon the ruling Dallimore’s death, the Gift, the ability to take another’s will as your own—to compel, would pass to the succeeding ruler. It was the gift to the Dallimore’s from the Gods, and the price they demanded was paid eagerly in exchange for such a power, though the king never shared with Caroline what the Gods demanded in return.
Surely Emmy would feel her new power and come save her. Caroline’s eyes rolled back in her head, and she used the last bit of strength she had to reach up and tap her lips.
“Good girl,” the man said, releasing her.
Caroline crumpled to the ground, gasping for breaths.Time.She had to buy herself some time, but her mind was a torrent of conflicting thoughts.
She pushed you into the hallway. She might as well have left you for dead.
No, Caroline, she chastised herself.If Emmy were queen, it would be Caroline’s duty to sacrifice herself to save her sister.
But they could have stayed hidden in that alcove. They both could have lived, and the man towering above her would have eventually given up, or Emmy could have used her power against him. Even if he’d heard them, it was pitch black and sound reverberated in the tunnels, so it was a challenge to tell where the sounds originated from. He couldn’t have known he was right above them.
The heel of his boot crashed into her side, making her cry out, interrupting the war raging inside her mind. “Talk, girl,” he said. “I’m losing patience.”
“She’s gone to the treasury. It’s the safest place.”
“Take me there.” Fabric ripped as he grabbed the bodice of her gown and yanked Caroline to her feet. “Move!”
Caroline’s lip trembled as she stumbled to her feet. “I don’t know the way,” she lied. “I’m a bastard, remember?” She hoped he would find that plausible, though it would likely lead to her death. A Dallimore would live, though, and Everstal would have a ruler, even if it was her traitorous sister.
“I don’t believe you. Take me to the treasury. Now!” he growled.
Metal scraped, the clang reverberating off the stones, seemingly a favorite scare tactic of his. The assassin tapped it twice when it didn’t elicit the expected response and pressed a sharp point into Caroline’s back. The stinging bite right below her shoulder blade caused an involuntary step forward.
Emmy could still come.
Something otherworldly crawled across Caroline’s skin, and she gave a violent shiver, trying to shake the sensation off. She failed, and the hole bored into her core, and buried itself deep in the pit of her stomach where her deepest breath came from. It was an unfamiliar fullness that almost made her gag with its relentless churning. Was it some sort of twisted knowing that happened right before you died?
The assassin used the weapon to prod her along toward what he believed was Emmy’s hiding spot. As she led him through the maze of Roskide, far away from the new queen, it occurred to Caroline that Emmy was not coming for her. The heaviness that inched up your throat right before you retched swirled upward from her gut. She didn’t care if her sister would be queen. If the situation were reversed, she would have gone for Emmy. That’s what sisters do.
Later, Caroline would look back on this moment and wonder if that was when her heart had turned black, or if it had been the second the heel of her sister’s boot touched the small of her back. Caroline was on her own. There was no one coming to save her. Not her father, not Torac, commander of the guard, or her older sister who now carried the Gift, the Power of Kings—a gift to the Dallimore’s from the Gods.
With a thought, Emmy could have forced her captor to impale himself on his own blade. Bitterness wrenched her insides as she took another turn through the labyrinth. Six more steps in the dark, then stairs. The thud of the assassin stubbing his foot against the first step sounded. He grunted in pain, momentarily letting his blade drop.
Caroline gritted her teeth. She could run. This was her chance while he was distracted.Run.Caroline flew up the stairs. The assassin didn’t know the way through the tunnels. She would be faster this time. A streak of sunlight refracted around a corner ahead, one of the few places in the tunnels that snaked near the outside walls of Roskide, far away from the underground vault where the treasury of Everstal was hidden. Her captor would know she’d been leading him astray as soon as he saw the light.
There was a fork in the tunnel that laid ahead at the top of the stairs. The assassin’s footsteps were falling behind as she chased up the narrow, winding staircase. She was small enough that she didn’t need to duck, giving her an advantage over her assailant. Caroline’s bare feet nimbly gripped the slick stones as she crested the last steps, taking two at a time.
A figure stepped out of the darkness, and she crashed into it, stumbling back, catching herself against a wall before she tumbled down the stairs.
“What do we have here?” a new voice slithered across her skin.
Caroline took in the second assassin, who stood before her in the reflected light. He was a narrow man, scars crisscrossing his neck and black paint covered his eyes, nose, and mouth, leaving the rest of his gaunt face in stark contrast. He wore a black tight-fitting one-piece which covered everything up to his neck. A black mask sat pulled up, resting on his forehead. The new assassin licked his lips and twirled a small dagger in his hand, and a shiver flittered up Caroline’s neck.
