Chasing Shadows (Saving Galerance, Book 1) (24 page)

“What else are we gonna do?” Archer asked. “With that guard
coming around outside our door every thirty seconds!”

“There’s less of a chance of getting caught if we go down this
way,” Ashlin agreed. “Anyone we do run into will probably be asleep. Only the
guards are up at this time of night.”

Mason looked up to the darkened torches and shook his head.
He didn’t like the looks of it, but he didn’t have the luxury of taking another
route. If only Norabel was here like she was supposed to be, he told himself.
Then they wouldn’t be in this predicament. They were supposed to be efficiently
moving through the castle, knowing every turn to make, not blindly stumbling
along, hoping to eventually find the right place.

Drawing out his sword, he moved along the hallway to the
door at the end. He tested it; it opened willingly in his hand. He inched it
forward a crack. Behind the door was a circular room with a large wooden table
at the center. He couldn’t be sure in the dark, but it looked like an old war
room. Taking a step back, Mason looked up to the archway above the door. He
grabbed the only lit torch from the wall and waved it over the stone
inscription.

Do not tempt the beast, for the beast will answer. You do
not live in war, but provoke it, and war will be your answer
.

He turned back and saw Ashlin staring up at the words.

“This was the old war room,” she whispered, her eyes glazing
over at the passage written in stone. “They’ll keep any items of importance in
there.”

“If that’s true, then wouldn’t they guard it better?” Logan
reasoned.

“I’d say it’s been guarded pretty well,” Archer scoffed.
“It’s no wonder that guy was hanging around here so much.”

“Well, if this is the war room, then it’s not going to lead
anywhere else,” Logan pointed out. “So shouldn’t we turn back around and try to
find the next spire like we planned?”

“We can’t just leave it!” Ashlin whispered excitedly. “It’s
too good an opportunity to pass up!”

“Well, we’re wasting time arguing about it here,” Mason
said. He pushed the door open further and stepped inside. “Come on. We’ll be
quick about it. We still have fifty minutes until the first powder goes off.”

Going around the room, Mason touched his torch to the ones
mounted on the wall until the entire space was flickering with light. Ashlin spun
about her, taking it all in with wide, smiling eyes. She tilted her head up to
the arching ceiling, causing her hood to slip off her head in the process.

“Can you believe we’re actually here?” she marveled. “With
the whole castle sleeping away, and we’re here in the heart of their
operations, free to do whatever we wish.”

“What do you think we should do?” Archer asked, driving his
sword into the wooden table. “Should we trash the place?”

“We should use our time to look for any information we can,”
Mason advised them. “Records of dispatches or orders.”

“There’s a wooden chest over there,” Logan pointed out.

“You’ll find nothing in there but candles and old maps,” a
voice announced from the doorway.

Turning to face the intruder, they found no one less than
the chief of Breccan himself.

“I presume you lot are the Harbinger team that’s been
plaguing my city of late,” Auberon commented. His eyes moved across the hooded
figures and rested on the only one of them whose face wasn’t covered. “And the
new face of the rebellion herself!” he added in mock amazement. “Tell me,
Ashlin,” he said, taking a step closer to them, “What did you have in store for
my peace room?”

Ashlin gripped her sword tightly and pointed it out at him. “Stay
back!” she warned.

Auberon chuckled, holding up his hands. “Let me guess. You
just stumbled in here; not a clue in the world what you were doing. Just like
your mother. You know, that’s what probably got her killed.”

“You’ve got no clue who my mother was,” she said through
gritted teeth.

“I don’t need to know who she was. It just takes one look at
you to realize what a completely wretched mess she made of her life.”

“Don’t listen to him, Ashlin,” Mason warned. “He’s just
trying to get you angry.”

“I’m already angry,” she said, strangely calm. She took a
few strides closer to him, keeping her sword outstretched. “And it’s not me you
have to be concerned for.”

With Ashlin stepping closer to Auberon, the other three drew
nearer, pointing out their swords to form a half circle around him. However,
instead of drawing a sword himself, Auberon chose to keep his hands in the air.
In fact, Mason looked to the belt around his waist and was surprised to see no
sword or even scabbard strapped there.

“If I were you,” Auberon said, speaking as if he was
perfectly fine with the whole situation, “I’d watch that temper of yours.
You’ll find it can get you into all sorts of trouble.”

“And if I were you,” Ashlin said, stepping even closer so
that the tip of her blade was only a few inches from his chest. “I would watch
what you say. It’ll get you killed one day.”

Auberon gave out an easy, slow chuckle, his shoulders moving
up and down as he laughed. “By who?” he challenged. “By you? You’re just a
little girl playing with fire. The only people you’re gonna hurt are yourself
and those closest to you.” He took a step forward so that he pressed his chest
against her blade. “So step out of my way,
little girl
, before I decide
to teach you some manners!”

Ashlin clamped her jaw shut, trying to contain her emotions.
She took a deep breath and lowered her sword. Mason thought that she was about
to step away, when suddenly she gave out an angered growl. Charging forward,
she rammed right into Auberon, running until they hit the stone wall behind
him. Mason ran forward, ready to help, but stopped when he saw her sword blade
pressed up to his neck.

“Do not tempt the beast,” she whispered out hoarsely. She
pricked his skin, drawing a drop of blood from his neck. “Or it will answer.”

Auberon smiled down at her. “You don’t have it in you to
kill me, or you would have done it by now.” He chuckled once more. “Here you
are, trying to start a war, and you can’t even…”

He suddenly stopped, his eyes growing wide with terror. From
where Mason stood, he couldn’t tell what had happened. There didn’t seem to be
much blood by his neck. Then Auberon slipped down the wall, slumping to the
ground. There was a dagger sticking out of his side, angled up and into his
heart.

Mason stared with shock from Auberon’s dead body to the
stunned girl standing over him. The sword dropped from her hand, and she took a
few steps back. At first no one knew how to react, but then a movement by the
open doorway caught Mason’s attention. His eyes flew over to it, and he saw a
night guard standing there, staring at the scene with wide eyes.

Seeing his plan fall apart around him, he had no other
choice but to run over to the guard, hoping to stop him before he raised the
alarm. The guard noticed him in an instant, and quickly turned around and
started sprinting down the corridor. Mason ran as fast as he could across the
war room and over to the hallway, but the man had already gone past the door by
the time he even reached the hallway.

Mason let out a frustrated growl and kicked the wall.
“That’s it!” he exclaimed, looking back to the group. “He’s gone. It’s all
over!”

“W-w-what does that mean?” Archer stuttered. “What do we do
about him?” He motioned down to Auberon’s dead body.

“Is he really dead?” Logan asked, standing over him with a
mortified expression on his face.

Ashlin turned to him in a trance and nodded her head.

“You just,” Logan shook his head. “You just killed him! He
wasn’t even armed!”

“Stop!” Mason yelled. “We don’t have time for this. We have
to get out now before this whole place is swarming with the pox.”

Logan relented to his brother, and they silently ran down
the hallway towards the open air of the castle. Coming out, they couldn’t see
anyone in sight, but they knew it wouldn’t be long until that changed. Running
down the widest of the hallways in front of them, Mason turned the corner and
nearly stopped in his tracks when he saw what was in front of him. It was the
main entrance. Nothing but open ground and a few flags and torches stood in
between them and the front door. But they couldn’t just burst out that way,
could they? It seemed too easy.

In the distance, they heard a man giving orders, and at once
Mason sprang into action. The front door was, at present, the quickest way out
of there, and he was going to take it.

“Are we really going through the front door!” Archer
exclaimed, running up beside him.

Mason didn’t answer as he pushed forward, readying to ram
the door with his shoulder. They were past halfway there when the sound of
running footsteps rounded the corner. Mason ignored them, hoping that there
wasn’t a bowman in the group.

He reached the front doors and, choosing one, he gave it a
hard push forward. He nearly lost his balance as the heavy door relented to his
request. Recovering quickly, he held the door open for the others to pass. As
they ran out, he took a look to the courtyard beyond the front steps. There was
one guard that was a good distance away, patrolling the north eastern rim of
the castle. When he noticed them running, the guard gave out a shout and
started towards them, but he was far enough away that Mason knew they could
outrun him.

Abandoning the door, he brought up the rear as his team ran
for the darkness of the village in front of them. They made it down the steps
and across the courtyard. Taking a quick peek behind him, Mason saw a few of
the guards following after them, but most of them stayed by the open front
doors. It struck him as odd that the majority of them decided to give up the
chase so easily, but he wasn’t about to question it.

Plunging into the sleepy village roads, it only took a
matter of a few turns to lose the rest of the guards. Though their original
plan had been thoroughly ruined in the matter of a few minutes, it only took
the same amount of time to retreat back to safety. But Mason did not take
comfort in the fact that they escaped imprisonment so effortlessly. A fire of
anger had been lit underneath him, and there was only one person he could think
to blame.

“Mason, where are we going?” Logan asked when they turned
down a road that led west instead of north.

“To the girl responsible for this!” he whispered out
angrily. “If she had been there for us, none of this would have happened.”

When the Harbinger team slipped down the road towards
Norabel’s house, Mason ran ahead of everyone else, storming up to her front
door.

“Norabel!” he yelled out. “Norabel, get out here!”

He knocked furiously on the door, but it opened at his
touch, not having been closed in the first place. Mason stopped suddenly,
looking at the opened door and the dark house behind it.

Logan, who had been watching him from behind, pushed past
him and burst into her house. It was too dark to see anything, so he reached
for some Snapper in his pocket. When he snapped his fingers, he stopped dead in
his tracks. The entire place had been trashed. The table and chairs had been
upturned, and nearly all of her possessions were littered on the floor.

Looking to his brother, he saw a stunned expression on his
face.

“I told you,” Logan whispered out, pointing a finger at
Mason. “I told you something was wrong!”

“Uh, Mason?” Archer called from outside on the street.

Mason turned quickly at the sound of his name, rushing
outside to see what had caught Archer’s attention. Across the road, a door had
opened, and a man was walking out. As he came closer, Mason could see a dark
bruise on the left side of his jaw.

“She isn’t here,” the man said, addressing Mason. “Norabel.
She isn’t here.”

“What happened to her?” Mason asked, suddenly finding
himself out of breath.

His face darkened as he said, “The leacher took her.”

“Leacher?” Mason shook his head. “W-what leacher, what are
you…”

“The leacher that’s been preying off her every night for the
past two weeks!” the man exclaimed, gripping his hand into a tight fist. “Only,
he wouldn’t have done it if she hadn’t been trying to get him off of me and my
family.”

“Please,” Logan said, breaking past his brother, “tell us
what happened to her.”

“He came for her,” he said with a remorseful shake of his
head. “He said he’d kill my wife and child if I tried to interfere.” He gripped
a fist to his mouth, trying to overcome a bout of tears. “I’m so sorry. I
couldn’t, I couldn’t do anything. I just stood there, watching him beat her to
the ground until she couldn’t even stand up. Then he carried her away on his
horse.” He shook his head again. “That was over an hour ago.”

“What are you saying?” Mason whispered out in a state of
shock. “What are you…what do you…she’s gone?”

“I’m sorry,” he said, backing up from them. “She saved my
family. I really am truly sorry.”

Turning around, he went back up to his house, disappearing
inside. With him gone, a fever seemed to boil up inside of Mason’s head.

“No,” he said, pacing around in a frantic circle. “No, we
can do this! We can get her back!”

“Mason, she’s in the stronghold,” Logan pointed out. “There
is no way back into that place now. Not with their chief dead! Every Pax in
Breccan is going to be up and guarding it!”

Mason shoved his brother out of the way, breaking away from
the group. Taking out his sword, he rammed it into the hard dirt road. Yanking
it out, he stabbed the ground again and again until he was straining for breath.

“Mason, you need to calm down,” Logan said, taking a
tentative step towards his brother. “Just…calm down.”

He put a hand on his shoulder, and Mason suddenly fell to
the floor, kneeling in the dirt. He grabbed onto his sword and pressed his
forehead into the hilt. From behind, the rest of the group could see his
shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

“I left her Logan,” he cried out in painful admission. “I…I abandoned
her…just like you said.” He curled into himself, and his mouth opened wide as
if to scream, yet no sound would come out.

Logan knelt down next to his brother, gripping tightly onto
his shoulder to let him know he was there.

Mason’s face contorted into a grimace, and his head dropped
to the ground as he strained out, “What do you think is happening to her? What
if she’s already dead?!”

Logan shushed his brother. “Mason stop,” he demanded. “That
isn’t going to help anyone.”

Mason hastily got to his feet and ran forward to regain his
personal space. “I can’t…” He gripped a hand to his forehead and bent forward.
“I can’t do this.”

“Logan, he’s losing it,” Archer said, motioning to Mason and
urging him to do something.

“Mason,” Logan said, coming closer.

“N-no,” Mason urged, shaking his head. “Just stay…stay away
from me!” His throat wheezed as he tried to take in air.

“Everything’s gonna be alright, Mason,” Logan said. “Just
calm down. We’ll figure something out, okay? I just need you to calm down and
breathe slowly.”

Despite his brother’s warnings, Mason still could not catch
his breath. His body started to sway as he was in danger of hyperventilating.

“Lo…Logan,” he strained out, reaching back for his brother.
His hand blindly found his shoulder. “Knock…me out. Please!” he insisted.

He turned to face Logan, still laboring to breathe, and pointed
helplessly to his face. At first, Logan was too stunned to do anything. But
soon he was forced into action as he couldn’t take watching the pain that his
brother was under.

Shaking his head, he whispered, “I’m sorry,” and sent his
fist flying into the side of Mason’s head.

Logan caught his brother before his body fell to the ground.
He breathed a sigh of relief as he looked down to see Mason’s eyes closed, and
his chest slowly rising and falling in breath.

*

A noise awoke Hunter from his sleep. He sat up in bed and
listened for it again. A door closed, followed closely by another one. No one
was speaking, but Hunter knew that something was up. It was the middle of the
night, yet officers seemed to be coming out of their rooms as though they were
under attack. Since he was Lorcan’s nephew, he had been placed in a tower with
many high-ranking officials, and if
they
were getting out of their beds
at this time of night, something big had to be happening.

Rushing over to his closet, he quickly got dressed and
slipped on a pair of boots. Then, opening his door, he stepped out into the
hallway. A Pax officer twice his age hurried past him, ignoring Hunter as he
went. Hunter knew better than to ask questions, so he decided that the only
thing for him to do would be to head downstairs and try to find his uncle.

He had just reached the bottom of the staircase leading into
the main hall when he spotted Lorcan. There were several people around him, and
even more hurrying past, rushing out the side doors. The strange thing was, no
one was uttering a sound. They were all moving as if participating in a
late-night silent drill. Taking a closer look at all the faces, he realized
that most of the officers had what he would call “above-ground standing,”
meaning that they weren’t from the underground barracks with the lower ranking
officials.

When Lorcan spotted Hunter by the stairwell, he started
walking over to him. Hunter walked towards him as well, noting that another
officer had decided to follow Lorcan like a watchful dog.

“Hunter,” he said, speaking softly as if he didn’t want to
wake a sleeping child. Then, clapping him on the shoulder and giving him a
smile, he commented, “You look about as stunned as a dead sparrow. Lighten up;
it’s just a few exercises.”

With that, his uncle and the hovering guard left, leaving
Hunter to wonder what in the world was going on. Lorcan had just given him the
signal to get out of there now. Whatever all this activity was, it certainly
wasn’t a harmless exercise. But what scared him the most was why his uncle
wasn’t supposed to tell him. They were all on the same side, so why were the
older officers sneaking around and keeping secrets? Hunter tried to push all
these thoughts and questions aside, telling himself that he would figure it out
later. For now he had to get out of there and to the courtyard.

Moving swiftly across the main hall, yet not too quickly as
to draw suspicion, he started towards a side door that led out into the
courtyard. However, before he could reach it, the door opened by itself, and a
young official he recognized as Emmett came rushing in. His eyes were wide in
alarm, and when he spotted Hunter, he started running over to him.

“Emmett, is everything alright?” he whispered.

Emmett shook his head. “He has her.”

“Who has who? What are you talking about?”

The young officer tried to catch his breath before
exclaiming, “Fletcher! He’s taken Norabel!”

Hunter’s heart nearly stopped. He could hardly believe what
he was hearing. He didn’t know how it was possible that Emmett knew about
Norabel, or even how he knew that
Hunter
knew who she was, but that
didn’t matter.

“Where is she?” he demanded.

Emmett shook his head. “I think he took her to his rooms.”

Hunter’s blood boiled, and all thought about his uncle’s
warning left his head. He immediately ran to the door that led down into the
underground barracks, feeling like an unstoppable wildfire ready to burn flesh
from bone.

“Which room is his?” he asked, whipping his head from either
ends of the hallways.

“Over here,” Emmett said, rushing ahead of him.

A few of the officers were coming out of their rooms,
silently walking up the staircase, and both Hunter and Emmett shoved past them,
racing to Fletcher’s rooms. When Emmett stopped in front of a door, pointing to
it, Hunter burst inside, ready to fight Fletcher to the death if he had to.
However, he was not faced with the confrontation he was expecting, but was
instead met with a silent, still room.

The torches on the walls had been lit, but they were burning
low, as if they had been ignited some time ago. In the half light of the room,
the first thing Hunter saw was Fletcher’s body, slumped halfway on his bed so
that the other half was still dangling down to the floor. Even from the open
doorway, he could smell the stench of alcohol reeking from his body.

Hunter’s eyes frantically searched the bed-chamber, but he
could not find Norabel. For a moment, he thought that Emmett might have been
mistaken. Maybe Fletcher hadn’t taken her at all. But then he took a few steps
into the room and noticed a figure curled up on the ground.

Barely breathing, he fell to his knees, looking over her.
There was a small patch of blood on her forehead, turning her snowy hair red.
Her lip was split, there was a fresh bruise under one eye, and from where her
hands were curled up to her chest, he could see the faint signs of old bruises
on her arms.

“Norabel,” he whispered out in anguish.

He couldn’t believe she was right here. It had felt like so
long ago since he had last seen her at the summer festival, had carried her in
his arms over the checkpoint wall. All those nights on the road spent
clutching her clay bird in his hands, and now he could finally see her again.
Only, she wasn’t how he had left her.

Gripping his hand into a fist, he glanced over to where
Fletcher was passed out on his bed. He remembered, before he had left on his
trip, that Fletcher had warned him about claiming his territory fast. He had
even hinted that he might start leaching off of her, but he didn’t think he’d
actually do it. And he certainly didn’t think he would do this to her…to his
Norabel.

“Is she…alright?” Emmett asked, closing the door behind him.

“Would you check Fletcher for me,” Hunter ordered. His head
felt heavy, like a strange stupor had overcome it. And though he was grateful
for Emmett’s presence, all he wanted was to be alone with Norabel.

As Emmett carefully stepped around them, going to check on
Fletcher, Hunter held his breath as he reached a hand out for her.

“Norabel?” he whispered, gently placing his hand on her neck
just under her chin. It seemed to be the only place he could touch her without
pressing on a cut or a bruise.

He looked to her chest and saw it rising and falling in
shallow, fragile breath. His thumb came up and rubbed her jaw.

“Norabel, please wake up.”

One of her hands stirred, and her eyelashes fluttered in
weak movement. Hunter couldn’t move as he waited in suspension, hoping to see
those starry eyes looking up at him.

*

Waking came gradually to Norabel. She was aware of a far-off
pain in her head, but it was distant, like it was standing on the opposite
shore of a lake from her. She could hear the small waves lapping against the
pebbles on the mountain shore, back and forth in a calm rhythm. Then she heard
her name being called, and the lake got a little smaller as the pain came a
little closer. She heard it again, and she realized that the back and forth
meter of the lake was really the rising and falling of her breath.

She felt something soft against her face, and though her
eyes were still closed, she knew, somehow, that she was safe. And then her name
was being spoken once more, and she could hear the voice that went behind it.
It urged her to open her eyes and see.

When her eyelids finally lifted, and she saw the worried
face of the young man above her, she forgot about everything else. She forgot
about the pain in her body and Fletcher’s brutality, and she even forgot about
Mason’s abandonment of her. Without realizing it, she felt a weak smile form on
her lips as one word filled her head:
Hunter
. So her Guardian Albatross
hadn’t abandoned her after all; he had just decided to come to her aid by
sending someone else.

Parting her lips and fighting through the pain, she spoke
his name. “Hunter.” She tried to lift her heavy eyes up to his as she said,
“You’re back.”

“Norabel,” he whispered out again. His hand stroked the side
of her face, and his eyes welled with emotion.

Moving slowly, she raised one of her hands and lightly
placed it on his wrist. “I missed you,” she admitted.