Page 35 of The Arrow and the Alder

A lder waited until he was certain that Massie and Basrain were gone, and then he said, just loud enough for Josephine to hear, “You know, I might almost be offended that you have so little regard for my life, if I weren’t so impressed by how you handled that miserable creature just now.”

He heard her gasp.

“ Prince Alder …?”

Alder rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Why are you still using my honorific? We know each other better than that. For Fates’ sake, Josephine, you just saw me naked—” He coughed and winced. Bastard broke one of his ribs.

“Where are you?” she said with a touching amount of concern. “Are you all right? Did they?—”

“Relax, my little arrow; I’m all right. I’m just…trying to find a way out of here, but they’ve bound me with?—”

“Quiet!” yelled a voice up ahead.

One of Massie’s bone-faced rats rounded the bend ahead, where he stopped to have a better view of them, and he didn’t appear to have any inclination of leaving. Not that Alder could do anything about it. They’d bound his wrists in scrappers—rare, enchanted handcuffs composed of a precious blend of moonstone and Palisade silver, which prohibited the bearer from accessing eloit . The enchantments on these prison bars wouldn’t have stopped him otherwise.

“Alder, I wondered—” Josephine whispered.

“ Thank you. ”

He could almost feel her smile.

“What sort of enchantments are on these bars?” she asked.

“The kind that prevents someone from using enchantments to open them. They’re complicated, but I’ll have you know that I’d be able to break through them if it weren’t for these damned?—”

“I said, keep quiet down there!” the guard yelled again.

“What about a key?” Josephine whispered after a moment.

Alder’s lips stretched into a slow smile. Brilliant girl. “A key should work. Need a distraction?” he whispered back.

“Yes.”

“Excellent.” Alder knew just the song.

“Hey, there!” The guard stalked straight for Alder’s cell, but Alder didn’t break his singing stride. “I told you to be quiet,” snarled the guard.

Alder sang louder.

“If you don’t stop singing this instant?—”

“—my love to me, whilst she left me to my iniquity?—”

“I will rip out your tongue?—”

“Oh, ho, please bring my love to me, oh! Bring my love to me?—”

Keys jangled and metal creaked, but before the guard could take a step into Alder’s cell, Josephine appeared behind him and tapped on his shoulder.

The guard stiffened and turned around.

Josephine smiled and waved. “Hello.”

“How—?”

Alder slammed his cuffed hands on the back of the guard’s head. The guard’s eyes rolled back, he slumped to the ground, unconscious, and Alder looked at Josephine with a smile. “Thank you, darling.”

The color now splotching her cheeks was a wondrous thing to behold.

“You’re welcome,” she said with a smile that faded as she noticed the blood congealed upon his brow and trickling down his face. She sucked in a breath as she took a step toward him, reached out and—slowly, hesitantly—trailed her fingers along his brow.

Her tender touch arrested him, as if it carried its own sort of enchantment.

“Alder, you’re bleeding everywhere.”

“It’s really not…that bad.” He coughed again, his broken rib flared, and he cringed.

Josephine noticed. Of course she did. “Which one is it?” She was already lightly pressing along his ribs with that same, enchanted hand.

“Are you planning to heal it with a kiss? Because I could point out a few other places.”

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. “I can’t believe you’re joking about this right now.”

“Who says I’m joking?”

Her gaze slid up to his then, her hand still on his ribs. She was so near, invading all of his senses, that Alder nearly forgot about the pain and the blood, and the fact that they were standing before his open cell door.

It nearly killed Alder to say, “We need to drag him in before someone else comes.”

Josephine blinked, the spell broken. Sadly. “Right.”

Together, she and Alder dragged the guard into the cell, out of immediate view. Josephine snatched the ring of keys clipped to the guard’s belt, and one by one, she tried them on Alder’s shackles while he stood silent, watching her deft hands work.

“I had no idea you were such a vocalist,” she said as she tried another key.

“Yes, well, I have many talents that you choose to ignore.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want it getting to your head.”

“Far too late for that.”

She smiled.

Click . The bindings opened, and Alder caught them before they fell, then walked over to the unconscious guard and slapped them around his wrists.

“That’s why you couldn’t undo the enchantments?” Josephine asked.

Alder nodded affirmative. “They make it impossible to access eloit , damned nuisance.” He pulled the sword from the guard’s waist and plucked a blade from his boot, then stood and offered both to Josephine. “Take your pick.”

She took the smaller blade. “Where are the others?”

“Farther down,” Alder replied, just as a voice from the end of the hall called out, “Vosyn…? You there?”

Alder and Josephine exchanged a glance. He closed the door, and they wordlessly ducked into the shadows on either side of it. A moment later, footsteps approached and stopped before the door, and a shadow stretched over the prison cell’s floor. Which was when Alder reached through the bars, seized the figure by the tunic, jerked him forward, and slammed the guard’s head against the bars. The figure—a man—cried out and stumbled back as Alder opened the door, grabbed hold of him, and Josephine jammed the hilt of her new dagger upon the man’s head. He dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Alder glanced sideways at Josephine. “I think we work well together.”

“I agree. Keep this up, and I won’t even have to pretend to like you anymore.”

Alder laughed, but immediately regretted it, wincing.

Josephine’s smile morphed into concern, but Alder bent over and started dragging this guard beside the first—Josephine jumped in to help—and together, they locked both inside.

Alder grabbed her hand and led her down a narrow torchlit path, deeper into the prison until they reached another barred door, where they found Evora. She appeared shocked to see them, and she jumped to her feet, watching in wonder as Josephine unlocked her door.

“Aren’t you full of surprises…” Evora said with a smile, catching Alder’s gaze. “I was wondering what all of that horrendous singing was about.”

They found Rian, Serinbor, Tyrin, and Banon between the next two cells—thankfully alive, if not battered and bruised. Abecka, however, was not with them, and Alder kept searching until he found a cell with a slab of stone for a door and no visible keyhole.

This had to be it.

“Can you open it?” Josephine asked, moving to stand behind him.

“Mm…” He trailed his wide palms over the surface, his forehead creased with focus, and he closed his eyes.

It didn’t take him long to feel the enchantments. Not all of them were visible from the outside, which meant many were embedded inside the stone. And these were…very intricate. Alder had not seen anything so complex in a very long time. Not surprising, he supposed, considering this belonged to a collector .

Alder would need to untangle them from the outside first, and he started with the most obvious, speaking the symbol strokes in reverse, one by one. The enchantments burned to life in turn, flaring bright and burning out, while Josephine and the others watched him work.

Fine beads of sweat formed upon Alder’s brow, but he kept going, feeling his eloit pull and strain with every undoing, as he drew the power woven into each enchantment and sent it into the air, where it would dissipate and dissolve into the heavens, back into the vast well of Demas’s power.

There were just two left.

But every time Alder tried to get a feel for the structure of these, it was as though they’d turn away from him, making it impossible to see them clearly.

An ache pulsed behind his eyes, growing sharper with every attempt, and a soft hand pressed to his arm. Josephine’s. His eyes cracked open and found hers.

“Do you need to rest?” she whispered.

Her continued care and concern invigorated his spirit. He placed his hand over hers, holding it there as he closed his eyes and—finally—unraveled the last two.

He exhaled a long breath, lowered his hand from the door, and opened his eyes. He looked at Josephine and nodded.

Her gaze skirted his face before she released him and pushed on the door.

It opened easily.

A slice of torchlight cut through the darkness within, and in that slice, Alder spotted a figure.

Abecka.

She was hunched upon the floor with her hair hanging like a curtain over her face.

Josephine ran to her and dropped to her knees. “Abecka…” She grabbed Abecka’s face and lifted as Abecka strained to see in the sudden influx of light. Blood stained her lips and brow, and one of her eyes was swollen shut.

“Josephine…? Is that you?” Abecka whispered.

“Yes, can you stand?”

Josephine held on to Abecka while she climbed to her feet. Abecka swayed, and Josephine met Alder’s gaze, both of them sharing the same thought: How are we to get out of here if Abecka can’t walk?

“Abecka…do you know of another way out of here?” Alder asked.

“There is a…tunnel,” Abecka said with a wince, as if even talking were painful. “It was built to smuggle artifacts to safety in the event of a siege.”

“Where is it?” Alder pressed.

It took Abecka a moment to respond. “Somewhere in the vault, I believe.”

Of course it was.

Alder cursed.

“Is it guarded?” Serinbor asked. A long and angry red cut slashed his chin.

“Potentially, though I doubt he expected us to escape.” Abecka gave Alder a look of gratitude.

“You can thank your great-granddaughter,” Alder said, smirking at Josephine, who presented the lock picks.

Rian took one look at those picks and laughed. It was the sort of laugh that came from knowing a long and extensive backstory and seeing the irony in the moment.

“I see you knew my nani,” Josephine said with a grin.

“But what about the coat?” Evora asked.

This sobered everyone.

“Where is Basrain keeping it?” Josephine asked Abecka.

“It was in the vault with us while we researched, but…” Abecka swallowed as if it was difficult to speak through her pain. “Basrain never left it there. I believe he kept it in his chambers for safekeeping.”

Her intel sat like a dark cloud over them all.

“Prince Alder,” Abecka said suddenly. “Take the others to the tunnel. Let me retrieve the coat, and I will meet you at the ridge.”

“Not on your own, you won’t,” Alder argued. “Let me or Rian?—”

“I can hide myself far more easily than I can hide the rest of you,” Abecka said. “Trust me when I say that this is our best chance.”

Alder chewed on his lip, not liking Abecka’s plan, but finding it impossible to argue.

“Then I am coming with you,” Josephine said.

“Absolutely not,” Alder said without hesitation.

“No, listen, I—” Josephine started.

“There is nothing to listen to. You’re not going with her. You’ll come with me.”

Josephine took a small, placating step toward him. “ Alder . None of you can touch the coat, but I can.”

Alder wanted to argue, but facts were stubborn things. “Then I am coming too.”

“No,” Abecka said, shaking her head. “You must lead the others to safety. Josephine and I will retrieve the coat and meet you outside.”

Everyone looked to Alder, but his attention was only on Josephine. His little arrow. One that had pierced straight through his flesh to his withered heart, and revived it. His gaze slid over her face—a face that had grown so precious to him—and for a second, he considered kissing her. Here, now, before all these people.

“ Go , Alder,” Abecka warned. “We don’t have much time before those guards wake and sound the alarm.”

Alder turned, motioning to the others before trudging onward, thinking with every step that he should have kissed her anyway.