Chapter 4 - THE BOY IN THE NORTH TOWER
They reached the first burned village before sunset.
The houses of Greywick lay on both sides of the northern road, their roofs dripping under rain and smoke. Corvin's men had not slaughtered the villagers, but they had taken horses, food, lamp oil, and every cart that could carry supplies. An old miller sat in the mud beside the body of his dog. A woman held a cloth against her husband's bleeding scalp. Children watched the royal party with the hollow stillness of people learning too early that powerful men could turn maps into suffering.
Damien dismounted.
Captain Rowan warned that they could not delay, but Damien ignored him. He ordered his own travel purse emptied among the families, then took off the fur-lined cloak bearing the Vale crest and wrapped it around a shivering boy.
Elisa watched from horseback.
"You used to say charity was what nobles did when they did not want justice," she said when he returned.
Damien looked at the ruined street. "I used to repeat many things my father said."
"That was not your father's phrase."
He remembered.
It had been Elisa's.
Years ago, he had laughed at it.
"I remember now," he said.
They rode on.
By midnight the rain turned to sleet. The royal column avoided the main bridge and followed a shepherd's path toward the ridge. Tomas stayed remarkably quiet, though Damien saw exhaustion in the boy's posture. Twice Elisa asked if he wanted to stop. Twice Tomas refused.
Near dawn, a whistle sounded from the trees.
Damien raised his fist.
The column halted.
Arrows struck from both sides.
One guard fell instantly. Another horse screamed and collapsed. Damien drew his sword as riders burst from the pines, faces wrapped in black cloth. The narrow path dissolved into chaos—steel, mud, frightened horses, shouted orders. King Aldric's mount reared. Elisa dragged Tomas behind a fallen log.
Damien fought toward them.
An attacker swung low. Damien parried, twisted, and drove his shoulder into the man's chest. A second rider came from his blind side. Elisa shouted his name. Damien turned in time to block the descending blade, but the impact numbed his arm.
Then a smaller figure appeared beneath the horses.
Tomas.
The boy had crawled out from cover with a broken branch in both hands. He struck the attacker's horse behind the knee. The animal stumbled, throwing its rider.
Damien stared in disbelief.
"Tomas!"
"I helped!"
"You nearly got killed!"
"So did you!"
There was no time to argue.
Captain Rowan's guards broke the ambush after several savage minutes. Three attackers escaped into the trees. Six lay dead. One survived with a shattered leg.
Under questioning, the prisoner refused to speak.
Damien crouched in front of him and removed the man's glove.
A brand marked the palm: the Vale wolf.
The prisoner smiled.
"Your Grace," he said.
Damien's expression went cold. "Where is my father?"
The man's smile widened. "Already where he needs to be."
Damien stood.
The North Tower rose on the horizon at first light, a dark vertical scar against snow-gray sky. Smoke curled from the upper battlements.
They were too late.
Corvin's men had reached it.
The royal party approached from the east, staying below the ridge. From a rocky overlook, they could see the tower surrounded by perhaps forty riders. The outer gate stood open. Bodies lay near the wall.
Elisa went pale.
"Those are Aldric's guards."
Tomas whispered, "Mrs. Hale is in there."
"Who?" Damien asked.
"My tutor."
Aldric scanned the walls. "If Corvin controls the gate, a frontal assault will kill half our men."
Tomas tugged Elisa's sleeve.
"The rain tunnel."
They moved through brush to the northern slope. Tomas led them to an overgrown stone channel half hidden by roots. The opening was barely three feet high.
Rowan swore softly. "A child can crawl through that. A man in armor cannot."
Damien began removing his breastplate.
Elisa looked at him. "What are you doing?"
"Becoming less impressive."
Aldric started to object.
Damien cut him off. "If my mother is inside, I am going."
Tomas said, "I can show you."
"No."
"You do not know the tunnels."
"No."
"You will get lost."
Damien looked at his son.
Tomas folded his arms.
Elisa sighed. "He is correct."
Damien stared at her. "Absolutely not."
She stepped closer. "For seven years you did not get to make a single decision about him. Do not begin by making the worst one."
"Sending him into a siege tunnel is your idea of good parenting?"
"No. Surviving is."
Tomas whispered, "I know where the old ladder is."
Damien closed his eyes.
Ten minutes later, Damien, Elisa, Tomas, and four guards crawled into the tunnel.
The passage smelled of wet earth and rust. Water ran beneath their hands. At two points Damien had to turn sideways to squeeze through collapsed stone. Tomas moved confidently ahead, counting junctions under his breath.
"Who showed you this?" Damien asked.
"No one."
"Of course."
"I found it because Mrs. Hale locked the garden gate."
Damien almost smiled.
The tunnel climbed sharply and ended beneath an iron grate. Above them, muffled voices echoed.
Tomas pointed. "Herb garden."
Damien tested the grate. Rusted hinges. He pushed slowly until it lifted enough for them to slip through.
They emerged inside the tower grounds behind a wall of dead rosemary.
The courtyard was occupied by Corvin's soldiers.
Damien counted eleven.
Elisa looked toward an arched door. "The lower cells are beneath the chapel."
"How do you know?"
Her face darkened. "Because I spent three months in one."
Damien stared at her.
She did not explain.
They waited until a patrol passed, then crossed the garden one by one. A guard spotted them near the chapel door. Damien caught him before he shouted, covering his mouth and lowering him unconscious to the stones.
Inside, they descended a spiral staircase.
At the bottom stood a locked iron door.
From behind it came a woman's voice.
"Who is there?"
Damien froze.
The voice was older than memory.
But memory knew it.
His mother used to sing to him when thunder woke him as a child. She had a low voice, warm and slightly rough at the edges.
This was that voice.
"Mother?"
Silence.
Then a sound like someone stumbling against a wall.
"Damien?"
He closed his eyes.
For nineteen years, he had visited a marble grave every winter.
Now the dead woman was speaking his name through iron.
Elisa touched his arm.
Damien opened the lock with keys taken from the unconscious guard.
The door swung inward.
A silver-haired woman stood inside, one hand pressed to her mouth.
Lady Mara Vale had aged, but the eyes were unchanged.
Damien could not move.
Neither could she.
Finally, Mara crossed the cell and struck him across the face.
The sound snapped through the chamber.
Damien stared at her.
She struck him again.
Then she pulled him into her arms.
"You stupid, beautiful boy," she sobbed. "You became exactly what he wanted."
Damien held her as though the world might take her again.
Above them, a horn sounded.
Elisa looked up sharply.
Mara pulled away.
"Corvin knows the royal party is here."
"Where is he?" Damien asked.
Mara's face went white.
"Not here."
Damien's blood chilled.
"He came only long enough to take the ledgers and the seal," she said. "Then he rode south."
"South?"
"Toward the capital."
Aldric's trap had failed.
No, Damien realized.
Corvin had created a better one.
The king, the princess, the heir, and most loyal guards were miles from the palace.
Damien looked at Tomas.
The boy understood before anyone said it.
"Grandfather wants the throne," Tomas whispered.
Mara shook her head.
"No."
May you like
Her eyes found Elisa.
"He wants to destroy the bloodline so there will be no throne left to inherit."
