The Steel Princess

Chapter 6: A World Gone Mad

Night came far too quickly for Skye's liking. There were a thousand things she needed to do, because the more she thought on it, prophecy or no prophecy, she intended to rule. It had nothing to do with personal preference, and only tangentially with protecting Eskeleth. No, her father would have wanted this, she knew. He would want his last daughter to fight for her position, not give up her throne to a boy child and a bevy of ministers.

Night didn't completely curtail her preparations, though. When she should have been sleeping, all she could do was pace back and forth across the room, making plans, compiling mental lists of allies and enemies, and thinking, again and again, of her family. Grief, right now, had to be pushed aside. She needed to know what had happened to them: what they'd been doing in that tomb, why they'd left their guardians behind, and most importantly, who had killed them.

She wasn't sleeping, then, when she heard the scratching behind the wall.

Skye almost ignored it - the castle was rife with mice - except the sound came from a section of wooden panelling covered over by a tapestry. It had occurred to her more than once that this chamber might possess a secret door or two, because the castle was rife with those, too, but she hadn't had time to seek them out. It looked like something - or someone - was about to force her hand.

She crept towards the corner, silently lifting the tapestry. The scratching grew louder, as though someone was groping around in the dark for a latch. Skye shifted, about to press her ear to the panelling, only for a square of it to swing open.

She wasn't sure which of them was more surprised. The figure standing in the newly opened doorway was masked and hooded, but their stiff, hunch-shouldered pose was enough to demonstrate their shock. They froze, hands creeping into the air as though in surrender - and then turned and ran.

Skye followed, even as she heard a shout at her back: Auda, finally realising what was going on. The tapestry rippled once at Skye's back, then fell again, plunging them into darkness, but she'd seen enough to light her way. The passage sloped sharply down, a stairwell barely wide enough for a grown man, and the intruder was already a dozen steps ahead.

The gap was widening, too. Either the intruder came this way often, or they had a meticulous memory, because at every turn, where Skye and Auda crashed against the walls, they slipped ahead like a ghost in the half-light.

Skye catapulted off the end of a stair, onto a landing with a trio of passages. Both she and Auda skidded to a stop, breaths held, listening in the stillness. For a moment, there was silence, until the intruder knocked some debris on the stairwell, and the faint echo of falling stone drifted up to them.

Auda tried to take the lead, but Skye was quicker, darting down the next flight. It didn't matter that she was barefoot and armed with nothing more than the stiletto at her wrist - she didn't need a proper dagger to kill.

Down, down, and down again. The stairs grew colder and damper, older and more worn beneath Skye's numb toes. Still, the intruder descended, and they were louder now, harsh breaths and clumsy footfalls echoing up the stairs. Skye could feel herself tiring, too, but she'd long learnt to push past the first signs of weariness, to coax more strength from limbs inclined to falter. This was not a chase she was about to give up.

Abruptly, the stairs ended. Skye jumped the last few, landing on a sandy floor washed in grey dawn light. A door stood open across the room, issuing a clear blast of morning air. The intruder was nowhere to be seen.

Auda hurried past Skye, wrenching the door wide and striding out. She returned a moment later. "Gone, Your Highness. This leads into the orchard. They must have scaled the garden wall."