The Blood of Darkness

Chapter 58

The Desperate Prince

When I startled awake That Dawn, Zeke wasn't beside me. I remember feeling cold, chilled inside, irrevocably off in some unconscious way.

I sat up in my bed, my eyes dimly adjusting to the calm, dormant darkness of my bedroom. A sense of unease prickled my gut. "Zeke?" He wasn't on guard duty that night; I had fallen asleep with his steady presence beside me, mumbling drowsy words against his neck—telling him something about tomorrow, that I was planning on going with Coryza to this one bakery she loved. I remember him laughing softly, asking if we were going to buy an enormous, beautifully decorated cake only to take it home and present it to my father and claim that we had made it ourselves just to see what his reaction would be. I told him no, of course not, we'd have Val present it to him and watch as he fainted in shock at the mere thought of her having baked something so grand in the kitchen. But when he regained consciousness, the roaring laughter that would have surely filled his study, the lighthearted twinkle that would have glistened in his blue eyes—it would all have been absolutely perfect, even when my mother probably would have barged in complaining about the noise, claiming that it was messing with her focus while she painted her lovely landscape paintings that were hung throughout the castle halls.

My voice echoed through my room, sounding oddly fragile. There was no response—not that I expected one. Zeke had left in the middle of the night before; his absence wasn't uncommon in the early hours of the morning. But something about that moment felt different.

I reached across the bed to switch on a combustible lantern. Beams of warm light slanted across my room. I sat still for a moment, listening. All I could hear this high up in the castle was the wind outside, ruffling my curtains, and the creak of the bed springs shifting under my weight.

It was this moment of stillness that I remember most. The calm before the storm. My mind was a lazy, jumbled mess, still half-asleep. I was thinking about maybe getting a glass of water, waking Val up so we could head onto the balcony to watch the sunrise.

Then I heard racing footsteps in the hallway. I stiffened then stood up, just as my door slammed open. Zeke raced into my room. "Vance," he was saying, breathless, "Vance, Vance, we have to go—Rurik, the Dark King—there's an army, a whole fucking army—"

He was grabbing my arm, pulling me back towards the door. I had never seen him look so panicked before. His eyes were wide, his hair unkempt.

I was suddenly wide awake, reaching wildly for my sword, which was propped against the wall. I placed my hands on Zeke's shoulders, stopping him for a second, even as a frenzied mix of panic and dread began to ring through me."What? Hey, slow down. Tell me what happened."

"The Dark King is here. His soldiers—they're already in the castle, working their way up from the first floor. Killing everyone." His voice cracked—this was bad.

Val, was my first thought. She was on guard duty tonight—she liked doing the nights, liked pacing the halls of the first floor, liked looking out the windows and watching the courtyard, liked playing cards with the other guards and daring the loser to venture into the dark basement where the empty dungeons were.

My hands left Zeke's shoulders, and then I was moving—out the door, into the hall, sword already drawn. The corridor was eerily silent.

Zeke grabbed my arm, wrenched me around. "Vance. Please don't be an idiot. You aren't fighting—you need to get out of here. If something happened to you....the people need you—I need you. There are servants and surely some of my men upstairs; they can take you and Coryza and even Val to safety and—"