Quill of Thieves

Chapter 36

"This is complete and utter lunacy!"

"Our lives are lunacy at the moment, I'm afraid," Astrid quipped in response. "Might as well embrace it, Seabass."

Sebastian stood with Astrid inside a grim and dingy part of the fortress known as Treason's Tower. A thick, wooly tapestry currently rubbed against his spine as he leaned away from the ever darker part Astrid planned on leading him. Across from the more eery area, on the side from which he had just come, was a better-lit circular room where Astrid had apparently grown up taking her elemental lessons from the two captured Scribes.

Unfortunately, this part of the tower was more narrow and dark. It reeked of mildew, rusted iron, and infection. A low, tortured moan rattled from one of the caged cells to his right.

Astrid nudged him. "I bet you wished that portal had whisked you away to Soleita after all, huh? What a shame." She ticked her tongue, but there was enough light from the single torch on the wall for him to catch her uneasy frown. Nevertheless, her relentless bravado carried on. "Imagine being on a tropical island rather than in this mangy place. But, alas, there are answers to be had."

"The Soleitian Academy has an extensive library." Sebastian muttered the fact like it would help resolve his fleeting courage. "In fact, Thaddeus Currel spent four years studying his portal theory there."

"Well, that's complete rubbish. Currel couldn't have made it out of Rainier's borders without being tried for treason."

His voice grew firmer with the recitation. "Some claim he was smuggled out in the hull of a fishing boat. He was let off somewhere in the middle of the Ember Sea on the edge of Rainier's border and then swam the rest of the way with the aid of two dolphins."

Astrid snorted. "Is that an Eilibir legend? Did your father captain the boat, perhaps?"

Sebastian half-smiled. "Possibly."

"I should have known such drab narration of textbooks would have calmed your nerves."

Sebastian wasn't so sure about that. His legs currently shook under his weight as if someone had traded in his blood for rocks. There had been at least two hundred steps he and Astrid had climbed, not to mention the hazardous terrain in the tunnels they had traipsed through, and Sebastian had yet to have a moment to simply sit. Stare. Read. But adrenaline miraculously still pumped his heart, zinging in the sinews of his muscles, propelling him onwards. Even if it was into a gross smelling dark abyss.

Although, could this place be called an abyss if it was above ground?

Focus, Bash.

He reached out and lifted the torch from its sconce. When he looked towards Astrid for directions on what to do next, an amused expression of approval flickered across her face, icy eyes melting under the light from the flickering flames.

"Oh. Er—" Sebastian raised a brow and held the torch out to her. "Did you want to be in charge of it?"

"And take away your newfound sense of dominating manhood? Absolutely not."

Her smirk should have warned him, but she acted far too quickly. The flames of the torch surged, flaring upwards with a whoosh of heat that nearly singed Sebastian's eyelashes. Within his next blink of surprise, a small orb of fire danced in Astrid's cupped palms. Shadows contorted her pleased grin in such a way that when she turned to lead the way into the cells, her laugh sounded sinisterly grotesque.

"That was unnecessary," he muttered.

"I could hardly let you have all the fun."

What, exactly, was the fun she thought he would have had to go into the box of his brain categorized as Astrid's Eccentricities. Even so, he hurried after her, trying not to shiver as she led them past one, two, three—six—barred cells. They were so dark and deep that not even the light from Sebastian's torch and Astrid's flaming ball could penetrate the shadows huddling within them. Regardless, he had the eerie sensation that things moved, breathed, just on the other side of the oxidizing copper bars.