Beyond the Walls

Chapter 19

The Duchess runs her finger along the window ledge, grimacing at the dust gathered on her fingertip. She brushes it off. In the corner, her maids frantically hasten over with their feathers to wipe the dust clean. The Duchess hardly pays them a glance. Instead, her cold, calculating eyes avert back to me.

"You are a long way from the Floodgates, Red Leaf," the Duchess says, voice smooth and measured. "What brings you to Aurelia?"

I take my time in responding, pushing my shoulders back and raising my chin. "We have come here because we seek justice," I say. "Have you noticed the disappearance of some of your people?"

"Why is that of concern to you, Red Leaf?" the Duchess asks, eyes narrowing.

"Well, I am sure you have heard of Edward Mallory, Commander of the Red Movement," I say.

"Yes. He is the pioneer for the Drown cure." She clasps her hands in front of her.

"Mallory's work isn't ethical in the slightest, Duchess. He takes people, immunes, the resistant and the normal and tortures them to find answers. He will expose them to the virus and watch mercilessly as the disease runs its course through each person."

"He is trying to find a cure, Red Leaf," the Duchess says.

"And of course," I continue as if I wasn't interrupted. "Many of them die awful, bloody deaths."

The Duchess pinches her thin lips together, her perfectly arched brows furrowing together. "You want me to help you, is that right?"

"Yes." I nod. "We would like to ask if you would ally with the Floodgates. We want to stop Mallory and his Movement from torturing these people to find a cure. However, we need the numbers to do it."

"I see," she says. The look in her piercing eyes is unreadable.

I realise how tense my shoulders must appear and lower them. "Would I be wrong in guessing that many of your people will have been affected by Mallory in some way?"

The Duchess only tilts her head, lips pinching again.

There is a sudden rapid knock on the door and a boy, younger than me, with sandy blond hair slicked back enters the room upon the permission of the Duchess.

"Her Duchess, I come to inform you that they have arrived at the castle," the boy says, gasping for air in between words.

"Who has arrived?" I ask impulsively.

The Duchess' eyes dart from me to Ruben to Aston, and back to me.

"Send them up here at once," she says to the boy, who nods sporadically and races out of the room.

"Who has arrived, Iris?" I ask again and the use of her first name seems to startle her.

"So, it was an alliance that you wanted, was it not?" she redirects the conversation, forcing her attention back to me.

"You called him. You called Mallory, didn't you?" I say the words just as quickly as the thought comes.

The echoing thud of boots ascending the stairs is my answer. I run to the window that Iris was at moments before, sticking my head through the window and looking down. Bricks jut out of the side of the tower, creating a perfect ladder. Although, I can see that they do not go all the way to the bottom, and there will be a nasty drop. It will have to do.

"Aston, Ruben, climb down here!"

Iris shrieks, scurrying forward and grappling at the boys, trying to stop them. Disgusted, I snatch Iris by the wrist and yank my sword from behind my back. She gasps as I hold the blade against her carotid artery. "Ruben, Aston, go!" I shout as the door slams open and half a dozen men from the Red Movement burst into the room.