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I weave through the halls, following Petra’s directions, leaping to the side when a couple of teens come racing out of one of the doorways just ahead of me. More blood stains the floors, but I don’t come across any more corpses until I pass a room wafting the worst stench yet.
That door has been shut. I pause and nudge it just a crack open, then recoil in revulsion with a defensive flare of my magic.
Decaying bodies, mostly guards and nobles from what I glimpsed of their clothing, sprawl in heaps beyond the doorway. The Order mustn’t have felt like bothering with trying to bury them yet in the hardened winter ground, so they simply dragged them out of the way.
Maybe they like the idea of the rotten scent winding through the palace, reminding everyone who ventures inside of the fate they could meet if they fall out of favor. As if the spirits of the murdered linger on to haunt this place through the stench.
Julita might have found that idea darkly amusing. As I dart up a staircase to the second floor, avoiding a soggy spot in the carpet, I find myself imagining the other arch remarks she’d have made, no doubt alongside an indignant huff.
The people would rather see the palace turned into a refuse heap than be ruled by the Melchioreks? Can they not think past the end of their noses?
Another lump rises in my throat. It’s easier not to think about the friend I lost, not to miss her constant presence in my mind—occasionally irritating, but so often rousing and encouraging—when I’m surrounded by other companions. When I’m on my own, the emptiness in my head yawns louder.
Julita never hesitated to stand up to the evils she saw brewing in Florian, even though she had a more direct reason to fear scourge sorcery than the rest of us. She sacrificed what remained of her life to save me from her brother.
She’d have been so horrified to see the wreckage the scourge sorcerers have already left in their wake despite our efforts.
Shoving the grief aside with a few hasty blinks, I turn a corner and pad down a narrower hall. Another left, then a right, and all the way at the end…
I stop in my tracks, my gut dropping. A bulky, square-jawed man in a guard uniform is standing outside the door Petra directed me to—the one that leads into the royal family’s private quarters.
He must be with the scourge sorcerers, or they wouldn’t have left him alive. I guess it makes sense that Lothar wouldn’t want anyone other than his sycophants rummaging through the most personal remains of the king he murdered.
Is the former magic advisor himself staying in those rooms? I shudder at the thought.
It doesn’t really matter if anyone is beyond that door if I can’t get past it myself, though.
I edge closer, setting my feet silently as I study the guard. Without Rheave’s daimon senses, I can’t tell for sure, but I suspect this fellow is one of his brethren in animated clay. There’s a sort of blankness to his expression that looks like more than human boredom.
I could simply stab him and hope he collapses back into fired clay. But then whoever assigned him to this spot would realize someone must have broken in.
What I really need is to draw him away from his post for long enough for me to slip inside.
I backtrack to the previous hall and glance around. No one else seems to be stationed nearby. He’ll probably come running at any nearby disturbance.
I step into one of the rooms where the door stands ajar. Most of the smaller objects have been looted, but a display cabinet stands by the wall, the glass panes of its windows cracked.
They’re about to face a lot worse than that.
Gritting my teeth, I grasp the side of the cabinet and heave. With a shove against the wall for extra leverage, I send it crashing to the ground.
And oh boy, does it crash. The frame thumps against the floor hard enough to echo, the glass shatters, and the wood splits open down the back.
I dash back into the hall and duck through a different doorway just before the guard bustles around the corner on stomping feet.
The moment he’s stormed into the other room, I bolt all the way to the door he was guarding, dipping my hand into my pocket. I pull out the ring Petra gave me with the Melchiorek crest and press it to the spot beneath the doorknob.
There’s no click of the lock, but the door opens at my nudge. Lothar’s people must have broken whatever magical protection it had on it.
As soon as I step inside, it’s clear someone’s been through these rooms. Rather aggressively, too.
Side tables lie overturned. Upholstery has been cut open. All of the paintings have been yanked from the walls, some propped against them, some tossed aside.
I skirt a broken plate and hurry deeper into the apartments, eager to get out of this place as quickly as possible. Stale air trickles into my lungs, containing a lingering trace of a floral perfume that perhaps Queen Ishild liked to wear.
What if Lothar managed to ferret out King Konram’s most secret hiding place? I might have risked venturing in here for nothing.
He might already know that Petra is the greatest threat to his Order’s authority.
