The Destroyer Book 3 (66 page)

The red-haired Elven turned my words over in his head slowly and then sat back with a shrug. I noticed that his uniform seemed a bit cleaner than anyone else’s and it was stitched with gold-colored thread instead of black or green. He must have been in charge.

"If the empress said it was fine, you can take her whatever the cooks feel like making."

"Thank you," I said with a smile. My heart began to slow down and I wiped my damp palms on the side of my pants. None of these Elvens appeared to have weapons, but all I had was the dagger on my lower back. They could easily over power Danor and me.

We approached the kitchen staff. A few cooks were stirring pots and preparing dough for bread, but most watched us with looks of minor annoyance on their faces.

"What do you need, human?" asked a female. She had short ebony hair and eyes the bronze color of a cat's.

"The duchess would like some food."

"I thought we sent her some up a few hours ago?" Her eyes narrowed slightly.

"I'm just following orders. You know how it goes." I shrugged my shoulders and tried to relax my smile.

"That was the princess. Our empress dined in the human's room." Another cook looked over from his dough making.

"Duchess, princess, same thing." The cat-eyed cook looked away from the other chef and back to us. "How many are eating?"

"The duchess and her two attendants." I wondered if Runir and Greykin were actually being kept in the same room as Nadea.

"I will make trout and steam asparagus. I've got some potatoes and cheese as well. If you can wait for fifteen minutes, she'll have a fine dinner."

"That sounds great." I smiled and breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe I should have said that we didn't have the time to wait, but arguing might have raised more suspicion.

"If you are hungry, grab a bowl of soup and some bread. I'll let you know when it is plated." She had already begun cutting up a bundle of chives and gestured over her shoulder with a nod toward the pot and stack of dishes behind her. I looked to Danor, who nodded with a slightly exasperated look on his face. The kitchen did smell of wondrous food, and I couldn't remember the last time I ate anything. Then I remembered the slop Iarin had cooked at the campsite last night when Kannath brought me back.

It seemed like a week ago, not just a night ago.

We took a bowl of soup each, split a loaf of dark rye bread, and then made our way to the benches where the other Elvens were sitting. There was an open spot near the end of one of the tables by the door and we sat across from each other.

The soup was a nice mixture of chicken broth, garlic, and winter tuber vegetables. As soon as my tongue tasted the blend my stomach groaned with anger and I fought against the overwhelming desire to guzzle it as quickly as possible.

Danor and I did our best to listen to the conversations of the Elvens that shared the table next to us. Most of the talk was about the logistics of serving those in the castle and the various methods to travel to the different sides efficiently. A few Elvens spoke about the reconstruction of the wing I had destroyed several months ago. From what they said, the repairs were going very well and they expected the rooms to be useable in three more months.

"Humans. The food is ready."

We brought our empty bowls to a sink and placed our dishes on the counter next to twenty other dirty plates. Danor grabbed the silver covered tray the cook had prepared, and we bid her a good night. She gave a slight smile and then returned to her vegetable preparation. No one looked at us during the short walk out of the kitchen, and as soon as we climbed the stairs we were back in the main halls.

"That went better than I expected," Danor whispered.

"We still don't know where they are though," I whispered back.

"True. But can't you just smell them or something? You said you have a sniffer like a bloodhound."

"The castle is big and there have been many people through these hallways. If I could pick up her scent it would be easy to follow where she went." I thought about the last time I was in the castle and I had tracked Nadea by the sound of her heartbeat. When I woke from that dream I was brimming with more magic than I had ever felt. My senses had been so incredibly sharp and I felt more than invincible. I didn't feel that sense of unlimited power now, and my efforts to identify the duchess by her heartbeat became lost in a sea of thousands of other small sounds in the fortress.

"We can find the other kitchen. Some of the servants must know where they are being kept."

"Voices up ahead," I warned Danor after we had walked for a few more minutes.

"Ancient or human?"

"I can't tell. My people call them Elvens. It is a better word for their race."

"Got it. So what if there are twenty Elvens up ahead?"

"I'll ask them for directions." I grinned at my friend to reassure him.

The man chuckled softly and then readjusted the tray when the flatware inside made a soft metal clinking noise.

A hundred yards of hallway was between us and the foyer of the North Wing. With each step the voices became clearer to my sharpened ears and the heartbeats, along with their topic of conversation, confirmed my earlier belief that it was a group of four Elvens.

"When is Fehalda's team moving into the castle?" one of them asked.

"Word is the empress is angry with her,” another replied.

"So her warriors won't join us? Seems a shame, even with the Greens here, the rooms are mostly empty."

"Isn't one of your lovers a Flame?"

"One of my children is in her army. It would be easier to see him."

Their voices died off as our padded footfalls grew nearer. The foyer was a vast marble floored room with three massive stone staircases winding upward to an open second and third level. At the top of the ceiling hung a hefty chandelier that looked like a nest of cast iron in the middle of a cat fight with twenty icicles. Except the icicles were crystals that reflected candlelight across the large room in an array of beautiful rainbow colors.

The four male Elvens leaned against a smooth wall to our right. They wore the blue and gold colors of Alatorict's army.

"You lost, humans?" the one with dark red hair asked.

"Yes. We are supposed to deliver food to the duchess," I said with as much fear as I could muster.

"So go do it!" another one said with a small sneer.

"Do you know which room she is in?" Danor asked. He sounded surprised by his own question.

"Fifth floor, north side, two of our females are guarding the door."

"Thank you." I made a small bow while I backed away. Danor and I exchanged a relieved glance and then turned to walk up the stairs.

"Wait," one of the guards said from behind us. My heart dropped and we spun around slowly on the wide steps.

"You look familiar, human," the Elven said.

"I am new. Maybe you saw me walking in the castle?" I asked. If I hit them with fire they would all die, but it would be loud and messy. There was a better possibility that I could close the distance and gut a few with my dagger before the other two were able to draw their swords.

"No. No. The other one." He pointed to Danor.

"I have one of those faces, sir," my friend stammered with a nervous smile.

"You all do look the same. I think it is the mustache. It makes me believe I have seen you before, perhaps you were sweeping out the stables?" The four men laughed, but the intent didn't seem diabolical.

"Perhaps you did, sir." Danor smiled nervously and we continued our walk up the stairs. By the time we had reached the fifth floor the Elven's conversation had turned back to their training and talk of where in the town they would visit when their shift ended.

"I think this plan might work. The guards probably won't expect us to just walk out," Danor said.

"Unless one of the guards recognizes me."

"Maybe we should have gotten you a fake mustache." Danor grinned. I could tell his heart was still racing though.

"One step at a time." I smiled back and we headed north on the third floor.

"I bet they are staying in either Maerc's or Beltor's suite of rooms."

"Why?"

"Nadea said this was a peaceful surrender. The empress will not want to make them feel like prisoners. I'm sure she would have even kept Nadea in her own room if it had not been destroyed. Maerc and Beltor have the nicest rooms outside the Royal Quarters. We are going in that direction anyway, so we will soon find out."

“This way.” Danor turned west and we walked another two hundred feet before reaching an intersection. At the end of the hallway were two sets of doors, each guarded by a pair of Alatorict’s sentries. We approached the closest one. One of the guards had been assigned to my room when I was captive here. I struggled to keep my breathing and heartrate normal and looked down to avoid her gaze. I gave Danor a look that I hoped communicated that he needed to do the talking.

"We are supposed to deliver food to the duchess. Is this her room?" Danor's voice sounded confident.

"No, human. She is across the hall." The woman raised a leather gloved hand and pointed at the other pair of guards a hundred yards to the north.

"Thank you." Danor bowed carefully with his tray and we turned to walk toward the next group. I didn't recognize these two Elvens, but that didn't mean that they wouldn't know who I was.

"We have food for the duchess," Danor said.

"The duchess didn't order any food," the Elven on the left said. She had wispy metallic-blue hair and eyes a few shades lighter.

"We are just following orders, ma'am," my friend replied smoothly.

"Whose orders?"

"We were working in the kitchen and this tall Ancient came in. He had long silver hair tied up in a ponytail. He was dressed really nice and had this weird smile on his face. Told your cook down there to bring the duchess some food and she gave us the tray." I spat the words out quickly and hoped she would assume that I meant Alatorict.

"No one is supposed to see the duchess until the empress visits her."

"For the love of the Spirits, let them come in. We are hungry!" Nadea's voice sang out from inside the room. The Elvens hesitated for a bit and cast annoyed glances at each other before they opened the door to allow Danor and I to enter.

Nadea, Greykin, and Runir stood behind a square oak table and a group of handcrafted chairs. They each wore Nia army uniforms of purple and gold trim, but the three were not armed with any weapons. Their faces were a mixture of relief and surprise, especially Nadea, who tried her best to keep her face from splitting into a grin when I walked into the room ahead of Danor.

"Your food has arrived," I said with a careful smile. The door behind us was still open and the Elvens were observing us. Behind my friends were three doors that led to other rooms of the suite. To their left was a raised portion of the room that transitioned to a set of closed double doors that I guessed went to a veranda. I had lost my sense of direction within the castle, but I imagined that the balcony must have faced the north training courtyard.

"Straight from the kitchen." Danor laid out the tray and then pulled the lid off to show the three sets of plates, glasses, flatware, a basket of bread, and bottle of white wine. "We were told there were three of you here and that it would be difficult for you to get food on your own." He winked and I looked over my shoulder, the two Elven women stared into the room to ensure we completed our task and little else.

"Thank you, friends. I'm so hungry I could devour a cow, shit it out, and then eat it again." Greykin's voice was deeper and darker than I remembered. His face was thinner and more ashen than his usual ruddy skin tone. He had received a serious wound to his chest when Nia had originally fallen, but the Old Bear never showed it to me. I had smelled it, and the scent remained about him now, predicting an outcome that I didn't want to imagine.

Danor gave me a nervous glance while we set up the plates and glasses on the oak table. One variation of our plan involved me taking out whatever Elven guards might be around Nadea and then securing her in an empty room until we found Jessmei and Beltor. If the situation was still under control and we had not been detected at that point, then we would look for Greykin and Runir. We were lucky to find Runir and Greykin with Nadea, but the Elven guards made the situation difficult. Even if I killed these two by Nadea's door, there was another pair a hundred yards away. They would quickly raise an alarm before I could dispatch them. I hoped the door they guarded was Beltor's, but that would still mean that we would have difficulty finding Jessmei before the empress's warriors found us. My mind raced through thousands of different options before settling on a plan that I believed would have the best chance of success.

I pointed to one of the back rooms and met Nadea's brown eyes. She glanced over to the Elven guards at the door and nodded slightly. I stepped around the table and walked toward the room while Danor continued to place the plates. I heard Runir and Greykin sit down and begin to tear into the food. But their actions didn't distract the guards at all.

"Hey, human. Where do you think you are going?" one of the Elvens asked from the hallway behind me.