“How’d you do it?”
Alexander looked up as he finished lacing his black leather boots. Leaning against the door to his chambers, Edward stood there, raising a brow.
Strange. He hadn’t even heard him enter.
“Did you escort her back without issue?” he asked, standing from his seat on the bed.
“Yes. Now, tell me how you did it.”
Donning a fresh, black tunic, he glanced back with frown. “Do what?”
Edward walked into the room, a knowing look in his eyes. “How’d you get her to laugh like that?”
He thought back to the insincere — yet endearing — little giggle she forced out on the dance floor. A snort escaped him. “Are you saying I’m not skilled enough to get a woman to laugh?”
“No, any woman would trip over themselves to laugh for you. But, Princess Helene? She doesn’t laugh. Not from what I’ve gathered.”
His curiosity for his future bride only deepened. She was reserved. Well-hidden. Wary. Beautiful. With her piercing blue eyes, a twist of dark hair he wanted to unwind and coil around his fist, and exquisite features outlined across an elegant face, he would have been smitten if they had met under different circumstances. But, as unfair and illogical as it was, the forced union of their relationship prevented him from accepting it so easily.
“It wasn’t a real laugh,” he admitted, recalling the way her brows were furrowed in displeasure and her pale face stricken in dejection. “She was playing along.”
“Either way, I was impressed. The nobles were having a field day trying to figure out what you were whispering to her,” Edward chuckled.
“I’m sure they were,” he answered distantly, distracted by a thought that had been clinging to him for a while now. “Her cheek was swollen, and I think she injured her hands.”
Edward’s face fell, his voice immediately solemn. “You noticed too?”
Alexander grabbed the heavy cloak he had draped across a chair and turned to his friend with a grim look. “Do they mistreat her? Her family?”
Edward knitted his brows. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they did. There’s not much known about the Princess, but she was born illegitimate. Her siblings and the Queen don’t seem too fond of her,” he replied slowly. “When I ran into her last night, she was guarded, but there was a certain spark about her. By morning, it was extinguished.”
Buttoning the sleeves of his tunic, he contemplated Edward’s observations. “Find out.”
Edward nodded in response.
Alexander felt a flare of concern heave through his chest as he clasped the cloak around his shoulders. She came across as a strong-willed, independent woman who hid her emotions well, and the thought of her enduring her suffering behind those closed-off eyes of hers didn’t sit right with him.
“She’ll make a fine partner,” Edward hesitantly added. “You’ll be good for each other.”
Alexander gave a cynical smile. “I think she resents me. And, I don’t blame her one bit for it.”
“Give it time,” Edward suggested. “She seems like the type that’s worth it.”
He raised a brow at his remark, looking at him pointedly. It may have been arranged, but she was still to be his wife.
Amused, Edward lifted his hands in a harmless gesture. “For you. Worth it for you.”
Ruffling the strands of his own hair so it fell out of its neat arrangement, he smirked. She was definitely something. Someone he couldn’t quite figure out, but wanted to anyways. But, he’d have to save his fascination with his betrothed for later. They had more dire things to take care of tonight.
“Are we ready?” he promptly asked.
Edward lowered a hat over his eyes. “Ready.”
Reaching into the depths of his cloak, Alexander pulled out a band of black cloth with a strip of dark, transparent mesh lining the middle. He tied it around his eyes.
“I’ll never know how you can see through that thing,” Edward mumbled, walking with him towards the large tapestry pinned against the wall by the fireplace.
Although his vision was hindered, he had no choice — not with those damned eyes of his that would announce to the world that he was a Tristaine. “Practice, my dear,” he replied.
Whipping the heavy, patterned fabric aside, Alexander pushed against a crevice lining the surface until it scraped open with a groan. The dank scent of metallic water and rotting stone wafted into his senses. “Mask,” he reminded Edward, who swiftly secured his own cloth around the bottom half of his face.
Looking back at his familiar bedroom before the hidden door slammed shut, he left the Prince behind and brought the masked man out to play.
The dark, cold space flooded in light as Edward sparked a match to help guide them down the spiraling, stone staircase. “Tell me what I missed last night.”
Paying higher attention to his sights, Alexander carefully made his way down until the air grew colder and wetter. “There was a woman. Just after you left, she happened on my path to the Dreamers,” he began.
“She catch your fancy, did she?” he interrupted in a disapproving tone.
Alexander smothered a grin. It appeared as if Edward Rainer was an avid supporter of Helene Montfort. “If you’d shut up, I could finish telling you.”
He thinned his lips as they journeyed further down.
“She wore a mask, like the others, but it didn’t seem like she was one of them.” He stopped walking, taking a hold of Edward’s arm to stop him. “She opened the door, Edward.”
Edward widened his eyes. “What?”
“I watched her from afar, and that damn door we’ve been working at for months…she opened it just like that.”
“That’s how you got in?”
“Yes,” Alexander replied.
“And you’re sure she’s not just another Dreamer?”
He shook his head, grimacing. “No. She said she came looking for a ‘magical healer.’”
"Then, she’s just another fool who heard rumors about the Cave —"
“That’s not all,” he interjected. “Something moved the Dreamers.”
“Moved them? What the hell does that mean?” Edward asked impatiently.
“I don’t know,” he muttered in frustration, thinking back to the way the masked figures had started shrieking in delight, moving towards that strange, stubborn woman. “But something stirred them…awake.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Edward exclaimed, rushing down the steps in concern or excitement — he couldn’t tell.
Trailing after him, the two men arrived at an underground dungeon housing rows of rusting cells. Separate from the unused Imperial one sitting just a few floors above, Alexander had discovered the ancient place a few years back. With so many hidden doorways, the Palace was still a maze of unexplored hideaways just waiting to be uncovered.
As they slowly approached a large cell locked in the far corner, the echo of their footsteps sounded harsh against the stained cobblestone. Stopping at the barred compartment, he saw a group of masked men huddled together in a circle, silent and unmoving.
For months, he and his men had tried pinning the Dreamers of Theolos. The rumors of their cult and the threat of their rebellion against the Crown was no longer a simple nuisance he could ignore. But with their secrecy and the Cave they could never enter, their efforts proved futile. Until she appeared. The masked woman looking for a healer.
She opened the door. He followed. Something terrible stirred.
She fled. And, he took the Dreamers.
His men had arrived to his aid, and from the hundreds of masks within that cavern, the handful he was now looking at were all they could capture. It was a damning failure, but no matter how psychotic these fools were, they were smart. Almost like a practiced maneuver, the Dreamers had disappeared through the waterfall like ghosts in the night.
Alexander clenched his jaw, the memory of it still unsettling him.
At the clinking sound of a key entering the bolt, one of the masks raised their heads. Looking down his nose through the dark band, Alexander wordlessly bent, harshly gripping the brittle strands of the man’s hair. The man glared, throttling his head around to escape his hold, but Alexander tightened his fist and ripped the velvet mask from his face.
He froze.
Lord Harrison Ballio, a new, yet rising noble of the Empire. Alexander gritted his teeth. Exactly how many traitors were walking around the Palace with their heads raised high?
“Dreamer,” he rasped, purposefully grating his voice so his identity remained sealed. “I have questions for you, boy.”
Harrison bared his teeth, his black eyes looking crazed and faraway. “You cannot stop it,” he laughed psychotically, his voice a pitch of delusion.
“Stop what,” he barked, grabbing the collar of his damp tunic.
The other huddled men all started to laugh in sync. A look of alarm flitted through Edward’s eyes as he reached behind to retrieve his dagger.
“Bring her to us,” Harrison whispered. “The girl who brought it back.”
Alexander trembled. “Brought what back?”
Lord Harrison smirked. “Magic.”
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