The Royal Thief

Chapter Seventy-three: the Choosing

(Media by @PaigeMHolly)

Hey guys, sorry this wasn't up yesterday! Turns out writing a final chapter is hard and emotional and because it's the climax and everything I didn't want to rush. I won't get emotional here because there's still an authors note coming on Wednesday and the epilogue on Saturday but I really really really hope you like it!

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Nemia went on ahead- I gave her a light shove and told her to go get some sleep. I needed to find the captured rebels. Well, I know where they were- but it was one thing to sneak into the dungeons at night when no one was expecting you, and another to sneak down when two revolutionaries had been captured and the cells were probably teeming with guards and... other such people.

People in the business of getting information from people who were in the business of keeping secrets.

I needed to find them before the king's spies began questioning them. More to the point, before they began torturing them.

I had no illusions that if I failed, they would come out unharmed. One way or another the king would learn the names of the rebels and their strength, where they were hiding and what they were planning. Even if the answers had to be dragged out in screams.

I felt strangely calm, seeing the impossible task before me. Find them. Break them out. Help them escape. And before nightfall, or who knows what the spies would have managed to do or learn already. Even now they could be beginning.

I had been staring up at the castle's towers, lost in thought, but something caught my eye and I went slowly back towards the training yards, through the busy chaos of guards changing shifts to the hush of the stables, following Jaden's shadow.

"Why are you here?" I asked, closing the door behind me. He leaned against the ladder to the loft, looking tense and nervous. He never seemed nervous. If there was anyone in my life who could stay calm in the midst of any crisis, it was Jaden.

"Something's- I- We need to talk."

"Now?"

"I told you a while ago that if the secrets I was keeping should begin to threaten you or I in any way, that then I would tell you."

My heart jumped. Not something else, not now. "What's going on?"

"I... I don't know. I don't know for certain. All I can say-"

"Does it have to do with the rebels?" Maybe it had something to do with Rayna and whoever else was trapped in the dungeons right now. Maybe this wasn't just another distraction.

"The rebels have to do with everything; that doesn't make this special."

"So it isn't about Rayna getting caught?"

A half-second's surprised stare, then he swore softly. "I see you have bigger things to worry about right now. Go. My news can wait."

"But what were you going to tell me?" I tried to think of the secrets I'd known he was keeping- all he'd said that night I confronted him about his father was that Tobias hated him- and hadn't wanted to hire him- because Jaden know about something, or a few things, that Tobias had done. Something our Sage didn't want anyone to know about.

"It's not as important as this. She'll be in the dungeon, and you won't be able to get down there the normal way. There's a passage I know of from growing up- I assume Tobias had shown you the Artifact vault? Good. There's a passage that leads from the vault up above ground at the edge of the forest- it was built in case there was ever a fire in the castle, to be able to get the Artifacts out. Few know it's there. Aboveground it's marked by a large rock with the Sign of the Guardian carved into it. You know what to do once you're down there. You need to hurry if you intend to free her before the spies begin their work."