The Unwritten King

3. The King and His Men

Nicholas didn't normally mind silence, and rarely tried to fill it. But this - sitting handcuffed in a carriage with a woman who glared fire and brimstone whenever he so much as breathed too loudly - was excruciating.

He made the mistake early on of trying to ask where they were going. Yasmin snapped her head his way with hellfire in her eyes, and he decided to cut his losses after the first syllable. She sat as close to the door as she could without pressing her body against it, like Nicholas was diseased or smelled horrible (which, after the day he'd had, was probably true). It was the longest carriage ride of his life. Also the only carriage ride of his life.

The window to his left let in a midsummer breeze. He rested his head and let it kiss the wound on his cheek. It stung a little, but it was warm, and it was gentle. The city passed by slowly, and Nicholas watched it, eyes wide to take in everything he could. It was exactly like he'd imagined, long roads paved with stone and lined by tudor-style houses. He could only see what fell within the shifting circles of orange cast by the streetlights. Atop the posts were magical flames encased in large spherical bulbs. He had never considered, when he drew them, who lit the fires every night. Now he wanted to know badly.

There was a lot he hadn't considered. The Caldora he'd dreamed up was a bustling nation overflowing with magic and bad intentions, all of them aimed at its rival kingdom, Interra, home of his protaginist. But right now, at least, it was exceptionally quiet. Caldora in the dead of night was peaceful.

There was someone living in every one of those narrow homes. Maybe multiple someones. There were personalities and wants and kinships here he hadn't spared a second to dream up. There was life here, outside of his head, all around him. It was too much.

Something light fell onto Nicholas' lap. "When I tell you to, cover your eyes," said Yasmin.

He fumbled with bound hands to pull the knotted cloth over his eyes. The darkness was total, and he was relieved.

"Or do it now."

After a few minutes, the air started to change. It was cooler, a bit wetter. He slipped a finger beneath the blindfold to pull it away from one eye and lost his breath. Through the window at the front of the carriage, so huge and so near he couldn't see the tips of it, was the king's castle. In a way, it resembled its ruler: tall, angular, and grayscale. It was asymmetrical and foreboding. High towers with steep prism roofs scraped the clouds, pointed arches climbed from the ground - looking at it on a page, Nicholas had never noticed the way it seemed to claw for the sky.

The blindfold fell away to hang around his neck as he strained to glimpse Lake Charlatan. It surrounded the castle on three sides and seemed to go on forever. He hadn't known he could make something so beautiful.

"Eyes," Yasmin said as they approached the gates. He was reluctant, this time, to cover them.

The carriage rumbled to a stop on smoother ground. Nicholas could guess where they were; he mourned that he wouldn't get to see the castle from the inside. The door opened and he nearly tumbled out of the carriage. Sharp nails came down on his shoulder, forcing him forward, and he was abruptly reminded that he had bigger things to worry about.

He was led, hobbling on his injured foot, down chilly halls. Yasmin was pitiless. She moved briskly despite the pained huffs catching behind his teeth. He committed the path to memory as well as he could: right turn, right turn, left turn, straight for a while, stop. Nicholas was not one to waste his time on futile hopes, and escaping from a castle manned by powerful mages was the very embodiment of a pipe dream, but he wasn't normally faced with life or death, either.

By the time Yasmin pushed him through a doorway, his forehead was beaded with sweat. She kept going until his thighs collided with something soft. "Sit," she said, and he dropped immediately onto his forearms on what felt like a mattress and took the pressure off his foot. A match was struck, then two locks clicked; first, the door at his back, then the cuffs around his wrists. They dropped away, and Yasmin said, "You may look."