Night was better for stalking her prey, anyway. As the great castle slept beneath a moonless sky, she prowled the godswood uninterrupted, a shadow silently slithering through thickets and trunks of elm, alder and black cottonwood. Her leather boots made not a sound compared to the patter of rain on leaf, her dress a sigh in the biting breeze swaying candle and branch alike. If Helaena had to sneak out after dark to avoid being discovered, so be it. It was a small sacrifice.
No matter what Prince Jacaerys said about believing her, she could not be sure. He might not share it with her brothers, but Prince Lucerys and Ser Laenor were due back soon, and who could say what information he might let slip to Lucerys. The entire encounter made her wary. If she was caught, they might add more weeks to her cursed confinement. Helaena ate until she felt sick, but was still far off from fitting into her riding leathers. She wanted to visit the Dragonpit, to see Dreamfyre in the flesh, to roam the gardens without sneaking around. Lucerys blabbing could jeopardise the little freedom she had carved out.
Here in the dark, she could see guards before they approached, illuminated by their torches in the misty rain. If she was quick and quiet, she was not like to run afoul of anyone else. Helaena crouched in the bushes, still as the household guards or City Watch walked by on patrol. She pulled her deep green cloak further over her head and lifted the corner of the blanket covering her lantern. She allowed just enough light to spill across the black scene to helping her navigate without tripping. Picking her way through the brush, she counted seven steps from the large oak at the godswood's centre to the place where she'd buried a large clay cup last night. Two hundred and three steps athwart the sheltering oak. The enticing smell of damp earth filled her senses - slowing her laboured inhalation. She was not coughing so much, but her breaths came harder than before the fire.
Her fingers sank into moss and grass beaded with rain droplets as she felt for the cup's edge. She'd buried it last night, its rim flush with the ground so that unsuspecting insects would tumble into it and struggle to climb out. She prised it from the ground with a wet squelch, the clay cold against the pads of her fingers. Water sloshed at the bottom of the cup, and she cursed the deluge that might have drowned any insects she'd collected. She wanted live ones, ones she could watch and study as they crawled and wriggled about on her hands and bedside table. Dead bugs grew hard and immovable, curled into rigid little balls or crumbling to dust. The same rain that hid her footsteps with its pattering may well have ruined her trap.
She removed the cheesecloth from her pocket and secured it over the top of the cup with some thread she'd taken from Septa Marlow's sewing box. When it was secured, she turned it upside down; the water draining through the cloth. At least then, if it tipped in her pockets, it wouldn't soak her. Helaena slipped the clay cup into her pocket of her cloak, wiped her muddy hands on some wet grass and grabbed for her covered lantern. She'd need to pilfer another cup from the serving tray the servants brought her so she could immediately replace the trap when she took another.
Getting to her feet, Helaena darted across the godswood and into the smaller walled section where the wierwood loomed. She avoided looking at it. The face frightened her. Something about the human-looking face carved into the bone white trunk made her ill, like it was watching her. Judging her.
On the far side, a gallery divided by pillars at intervals hid another of the Red Keep's hidden passageways. She stood on one of the granite benches, running her hands along the pale red blocks of the wall until she found the one that pushed in, revealing a crawl space that closed behind her as she climbed inside. She'd found it purely by chance, immediately marking it on the rudimentary map she carried in her bodice. It was all abstract charcoal lines and numbers, likely incomprehensible to anyone else, but that didn't matter. Helaena understood it.
YOU ARE READING
Do Not Presume to Know The Damned (Jacaerys x Helaena)
Fanfiction"They do not feel the flames, for now they see if not for a single sin they concealed, they were saved" -The Seven-Pointed Star Or How one terrible night changes two children's lives, reshaping three centuries of their family's rule.
