Page 73 of The Broken Elf King
Bless you, Autumn.
She had no idea that she was saving my aunt right now. I’d have to eventually get word to her as well, and get her out of the city before an attack. But there was a slight chance she would spread word to others and then the queen would find out, so I’d have to figure out a way to just take her and keep her locked down until after the attack. Though it seemed we were months away from that, so all I really needed to focus on now was my aunt and healing her of her seizures.
Raife reached down and grasped the edge of the hollowed-out log, using the rock to steady himself as he set his bow inside and then stepped down. The two sharp rocks were large, and we were positioned between them, so unless you were standing on the high castle wall directly in front of us, you couldn’t see us. Raife stretched out a hand for me and I grabbed it, aiming one foot for the boat, and then pushed off the ground. The small log canoe wobbled and I had to suppress a shriek as I fell forward. Raife caught me by the hips, falling backwards with my weight, and then I was suddenly on top of him. Heat bloomed to life between us and I felt his entire body stiffen beneath me.
I swallowed hard, trying not to think about how much I loved him underneath me. How much I missed his body pressed against mine. How much I thought about the one time we’d laid together.
With little effort, he hoisted me up into a sitting position, but not before glancing quickly down at my lips.
It felt like a small triumph that he was still thinking about my lips, but before I could dwell on it Raife grabbed a rope and got into position to pull us across. It was a pulley system, I realized. The boat pulled back and forth, so no matter what side you were on you could pull it back over. I wondered if Autumn had made it or someone before her. The river wasn’t terribly wide, but there were all kinds of rumors about the queen poisoning the water so that if you went in you would die. This forced the residents to use the front gates, which were monitored. I saw some leather gloves in the bottom of the boat and handed them to him.
“Don’t touch the water. Rumor says it’s poisoned,” I told him, keeping my voice low.
He scowled at the murky water and then took the gloves, putting them on. “Of course it is.”
Looking up at the high wall and the guards patrolling it, Raife waited for his chance to cross, eyeing the tall reeds on the other side of the river. The grasses were high, maybe three feet, and we could easily lie flat and inch across to avoid being seen. When he felt it was a good time to go, he pushed us off the edge of the river and then pulled the rope quickly but silently. I crouched down as far as I could go as we were directly exposed in the middle of the river. Raife grunted and puffed as he heaved forward with each pull, sweat beading his brow. His muscles strained against his tunic as he hauled us across the water at breakneck speed. Before I knew it, we were across and I reached out and held on to the tall reeds, hiding us in them as we waited for the alarm that we might have been seen. Raife ducked as well, laying his head against my shoulder and fiddling with the land anchor. A minute passed, and then two. No arrows flew, no horn sounded. We were clear.
Raife pulled out the map and we consulted it under the moonlight. There was a big black circle about ten feet from the river’s edge. It was at the base of the tree split in two, and it was marked with one word: hole. That’s where the map ended.
Hole.
He looked at me pleadingly. This was my hometown after all. But the thing about growing up in Nightfall was that our queen was constantly paranoid of assassination. We had curfews, and if we wanted to travel we had to register. We didn’t just frolic along the palace walls staring at trees. I shrugged, looking at a few trees ten or twenty paces away.
Autumn was drunk on elf wine when she made this. The wordholewas barely legible, and the split tree, if you looked closely, wasn’t really split in two so much as it could have just been a bad drawing of a tree from a drunken girl.
Tipping my head in the direction of the trees, I hiked up my dress and began to crawl on all fours through the tall grass.
“You should have worn trousers,” Raife muttered behind me.
I scoffed. “Nonsense, I want to look pretty while pulling off a rescue,” I joked.
Trousers would have been smart, but I hadn’t even thought about it until now. The poor silk of my dress was already getting stained.
Rest in peace, beautiful dress.
We reached a cluster of four trees and I sat in front of them, still hidden in the tall grass. Raife seated himself next to me, looking down at the map. “None of them are split in half, and what does hole mean?”
I sighed. “Listen, Autumn would never intentionally lead me astray, but we were really drunk that night.”
Raife’s eyes danced with something I couldn’t place. “Yes. I remember.”
My belly warmed at the way he said it, and I wondered if we’d done something I wished I remembered.
“So maybe her drawing just wasn’t good. It has to be one of these trees.” I pointed to the four of them before us.
Raife nodded, looking perplexed. “Okay, and the word ‘hole?’ Once inside the city, it shows us coming up a storm drain. Is storm drain ‘hole’ in Autumn’s drunken language?”
This was absolutelynotthe time to giggle but I couldn’t help it. “I think it might be,” I told him, and then chewed my lip. Was there a hole in the tree with a key to the storm drain? Had she meant to finish the map but we got drunk and it slipped her mind? I wished I remembered everything from that night so that I would know. Getting on my hands and knees again, I crawled to the base of the first tree, inspecting it.
I went to the second tree but found nothing. It was as I was crawling over to the third that my hand suddenly came down to the ground and fell into a—
“Hole!” I whisper-screamed, losing balance. I threw myself to the side so I wouldn’t fall into the giant gaping hole in the ground. It was impossible to see with the tall grass surrounding it unless you were close to it, and it looked wide enough for a very large man to crawl down.
Raife crawled up beside me and we stared down into the hole. It was completely black, which was actually terrifying.
“Are we supposed to go down there?” I asked him. “Do you think this is the storm drain that leads into the city?”
Raife frowned. “I hope it’s a secret tunnel to the queen’s bedroom. I’ll slit her throat in her sleep and end this war before it starts.”
