He tried two doors before finding the right one for his old room. With any luck, no one had found his hiding place. Wycke knelt, running his fingers over the stones.
“Wycke? What are you doing?” Saris asked from the doorway.
“Getting something that belongs to me.” A-ha! He pulled a scabbard from beneath the floorboards and removed a gleaming sword. The leather appeared as supple as the day Wycke last touched his gift, the blade sharp thanks to ancient magic. “My guard gave this to me. Said when I was older, he’d teach me to use it.”
He stood, strapping the scabbard over his shoulder, the way his guard used to. Pausing for a moment, he closed his eyes, remembering the man who’d kept watch over him and taught him to play a game similar to human realm chess. Gone now. For what? Someone else’s greed.
Wycke had stood by helplessly while the enemy soldier ran his dearest friend through, had watched the eyes that used to twinkle in merriment dull in pain before closing for the last time.
No. Wycke didn’t remember the day the castle fell. No memories at all. He gave a hard sniff. May Saris be as blind to his unshed tears as he’d been to hers.
Saris asked no more questions when Wycke exited the room. They resumed their trek toward the main stairs.
He trod down a deserted hallway on the balls of his feet, keeping quiet. Their footprints in the dust gave them away, but using too much magic to hide their passing would be even more so. Keeping to the side of the staircase, they trundled down the stairs toward the king and queen’s living quarters. Saris paused on the second-floor landing, gazing down the hallway toward the rooms their mother once occupied. Or so Wycke imagined.
Wordlessly, Saris resumed her purposeful march, falling into step behind Wycke once more.
Even here on the main level, the dust stood thick on the floors, the prints left behind clear. Smaller than Wycke’s, so not Radre's. He vaguely recalled rugs, tapestries, silver candelabras, and a statue of a very stern-looking man who’d always made Wycke's young self feel watched.
Now bare stone showed instead of tapestries, everything of value stripped away—including the nauseating bust. Had someone wanted the hideous hunk of carved stone? He'd have paid them to take the damned ugly thing.
Where were the servants? “Saris, am I misremembering, or has the place always looked ransacked and deserted?”
Saris peered around them. “No, it hasn't. When we lived here, the castle stayed immaculate. You couldn't take two steps without meeting someone, especially this close to the great hall.” She paused by a window, shaking a moth-eaten drape with one hand, coughing when the air filled with dust. “Looks like no one's lived here in ages. I never saw the place with fewer than one hundred courtiers. I've no idea how many servants. I knew the names of at least fifty. Not counting guards and Father's ministers.”
Wycke peered into the massive room where he'd last seen his father. He remembered the family's banners, then those of the conquering king. Now the walls were bare, broken remnants of tables stacked in a jumble to one side of the room. He'd been a frightened child when he’d last been here, who'd just watched his favorite guard die. The courtiers who'd bowed for his father's favor had eyed him, some with pity, some with glee.
His entire world had righted itself when Saris had appeared, Sir Broderick at her side.
A lifetime ago. Maybe High King Broen meant his prohibition against visiting as a kindness. Wycke strode to the center of the once-elegant room, staring at a blank wall where the portrait of their mother once hung; it hung now in Saris’s rooms, the only way he’d ever seen Queen Elsinore Bertillian, regal, with a smile playing over her lips.
He hadn’t killed her.
Wycke shook himself out of his reverie. Time enough later for maudlin thoughts. He stalked past other blank spots where images of his ancestors used to look down their haughty noses. “What has Radre been doing with his time?” His voice sounded hollow, far too loud for this bare cavern of a room.
“More importantly, what has he been doing with the coin Broen allowed to help him rebuild after the war?” Saris glared, a familiar crease forming between her brows.
Wycke had often walked, or rather, run through this room, hiding behind his father's throne from his keepers. Resplendent tapestries once hung on the far wall. His tutor taught him his family's history by showing woven images of days gone by.
The entire room now reeked from disuse. The fireplaces lay cold. Frost sheened the windows. Saris joined Wycke in gazing out over the city of burned-out dwellings. Not a single gargoyle remained on the roof on this side of the castle.
He remembered fairies flitting about, iridescent wings shining in the sunlight, their tittering laughter. They'd always seemed to be laughing. His former guard loved an elf, took Wycke to meet her. Had she survived the battles? Fled with the other elves into the high reaches or another realm?
“Wha… what happened to the people?” Saris asked. “Didn't they rebuild? They couldn't all be dead.”
“Those who could, fled seasons ago,” came a voice from behind them. They both spun, Wycke pulling his sword while readying to cast a defensive spell.
A middle-aged woman stood at the door, gray streaking the auburn hair she’d pulled back into a bun. She wore a plain brown dress and brown boots.
“Ella?” Saris’s shock turned to delight and back to shock. “What happened here?”
“A war and your brother happened, Your Majesty. Departing soldiers ransacked the castle after the last battle, and the surviving courtiers returned to their own estates. The common folk don’t come here.” The woman Saris knew spat upon the floor, then flushed a deep burgundy. “My apologies. We don't practice manners in these parts anymore.”
“It's not Your Majesty. I'm Saris.” Saris turned to Wycke. “Wycke, you may not remember, but this is Ella. She worked in the kitchens.”
Ella’s bland expression shifted into confusion. “Wycke? You were just a tiny thing when last I saw you.”
Wycke gave a courtly bow. He straightened, sheathing his sword and calming his magic. Good thing he hadn't needed a spell—he'd likely have brought the whole pile of stones down on their heads.