Bailey Baz's Arc

Chapter 20 of 44

Cora led the rebels into the field before dawn. Bailey watched her ride the elk along their line, her cracked wand raised, her voice steady. She had become a general in a single night. But Bailey still lacked one thing. He knew the words to break the King's magic. He did not know where the stolen life force was kept. His words would strike empty air. An old officer waited for him at the camp's edge. Marshal Viktor Crane wore the King's dark uniform, gold on the shoulders, a red sash across his chest. His beard was white and his eyes were hard. Bailey gripped his sword. A King's man here, alone, was either a trap or a gift. "I did not come to fight a boy," Crane said. He held up empty hands. "I came because I have served that throne for thirty years, and I am done feeding it children." He studied the crest on Bailey's chest. "So the dead prince is real. Good. Then someone can finally end him." "Where does he keep the life he steals?" Bailey asked. "I can undo it. But only if I can reach it." Crane's jaw tightened. "Beneath the palace, in the deep water. There is a giant's skeleton down there, ribs like a cage. The King hides a locket inside it." He drew a shape in the mud with his boot. "A small thing, sealed with red wax. Every heir he kills, their years go into that locket. Break the locket, and the debt has nowhere to hide." Bailey felt the last piece click into place. An anchor. A thing his freeing words could strike. "There is a guardian," Crane warned. "A serpent lives in that flooded chamber. Mud-colored, with eyes like empty holes. It has drowned every thief who reached the ribs." "I have spent a hundred years in a swamp," Bailey said. "I know its creatures." Crane looked at him a long moment. Then he unbuckled his sword and offered it hilt-first. "When your sister breaks the gate, I will open the second door from the inside. My men will not fire on the prince." He almost smiled. "I have waited a long time for a reason to turn." Bailey took the sword. He turned it in his hand, then gave it back. "Keep it. You will need it more than I will." He walked to Cora and told her what Crane had said. The locket. The ribcage. The serpent. Her face went pale, then set. "Then we know where to strike," she said. "I open the palace. You go down into the water." Bailey nodded. His obstacle was gone. He had a name for the anchor and a place to find it. Now the King's stolen years had a shape his words could break. All that stood between him and the throne was a drowned serpent, and a locket sealed in blood.