Young Writers Society

Kai’s heart pounded in his chest as he waited several minutes after midnight had struck. Still, no sign of Rieka, and still, no movement from their guard.

When he was sure his skin would explode with inaction, the door to the dungeons squealed open and heavy footfalls resounded down to greet him.

The boy guard spun on his heels, eyes searching the dim staircase. “Zaviti sibya!” the guard shouted up.

“Ranik Ivana,” the intruder shouted back. Rieka.

Kai’s heart stuttered in his chest—with relief or more nerves, he didn’t know. If there truly was no guard change at midnight, then Rieka’s presence might only instill more suspicion.

She came into view, marching down the last few steps. She was dressed in the stolen Styrkish armor, and while she filled it out well, it wasn’t tailored to her and thus was awkward on her form. An axe was strapped to her hip, the hilt long and wooden with a wicked, curved blade. With the dim torches the only light source to illuminate her face, she looked every part the Styrkish warrior—harsh, commanding, and ruthless. She looked far more capable than the boy who now guarded them.

“A vyt?” Rieka barked out, the question more of a command.

“Ranik Borja,” the guard said, his voice shrinking beneath the obvious authority Rieka exuded. He spewed out something else in Styrkish, the harsh words running together. Rieka responded in turn, her words a stab. Though Kai could not understand much of it—even if Ambrose had tried to teach him the basics of Styrkish when they were children—he knew the basis of the conversation. The boy—Borja—questioned Rieka’s presence. And Rieka made him feel the fool for doing so.

When the conversation didn’t seem close to budging, Ren piped up from his cell. “A little dispute on who will be watching over me, I presume?” he crooned. “You can both stay. My face is a lovely one and I’ve been told it’s quality entertainment to simply stare at it.”

Borja glanced back uncomfortably, his eyes barely skimming over Ren’s cell. Whatever inner dilemma he had been having seemed to cease and he turned back to Rieka and spoke with a jerky nod. Rieka’s brows lifted and as he brushed past her and up the staircase, she sagged with obvious relief.

When the door slammed shut behind Borja, she immediately stalked to Ren’s cell, tossing two lockpicks she had stuffed in her pocket. They clanged noisily against the stone floor.

“Don’t act so relieved, Rieka,” Ren spoke as he shuffled for the picks. Kai strained to lean forward and watch them, but the manacles were too restricting. “Someone with nothing to hide isn’t relieved when others come to that realization.”

“No one’s here to see,” she bit back.

“Not now, at least.” Kai heard the clicking of those pins against a lock then the clatter as the chains fell from Ren’s wrists.

“He relented too easily,” Rieka mused as Ren began to work on his cell door. “No decent warrior would leave their position with only the words of another guard to order it.”

“Warriors are humans,” Ren said, a shrug in his words. “Even humans grasp at the chance to leave uncomfortable situations, even if they had been trained not to.”

Rieka’s lips quirked as she stared at an undoubtedly grinning Ren. “You made him feel uncomfortable, didn’t you.”

The door to Ren’s cell squealed open as he said, “And look where it got us: You are here and that guard is not.”

Kai’s brows rose. So Ren’s words had all been intentional. It wasn’t just misplaced humor, but rather the right words to poke at the young guard’s religious fears. It didn’t hurt that the guard placed to watch them was also young and inexperienced.

Ren came into view beyond the iron bars of Kai’s cell. He grinned at him, his eyes twinkling.

“You look ecstatic, dear Kai,” Ren said, placing the picks within the cell door’s locks.

“Switching guard positions worked for Rieka, but I doubt it will for Ambrose,” he responded.

“Then I suppose we should hurry.” The cell door sprung open and Kai adjusted himself, giving Ren access to the manacles on his wrists. The metal shifted against his skin as Ren worked.

“As long as the prince isn’t down here, we still have time,” Rieka said, shifting on her feet as her eyes watched the dungeon’s entrance.

The manacles released from Kai’s wrists and he was instantly on his feet, massaging the sore skin there.

“Let’s go,” he said, brushing out of the cell and towards the staircase. A hand stopped him, the grip weak on his shoulder. Kai turned to glance down at Ren.

“Why don’t we let darling Rieka go first,” he said, his eyes shifting to the door over Kai’s shoulder. “I doubt any warriors will ignore a tall Larabosi man bursting out of the dungeons.”

Kai nodded, his neck stiff. He was right, of course, yet all Kai could see was Ambrose being discovered, bound, and sent to the dungeons. Once that happened, there was little chance Ambrose would escape alive. Little chance any of them would escape alive.

However, he ordered his nerves to not interfere with his body. He could wait. He could be patient. He could allow Rieka to check each corner before following behind. He could keep his cool. He could—would—do it all because he needed to.

Rieka stepped around him and eased the door open, peering up the staircase that wound through the tunnel. She waved a hand for them to step forward.

Once in the staircase, the smooth, circular walls encompassing them wasn’t enough to protect him from the vulnerability that washed over his skin. There would be branched off exits all throughout the tunnel, leading either into chambers within the fortress or segments of the walls. Each branch would contain prospective eyes that could notice them.

As they came across the first exit that extended from the staircase, Rieka walked steadily by, attempting to gaze beyond with a casual demeanor. When she kept walking, both Kai and Ren took that as a sign that they wouldn’t be seen.

Once the open doorway passed, Ren hissed, “With the gold we all make from this, you should take some acting classes.”

Rieka scowled. “I won’t need to act at all with that sum of gold.”

Ren grinned. “I suppose not. At that point you could just bribe anyone out of anything you want.”

“Now’s not the time for this conversation,” Kai muttered under his breath.

Ren gave him a look, which Kai ignored.

They fell into an unsteady rhythm with Rieka taking the lead and checking every passageway and Kai and Ren following silently behind. Kai made sure to watch their rear for any entering guards, but the tower echoed every footfall that he was sure he would hear them long before he saw them.

While three floors up didn’t seem like much, the ceilings must’ve been high for after several moments of walking, Kai’s thighs began to burn. The beat of his heart only continued to increase—though not from exertion. Instead, his body reacted to the anxieties that he refused to dwell on. While he kept his thoughts focused on their tasks, his stomach churned and his heart pounded. He almost expected to enter the third floor and find Ambrose gone, already locked in a cell below.

However, when they reached the third floor, Rieka paused, peering into the wide chamber. She held up a hand for Kai and Ren to stay as she entered, her shoulders straightening—the stance of a soldier.

“Zaviti sibya!” a feminine voice ordered from beyond the doorway. Definitely not Ambrose.

“Ravnik Ivana,” Rieka responded. She began speaking to the warrior in rapid Styrkish, their quips bouncing back and forth like a game of catch.

Eventually, the woman huffed, and her feet pounded on the stone as she made her way to the tunnel. Fortunately, from some blessing of the gods, she chose to exit the third floor through the opposing staircase rather than the one they were in.

Rieka’s blonde hair flashed as she leaned her head into the stairwell and waved Kai and Ren through.

Ambrose stood in the center of the large foyer, his fingers knit together. The foyer was a grand hall where government meetings and trials took place, the wide chamber filled with chairs placed in semi-circles, a line at the end, and then one head chair for the Chief beyond it. It was a meeting place of each tiered political voices, much like those within Arlan’s palace. Only the Arlanians had far fewer voices upon its council and even fewer advisors for those councilmen. Even in his limited tutoring, Kai knew Styrka’s government was nothing like Arlan’s. They didn’t have Lords, officials, and clerics that advised the King, but rather representatives from across the country, a council elected by those representatives, and a Chief with limited power.

Kai couldn’t help but ponder what each voice in their complex government would deem as his sentence should he be caught. Despite there being over a hundred chairs lined precisely in the open foyer, Kai didn’t doubt each representative and councilman would deem him guilty. Guilty of doing the gods’ work. While he was sure in this assessment, he didn’t know whether to feel disagreement with it or understanding. Naturally, the former was more fit, so he decided the former was what he would feel. His mind was not good at convincing his heart, however.

“The guard would not leave without a certified order, so I compromised to take my position of guard with her present. I had no other options,” Ambrose said, his eyes darting between them. Ren didn’t bother acknowledging him as he hurried past to the archives door and pulled on the handle. Locked. He stuck his picks in the lock and lowered his head in concentration as he worked.

“It’s fine,” Kai said, clapping Ambrose on the shoulder. “There was no shift change at midnight, so compromises had to be made.”

“If you had a spine, maybe she would’ve left sooner,” Rieka grumbled.

“No, it would have only reinforced her obstinance,” Ambrose said. “With you backing up my claim, it makes the orders I claimed seem more reliable. Though she will no doubt be clarifying those orders with her superior officer. We do not have much time before she returns knowing the scam.”

“Usually when I’m short on time, I act quickly rather than stand around and chat,” Ren said from across the room, the wooden door to the archives opened wide. Ambrose and Rieka hurried towards it, Kai on their heels.

The archives were a narrow chamber with overflowing cabinets reaching for the ceilings. There was a singular desk in the center, piled with papers, transcripts, and documents all scrawled with the boxy characters of Styrkish. Ambrose, Ren, and Rieka began rummaging through file after file, Ren clambering up a thin ladder that reached to the upper cabinets.

Kai began to shuffle through the papers within the desk, none of the words ones he could understand. Not that it mattered. He would recognize blueprints regardless of the language they were in.

After several moments of searching and finding nothing, Rieka pulled out a thin children’s book, the cover worn from use, a dull drawing of a dragon upon it.

Ren glanced down at her from the ladder. “Now is not the time for sentimentality,” he said, dropping a few files back into the cabinet and shoving it closed.

Rieka ignored him and opened the book, holding it upside down. A folded parchment fluttered to the ground. She tossed the book aside and lifted it, unfolding the creases to show the layout of the mountain. The ink was faded and smudged, the blueprints likely centuries old.

“No way,” Ren muttered, sliding down from the ladder and landing silently on his toes. “No fucking way. They keep it in a children’s book?”

“It’s a common story about the sword and how it came to be,” Rieka said by way of explanation. She glanced around to each of their faces and tucked the paper into a pocket beneath her armor. “Let’s go.”

They shoved out of the cramped archives, clicking the door behind them. Kai’s nerves were beginning to ease—they were nearly complete in their heist after all—yet his heart stopped then started with renewed fervor the minute he turned back to the foyer.

And found a woman standing in the center, her eyes wide upon Rieka.