Page 61 of A Kiss of Embers
“I already told you,” Bastien replied tightly. “Does your selective memory suffice? Or shall I repeat my story again?” A pause. And then, “Oof!”
Her fingernails dug into her palm when she realized they’d punched him in the gut. But his life wasn’t in danger. Not yet. Which meant she needed to stay hidden.
“Your table is set for three,” one of the men commented below. “Why would you need three places when only two of you live here?”
“We like to set the table for my deceased mother,” Bastien wheezed. “Which is really none of your damn business.”
“Watch your tongue, half-breed,” the man growled. “Your thin ice has officially cracked. I have a witness who has claimed they saw you sneak your Sun Fae sister into the Glades last winter. Along with the evidence we found with the hair pin in the pool… You are under arrest, you will face the council, and we will thoroughly search your home.”
“No!” Emeric sobbed. “You can’t take him. The council will see him hanged no matter if he’s innocent or not.”
The man grunted, followed by a thump on the floor. Seraphina’s eyes widened as she listened for him to get back up, to make another sound, but he didn’t.
Bastien cried out in anger. Wood broke as furniture splintered. Blades whizzed through the air. A battle raged downstairs, and she waited on the balls of her feet to rush to Bastien’s aid. She knew she should remain in her hiding spot, but her desperation for his well-being urged her to the stairs, and she descended just enough to peek her head around the corner.
Bastien stood in front of his father, who lay sprawled on the floor, taking on four other men with only a spear. One man lay on the floor. Another clutched his bleeding shoulder. But the way an older man stood behind, staring at the chaos with a grin, unnerved her.
Cranky Cricket…
Bastien’s opponent struck him in the head, and he collapsed to his hands and knees. Before he managed to get back up, the men leaped on him and wrenched his arms behind his back before tying his wrists together.
“You will breathe your last breath for this!” Bastien screeched as he thrashed against his captors. “Mark my words.”
Cranky Cricket simply chuckled darkly as he cast a shadow over Bastien. “To attack a council member, to resist arrest, will place you straight in the gallows without a trial. Tomorrow morning, you will hang.”
“Father!” Bastien shouted as the men dragged him out of his home. “Father!”
One of the men stayed behind and began rummaging through drawers and searching the house. Seraphina rushed back upstairs, searching for a place to hide. The only way to help Bastien was to not end up in the same cell as him. No matter how cozy they might find themselves.
She threw aside one of the curtains, but it wasn’t long enough to conceal her entire body. She pulled open a closet, but it was far too obvious. Beneath the bed was likely one of the first places the man would look, and not enough pillows lay on top of the mattress to thoroughly conceal her.
Realizing escaping through the window was her only option, she crossed the room in several purposeful strides but paused when the floor creaked beneath her weight.
Her gaze darted toward her feet, only to find the faintest cracks in the wood, ones she would never have noticed if she hadn’t first stepped on the creaking spot.
Footsteps sounded on the staircase as her fingers frantically searched around the cracks. One of the stairs creaked halfway up just as her finger brushed against a small divot in the wood. Soundlessly, she tugged on the wood, and it came loose. Before she had a chance to think through her actions, she leaped into the darkness, replaced the wooden cover, and held perfectly still.
Her breath hitched as Bastien’s door creaked open, and she didn’t dare breathe further when she feared the faintest sound might give away her location.
The person searching the room moved above her head, but rather than crouching and finding her hiding spot, they walked toward the window area with an obvious limp in their gait, paused, and slammed the shutters closed.
“Finally,” the man said, his voice sounding like Cranky Cricket. “You will die like you should have years ago.”
Judging by the limping gait moving above, the man thoroughly searched the room before the stairs creaked once again, and he limped back down them.
Seraphina released a tense breath from her mouth, and when she was sure the man was gone, she sparked a flame inside her hand.
And then she inhaled sharply at her surroundings.
The small hideaway was barely large enough for two people to sit in. A small table was carved from the tree on one end while a bench rested beneath it. Papers lay scattered about the table, the floor, and they were also pinned to every inch of the walls.
Black and white drawings. Colored paintings. Quick sketches. People. Lots and lots of people.
With a start, she realizedthiswas who Bastien was. Not just a skilled guard. Not just a caretaker for his father. But he was an artist. And by the looks of it, he didn’t want anyone to know.
A colored painting of a woman pinned to the wall drew her eye, this one surrounded by similar sketches and drawings of the same face with different expressions and varying poses. But in nearly every picture, the woman smiled with a radiance that rivaled the sun. Her ears were long and flat, giving away her identity as a Sun Fae. In the colored picture, the woman’s hair was blonde, and her eyes blue.
Another woman rested next to her, similar in appearance to the other woman but with an unmistakable caution in her expression. Unlike the first woman, her ears were mostly Sun Fae but with a slight droop, similar to Bastien’s.
