Unbound (The Captive #7)(59)
With that look on his face and his mouth curved into a disapproving line, he looked so much like their father that William heard the, I’m so disappointed in you, in his head without Daniel having to say it. Aria must have felt the same way as she bowed her head and folded her hands before her.
“Sorry,” she and William muttered at the same time.
Daniel gave a brisk nod before turning to William. “Unless you’re willing to stay with Braith also, then it’s best you stay here.” He gave a pointed look at Aria before continuing. “They need your skill with a bow here. We need as many vampires as we can get on this side of the palace walls, and Jack will want you here.”
William had to agree that Jack would want him here. They’d been friendly when Jack had been in the forest, pretending to be a rebel, before Jack had actually become one, but after his father had died, the two of them had become much closer.
During the time after his death, they’d leaned on each other, traveled together and fought together. Jack trusted his opinion as much as William trusted Jack’s. William knew being king was not a role Jack wanted. He would do well with it as he was kind, fair, and likeable, but Jack would chafe against the bonds being king would put him in. He would look to his friends for advice and to help keep him sane.
“You’re right,” William finally agreed, and the rigid set of Daniel’s shoulders eased.
“Good, we’ll see you soon,” Daniel said briskly.
They said good-bye to everyone before disappearing into the woods as if they’d never been there to begin with. The only sign of their passing was the still shaking pine needles, which were barely noticeable to the naked eye.
“We have to notify the palace about Sabine’s impending attack,” Aria said.
“How?” William inquired.
“We’ll fire an arrow at them,” Aria said and walked back toward the barn.
“Is she kidding?” Tempest asked.
“No, she’s not,” William replied.
CHAPTER 23
Aria
Aria drove the head of her arrow through the note she’d written onto a piece of white shirt. They’d torn the shirt into sections of rags. It was the best they could do as all of Daniel’s sketchpads were in the palace and paper wasn’t exactly the easiest thing to come across in the forest unless they made it themselves. Since she had no idea how to do that, they’d sacrificed a shirt.
She’d carefully folded the clothing into something resembling an envelope and written Melinda’s name on it with some coal dust they’d scrounged from one of the nearby caves. She was counting on Ashby and Melinda having made it safely back to the palace. On the cloth, she’d written a simple message: Attack coming to you soon from confirmed Sab. Help comes end of week, A.
She would have said less in the note, in case someone got ahold of it, read it, and later turned to Sabine’s side. However, she had to give Melinda and the others some hope that, if they held their ground, they would have help. If they didn’t have hope, they may fall to Sabine before Aria could ever do anything to help them. She also had to let them know exactly who they would be dealing with.
Beside her, William stabbed an arrow through another piece of cloth. They’d written three identical messages, one each to Melinda, Ashby, and Gideon. Hopefully at least one of the messages would be taken to the rightful addressee, and not taken as a sign of war and destroyed immediately.
Lifting a rock, she filed down the lethal point of the arrowhead. It would not fly as true, but it wouldn’t accidentally kill a bystander on the other side of the wall either. Beside her, William did the same as she prepped the note meant for Gideon.
Aria slipped from the shadows of the home they’d been hiding behind. It was situated about a hundred feet outside of the palace walls. She’d never seen the town so calm before; the stillness unnerved her almost as much as the hundreds of troops spread out across the top of the wall. However, the sight of all those men and women standing guard also heartened her. If the town was empty and the guards were more than tripled on the wall, Ashby and Melinda had definitely made it back with word of what had happened to all of them.
Aria steadied her hand as she aimed her arrow over the wall. With a twang, she released her bowstring and let it fly.
Shouts rose from the wall as the arrow cleared over the top of it. Bows spun in their direction, but she and William had already released the next two arrows and were fading into the shadows when arrows from the wall thudded into the ground where they’d been standing.
Aria pushed back the hood on her cloak and listened as more shouts echoed from the wall, but the drawbridge did not come down and the gates didn’t open. Good. She needed those within the palace to be overly cautious right now, and not looking to charge into a war when they didn’t know what awaited them.
Xavier and Tempest slipped from the shadows to join her and Willian as they gathered their things and left the town.
***
Melinda
“Milady.”
Melinda lifted her head to stare at the young king’s man hovering in the doorway of the meeting room she sat in with the members of The Council. They hadn’t told The Council about Braith, but they all knew an attack was most likely imminent and from whom. There had been no point in trying to hide it. If The Council members ever saw that woman, they would know of her power and be enraged over not being informed about the force of the threat. They may mutiny, and she couldn’t risk that happening.