Afterlight

By Adtiya Mewati

Despite being raised to hate her own existence, Sayra Green found love after she met Aaron and his family. They gave her hope in a world where everyone is segregated as worthy and unworthy.
They made her feel safe in a dystopian era where beasts prowl the land, and there are only a few walls to keep them out.
Now, after turning seventeen, Sayra commits an act which sets in motion an event that starts affecting many lives, and with things going from bad to worse, can she save the people who ones saved her?

• Language: English
• Publisher: One Point Six Technologies Pvt Ltd
• Release date: Dec 7, 2018
• ISBN: 9789388573597

Adtiya Mewati

Aditya Mewati always enjoyed storytelling. As a child, he would draw comic strips with simple stories to be read by his siblings and parents. It was not until he turned eighteen and joined engineering that he decided to take writing seriously and started learning the craft. Being a big fan of Michael Crichton, Stephen King, and J.K Rowling, he likes to write fantasy, adventure, horror and science fiction stories populated with relatable characters. He likes to do a lot of things which include, reading, writing, watching shows and Japanese animations, and enjoying the company of his philosopher friends and entertaining family in his hometown in Thane, Maharashtra.To find him on Facebook search @AdityaMewatiWrite.

Book preview

Prologue

It was nearing midnight. Jorganso didn’t like the way things had gone. Their attack had failed, and to make the matter worse, he had lost his way in the dark, baleful forest with silence so loud that it disquieted him.

He was the only one who had survived the retaliatory attack full of vehemence and gore, and thankfully he still had the special delivery with him: the package that would have changed the course of the battle—if they had gotten the chance of using it. But they didn’t, and now the thing inside his red backpack was his highest priority.

I’ll have to take it back into the city, Jorganso told himself as he hurried through damp, mist-covered floor, his eyes squinting in darkness.

He fumbled around the trunk of a vast tree, which suddenly loomed out of darkness, narrowly dodged its low hanging branch, stumbled over its gnarled root, lost his balance, somehow stopped the fall and resumed his run. The forest was cloaked in fog, and hence he was finding it very difficult to navigate his way through the thick trees that looked more like giant hands of zombies sticking out of earth than anything else. The sky was a starless, black canvas. He was also finding it hard to believe that he was actually out in the forest after sundown. He had previously never left the safety of the wall after Earth’s closest star had decided that it was a perfect time to get a little rest. People of Den called that time of the day afterlight. The word twilight was obliterated from their vocabulary decades ago.

His eyes grew wide, and a feeble smile touched his lips when he noticed the space between the trees was no longer that narrow as it had been up until now which could have meant only one thing. He was no longer in the thick woods but was near the wall. He was moving in the right direction. Good, maybe he could make it back. With that thought running through his mind, he put up his pace and at that precise moment, a gnarled old root popped out of the ground and grabbed the tip of his right foot. His right leg stopped there (as if saying, hey, wait, guys, I really want to kiss this cute piece of wood sticking out of the earth) but the remaining part of his body still seemed to be in a hurry and went forward. With his arms flailing for balance, he went down and fell hard on his face. There was a flash, and a sharp pain zoomed across his skull. His nose throbbed. His mouth tasted of dirt and blood.

Ah, in the name of my bloody king... He spat blood and mud and cursed, scrambling back to his feet. Stars were still dancing before his eyes when a prickling sensation went down his back.

Someone was watching him.

Then the small clearing he was in was filled with crackling and rustling noises. He was sure that it was not the work of the wind because there was no wind. He started walking and quickly broke into a rhythmic jog, feeling a shadow move behind him.

His Adam’s apple bobbed futilely in his throat. As he ran, dry leaves crackled underneath his boots.

Losing his comrades was one thing but losing his own life was...

You are not dying here, you fool, he said, gritting his teeth. He wished he was back in his comfortable house with his wife and his daughter, sitting before a warm fire. He was regretting the decision of not finishing the game of chess which he had been playing with his daughter before this bloody mission had started. Rose was her name, and she was just eight. She loved and yet hated the game. Loved it, because his daughter was good at it. Hated it, because she always lost against him. Of course, he could have allowed her to win whenever he wanted to, but he didn’t. He wanted her to learn that victory has to be earned. But today she was close to the success—and he had seen the enthusiasm on her face, gleam in her eyes. But the game was left unfinished, for he had a duty to do, a work to perform.

And here he was, wishing to see his daughter’s winning dance, a dance she always did when something good happened to her, a dance that filled everyone’s heart with joy. He loved his daughter and longed to see her grow up to become a kind woman like her mother. But—

More shadows floated around him. They were moving with high speed, slinking around the trees, jumping from one branch to another. He realized that he couldn’t allow them to get their hands on the special package. His family’s fate depended on it. He decided he would drop it under some bush or undergrowth and then would return to get it back in the morning when the forest would be safe to approach. In this way, even if he got caught, the package would remain safe.

So, Jorganso dropped his red backpack into the bush beneath a vast knobby tree and doubled up his speed. He looked back and tried to get the idea of the location where he had dropped the package.

Once the image of the tree was etched in his memory, he looked back ahead and skidded to stop. A huge shadow stood in front of him, blocking his path. He quickly whirled around and found another shadow standing right behind him. Then the leaves all around him began to rustle, and more shadows materialized before his eyes—he was trapped. He was doomed. His perilous journey was about to end. And this end was not going to be a happy one. He dropped to his knees, crestfallen, eyes full, hands and legs shaking. He tried to speak, but nothing came out of his mouth. His body began to shake badly as the surreal shadows started to advance on him. It occurred to him that his dream to see his daughter’s cute victory dance was going to die with him.

Please... Don’t do it, he said, cringing to the ground as they circled him. Please... PLEASE...

And even before he could realize his mistake, Jorganso, who was famous among his friends for his sharp wits and yellow teeth, was dead.

Part 1

A Heaven among Hell

I’m death, the nightmare of all,

An interminable pit where every soul is destined to fall.

I’m a monster that everyone fears,

Singer of the grim song that no one wants to hear.

I’m a wall, beyond me the notion of light ends,

A dark place where every belief of life bends.

There are people on Earth whose heart I can’t win.

I can’t help it I got a job to clean.

I’m death.

SAYRA

Sayra Green had hated herself. She sometimes had wished that she was dead, sometimes even had hoped that she was never born. She had disliked her own body. It was not that she looked like a wet heap of rags. She was pretty cute for a sixteen-year-older. Actually, she had also resented the fact that she looked good.

Yet there had been a purpose for that hatred, a rather sad purpose.

She had hated herself, just, because her parents hated her.

But things had changed. He had changed her.

This story starts with her. It begins when one beautiful morning—when the sun was just a quarter of an hour away from making its grand entry—Sayra decided to sneak out of her bedroom window.

The sky was still dark when she drew open the drapes and looked out. Her room was on the first floor, and her window faced toward east.

She glanced behind her at the door that connected to the little corridor beyond and then climbed out on the window’s ledge, taking one careful step after another. The street below her was still doused in darkness, and the silence was malefic. There was no sign of any life.

Sayra chanced a glance behind her and suddenly took a bold leap from the window and alighted on the small, tapered wall that stood in between the narrow front porch and the paved street. She almost lost her footing. Pinwheeling her arms, she somehow managed to regain her balance and safely landed on the cobbled, cold path just a few feet below the wall. When the first time she had done it, she had been scared to her death. But now jumping from the first floor didn’t seem that scary to her. In fact, she had taken a liking to it. She had taken a liking to thrills.

She took a deep breath and waited, allowing her racing heart to calm down. When her heart had stopped racing, and her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she looked back at the house, grinned and started running.

She ran without stopping. Not seeing where her feet were taking her as she already knew about it. This had become her routine task. She ran through the labyrinth of Den’s twisting streets for the next ten minutes. Her heart throbbed from pumping blood into her veins. Her legs pleaded her to stop.

But she didn’t.

Soon she was in the southern section of Den. A disused, grey, weather-beaten, stone tower rose before her. She stopped in front of its ivy-covered, arching window and regained her breath.

God, her lungs were burning. She doused them by taking a huge gulp of air. She glanced around her, and after making sure that no one was looking at her, she climbed onto the threshold and propelled herself into the darkness. Inside, she groped the air and found the old stone ladder. The smell of decaying moss hung in the air.

She began climbing.

The tower was among the oldest building in the city, mostly made up of giant square rocks. It was a watchtower, and according to the people of Den, it had retired from its job when the city had begun to grow so vast that the denguards on the tower could no longer see beyond the walls. Now it was nothing but a dilapidated stone building, overgrown with ivy, and with its wall defaced.

Sayra climbed, and a few moments later she reached atop the tower. The sky on the east side was now glowing a little, a slightly pinkish glow.

The sun will be soon up. She looked around. There was no sign of her partner-cum-teacher.

Idiot, where are you? Sayra told no one in particular.

She looked at the wooden panels where her training equipment sat concealed. She sighed, shook her head and gazed about. The beautiful city of Den stretched all around her. Although the year was 2106 AD, the structure and the design of the buildings in Den looked surprisingly old. The City of Den itself looked like a mild, futuristic version of ancient Rome when it was under the rule of Julius Caesar. This was because the majority of the technology was lost when a terrible plague had almost whipped out humanity from the face of the earth.

The flat rooftops of the square houses, which were only constructed from stone, clay, and wood, were occasionally neighboured by domes and gable roofs. And from her vantage point, the twisting and turning streets of Den were unseeable. Huge forty feet walls, with full tops, bordered the city, protecting its inhabitants.

Sayra looked behind her and could easily see the southern wall, the electric fencing above it and the denguards standing on the towers with their huge machine guns. Some of them were patrolling on the walkway (a sort of rampart) above the wall. If anyone of them turned and looked at the old tower, he or she could easily see Sayra. But she was not afraid of getting caught because they seldom looked inside the city. The real threat was outside the wall, not inside it. What kind of threat? Well...

Where in the world are you? Sayra said aloud for the umpteenth time, anger boiling in her veins.

She gazed at the southern gate which was still closed. Most of the people thought the city was circular. Very few people knew that it was sort of triangular with curved edges and sides. The first time she had seen this scenery, she was only eight. At that time, the vastness of Den had been hard to comprehend. But today it felt remotely impressive to her. With the tallest building (the old tower) only four floors tall and population of only nine-hundred, the city no longer looked that huge. But it still seemed serene. After all, it was her city.

The beautiful city of Den.

Den, heaven among hell.

Her anger effaced when a breeze came and ruffled her dark brown hair. Her honey tanned skin glimmered in the pale morning light.

Sayra sighed and waited for her partner. When he didn’t show up, she started practicing on her own. She practiced for the next half an hour. When she saw the sun was somewhat above the forest, she hid her equipment and descended the tower.

She started back to her house, and on her way back, she saw that many people of Den had begun their morning chores.

The air felt warm now.

Sayra snuck back into her room and jumped on her bed. She had just pulled the covers up to her chin when a rap on the door pealed into her ears.

She knew who was on the other side of the door. Her witch-mother.

I’m up, Sayra yelled but didn’t leave the bed.

How can I believe you when I haven’t seen your bloody face? Mrs. Green snapped.

But you did hear me, Sayra thought. Rolling her eyes comically, she threw the covers away and walked over to the door. She opened it and Mrs. Green, her witch-mother, stomped in with an old hamper tucked under her arm. She gazed at Sayra from head to toe, and her eyes stopped at Sayra’s hands.

Why are your hands dirty?

Bewildered, Sayra looked down at her hands, and her heart skipped a beat.

Damn. Because her partner had not shown up in practice, she had forgotten to clean her hands which always got dirty while climbing the ladder. Her partner always reminded her to wash them.

Busted, Sayra thought. It’s all over.

AARON

Aaron placed his hand on Tara’s head and felt her body temperature. Her body was fuming. It felt as if he was keeping his hand on smoldering coals. Aaron winced and slowly raised his palm. Tara looked at him, alarmed.

Is it really that bad? she asked him in a feeble voice.

He hated seeing his little sister in pain. She was an eleven-year-old, cheerful girl, and he always wanted her to stay that way. He sat by her bed and stroked her hair. No, he said, You’ll make it.

Then why did you cancel your training sessions with Sayra? Tara asked, frowning, and pointed her admonitory finger at him.

He laughed and gently punched her forehead. How can I leave you?

Her eyebrows grew narrow, and her lips protruded outward. This usually meant that she was either irritated or angry. Their mother always said that Tara could hold her angry face for a whole day. But this time, she only held the expression for a few seconds. Her cheeks were dry and hollow, her skin pale white.

Don’t laugh, she snapped, but he had already stopped laughing.

Or—

Or what? he asked, barely hiding his amusement.

Or I’ll tell mom that you are still giving Sayra fighting sessions.

He gazed at her.

What? she snapped.

Nothing, he said. He was a bit surprised to see Tara behaving so bold in such ailing condition. He realized she no longer was that two-year-old girl who had flooded the whole house by her tears on the day the news of their father’s death had reached them.

The door to Aaron’s right opened, and Mrs. Star stepped in, brandishing her wristwatch.

It’s already seven, she said, Med Drokvo will be awake by now.

Aaron nodded and got up. Except for Mrs. Star, everyone in the family had dark black hair. She was the only blond one in the house.

Can you walk to the clinic? Aaron asked Tara.

She gave a perfunctory nod. Yes...

But Mrs. Star cut her off. No way. You are not walking anywhere, lady.

Maybe I can carry her to the med? Aaron said. But Mrs. Star stared at him as if he had uttered the most stupid thing in the morning which he later believed he had.

Just bring the med here, Mrs. Star said, pausing between each word, throwing daggers at him with her eyes.

I can walk, Tara said and made a futile attempt to sit straight on her bed. She winced and took back her resting position. But I have no problem with the idea of the old man walking here.

I’ll be back with the med, Aaron said and then felt a sudden urge to tickle his sister.

Maybe, this is not the right time, he thought and left the room.

Outside, the air was warm and pleasant, golden sun rays slanting across the cobbled road. He looked to his left and saw a woman walking down the street with her child at her side. Above him, on the first floor, a little girl was singing the song as she watered the plants. Her voice was sweet and melodious. The bells pealed somewhere on his right, and he looked at the source and saw the milkman riding up on his bicycle.

He caught a tantalizing whiff of freshly cooked omelet and cheese and remembered he had not eaten anything from the morning. His stomach growled, but he forced the thoughts about food out and focused on the job in hand.

He walked down the steep road and then rounded a corner. He had barely entered Mantersen Street and was about to walk past a house but stopped when he heard the noise of a woman shouting at the top of her voice. He could quickly tell that the voice belonged to Mrs. Green, Sayra’s Witch-mother. He looked up incredulously and gazed at Sayra’s bedroom window. The curtains were fluttering idly in the wind.

Many other people on the street were also looking at her window. Aaron felt lucky that his mother never shouted like that. He wanted to stand there and hear what the quarrel was about. Then go up and talk with Sayra and suggest her different ways of killing her mother and getting away with it. But he had a job to do. There was no time for him to enumerate all the great murdering-ideas he had in his mind.

If omelet and cheese could wait, so could the death of Mrs. Green.

That wretched woman really needs to take a break, Aaron thought, shaking his head, and went on to the next street. As he walked, something heavy jangled in his pants pocket. Aaron saw that it was a nail cutter. He had been cutting his nails when his mother had asked him to go and check Tara’s fever. Aaron looked at the fingers of his right hand. His nails looked a little dirty. Aaron wriggled the stump of his amputated right index finger, shrugged and pushed the nail-cutter back into the pocket.

The clinic was still closed. So, he decided to check out the med’s house.

After five minutes or so he reached the med’s house and climbed up the porch. He pressed the doorbell and waited. No one came to open the door.

What the hell.

He was about the ring the bell for the second time when his eyes caught the glint of sunlight that reflected off a metal lash. The door was locked from the outside.

Damn me, he thought and looked around, and saw a man looking stupidly at him.

Before Aaron could ask anything, the man said. Denguards took the med with them.

Where?

The man looked at him as if he had said the second most stupid thing of the morning. He again realized that he had. Where could denguards take the med? Of course, to the...

Palace, the man said. They took him to the king’s palace. Princess Gotbear got her knees bruised.

Damn her, he thought. Aaron still had no idea why did the king name his daughter—got a beer?

Now he was stuck in a severe dilemma. There were in total three med clinics and one hospital in Den. He perfectly knew that his family would not be able to afford the hospital’s expenses. And he didn’t trust the remaining two meds. That meant he will have to go to the king’s palace and wait for Med Drokvo.

Wearing an expression of a depressed gambler who had lost all his money and also his clothes, Aaron Star set off for the palace.

The palace was the second tallest building after the old tower and was the hugest of all. Build in the heart of the town, it was the right place for the king to hang around, party and control the town’s politics. It was a ‘C’ shaped building, wholly made up of white marbles, with electrified fences all around it.

The gates were open, and two denguards were guarding it. The denguards asked him his reasons for meeting the king. He told them that he had no intentions of meeting a potbellied-dumb (He didn’t really say that. He just imagined himself saying those words). He told them that his sister was taken ill and he wanted to see the med. They nodded and checked whether he was carrying any weapons and then admitted him inside the palace. They confiscated his nail cutter before allowing him in like he could actually kill the king by cutting his nails.

Aaron went through the sizeable vaulted foyer and saw the med sitting on a sofa by the stairs.

Med Drokvo, he shouted, hurrying toward the old man.

The old man feebly smiled at him. With a balding head and overgrowing white beard, Med Drokvo had an air of a man who had lost everything in his life. Oh, Aaron, what brought you here?

You, Aaron said, grinning, happy that at last he had found the man. Now he can happily go back and have his breakfast.

Hmm? Med Drokvo’s eyebrows knitted together.

It’s Tara. She is damn ill. You’ll have to come with me.

The med shook his head. I can’t leave without seeing the princes, without mending her bruises.

Then get done with it. Tara is very ill.

I can’t. I haven’t seen the princess yet. They told me that I’ll have to wait.

Aaron rubbed his forehead. How long

Well, Med Drokvo said, simpering, she is the princess. It can even take an hour.

BEN

Ben was mopping the sauce off the plate with his tongue when he heard his mother shout at his older sister. He kept his plate on the table, pushed back his chair, got up and started for the stairs.

He ascended the stairs, with his sneakers thudding on the wood. On the first floor, he saw his mom quarreling with Sayra. And seeing them, a smile crossed his face.

Ben always enjoyed seeing his parents fighting with Sayra. It was not that he had anything against her. Ben liked his sister. He just regarded it as his source of entertainment. Ben had this morbid fascination of watching people fight, quarrel or even kill each other. He had even secretly seen a public execution when he was just nine years old and was surprised by the fact that he had actually enjoyed it. Since then, surreptitiously watching the public hangings had become his prerogative. Queer, yes, but fun—until it was not happening to him, of course. For him, doing these things and getting away with them was nothing but perfect crimes.

He walked across the hallway and stopped at the door that was standing ajar, making sure that he was out of their sight or his mom would order him to go back into his room. And that would ruin his seemingly happy morning.

Tell me now, Mrs. Green was bawling.

I don’t know... Sayra said, biting her lips. Her peach-color dress was soaked in sweat. Her hair was awry.

You are a liar. Mrs. Green roared. Her face was completely red. It resembled more to an angry red tomato than to a human face.

Then, in the shafts of sunlight that poured in through the window, he caught Sayra’s dirty hands, and a sharp realization struck him like a deadly arrow that had left the bow with only one intention. To kill.

I’m going to have one hell of a morning, he thought, grinning.

Mom... Sayra started.

Mrs. Green raised her hand as her eyes grew wide. Ben knew what that meant. It meant that something good was about to happen. Usually, good for him meant disastrous for Sayra, and today was going to be no different.

You... You... Mrs. Green stammered. You were out there with him. She was shouting as if her hair were on fire.

No, Sayra said. You are mistaken. Her eyes were wide in panic.

Stupid old Sayra, Ben thought and shook his head. Can’t keep her calm. How will she ever commit a perfect crime if she continued to act like this?

Shut up! You bitch, Mrs. Green snapped. You were practicing... Even after we said no... You were PRACTICING.

Bingo, Ben thought. You are smart, mom. You only took two months to guess that.

Yes, Sayra said. I was practicing without your knowledge. But I did it alone. He was not with me.

What a big idiot, Ben thought. He shook his head.

Like, I’m going to believe you. Mrs. Green hurtled the hamper onto the floor, sending a good smattering of dirty clothes to fly around the room, and took a hostile step towards Sayra. I’m going to teach that a boy a real lesson. Are you listening to me? He will regret corrupting my daughter’s mind.

She turned and thundered toward Ben. He quickly jumped behind the door and pressed himself against the wall. Mrs. Green tore past him and descended the stairs. Sayra came running out of the room and followed her down the stairs, pleading her to stop.

Ben stood in the first-floor hall, pondering whether he should go or not? The hell with it. He should go. Nothing could deter him from making this morning an eventful morning. And smiling like an evil cat who somehow managed to corner a poor little mouse, he began to follow in their wake.

ALASTAIR

Lord Alastair Dragback climbed off his bed and made his way across the hall. His room was huge—an enormous, plush four-poster bed sat in the center of the linoleum floor, and variety of paintings were festooned on the walls. A canvas, an easel, three brushes and more than two dozens of color-jars were huddled in one corner. He had been painting a night version of Den before going to bed. He had left it unfinished as sleep had begun to take over him. Alastair glanced at his half-finished painting, promised himself that he will finish it tonight, and walked over to the window.

He stared at the sky, which was an unblemished blue, as bright as the sky could get. The sun was up. He concluded he had slept more than his usual sleeping hours. A bitter feeling climbed in his throat. Was he becoming lazy? No. He had just overslept.

That would not happen again.

Promise.

Being a cousin of the prince had many benefits, and also had many downfalls. One of the benefits-plus-downfalls was that no one would barge in your room and will shake you out of your sleep even when they knew that you were an early riser.

When his mother was alive, she had always awakened him well before the daylight hours. He was just a six years old boy then. His mother had said to him that royal blood gets easily corrupted by laziness, and if he didn’t want to get lazy, he’d have to keep his body moving. Then, after saying that line, she had caressed his hair.

He stared up at her emerald-green eyes and frowned. Why mother? he asked, while she gently rocked him. What’s wrong with being lazy? Then, after a moment of thought. I like sleeping.

She laughed, mostly at his innocence. Because you are Prince’s only cousin, and one day the prince would become a king, and like all the other kings, he would become lazy. He will need help. The help of an active general like you!

Oh. The frown on his face leached away, and a proud smile took its place. I’ll become a great general.

She stopped rocking and stared at him, her expression turning grim. You know what thing makes people the most active?

He swallowed and shook his head.

Her eyes grew wide, and for a moment alarm filled his heart, but then the smile on her mother’s face returned. It is tickle! she said and started tickling him.

No mother, he said, laughing, screaming and crying. N... No.

Tickle Tickle, she roared and laughed along with him.

There came a long gong, and it forced him out of his reverie. His mother was no longer in this world, but her lessons had stayed with him. He was not that little boy who had cried and laughed when his mother tickled him. He was seventeen now. Handsome, his body was slender but still had the strength of a wrestler, his eyes were emerald-green, just like his mother and his head was covered with strands of dirty blond hair that glimmered in the sun and likewise in the moon.

Alastair dropped his eyes and looked at the lawn below him. More than two dozens of soldiers patrolled along the fence-walls. Two gardeners, one a grown man and the other a teenage boy, were quietly working on the hedges. The garden was teeming with colorful flowers. He was about to turn away from the window, but stopped, when he spotted two people hurrying toward the gates. One of them he recognized quickly. It was the boy named Aaron who studied with Alastair, and he was an outstanding fighter. The guy next to him—it took Alastair some time to recognize him— was Med Drokvo.

Maybe someone in Aaron’s house is ill, he thought. He heard growing footsteps and whirled around. The sound was coming from the hallway beyond the shut door. He walked over to the door, opened it a crack, and peered into the gloomy corridor. Three figures whizzed past him. Startled, he toppled back to the ground.

He quickly climbed back to his feet and swung opened the door. In the hall, he caught a tantalizing glimpse of three men before they disappeared around the corner. Two of them were denguards, and the guy in the center, by the look of his uniform, was General Dastan. Excitement wrapped up around his heart like a python wrapping around its prey. Something is going on, Alastair thought and ran up to the corner where they had disappeared.

He rounded the corner but didn’t see anyone ahead of him. So, he redoubled his pace.

A few seconds later, he saw them turning another corner and heading toward the king’s room. Trepidation rose in his throat. The excitement was now completely immutable. The general meeting with the king in his room rather than in the court meant that the business was serious, and more importantly, it was meant to be kept a secret.

Both the guards stopped outside the king’s room while General Dastan went through the threshold, closing the double-doors behind him.

Alastair stood a few feet away from them, thinking. He knew what he should do next. But he didn’t know whether doing that was necessary for him. But if he didn’t find out what’s going on, the curiosity will kill him like it had killed the cat.

So, he walked past the guards, ignoring their stares, acting like he didn’t know that General Dastan was inside.

The prince’s room was right next to the king’s. Alastair stepped in front of its door, and hoping that his brother would be still sleeping, he pushed open the bronze door. At first, the door didn’t budge, and he thought the door was shut from inside. But he tried again, and it swung open.

His brother, the prince of Den, was still sleeping—thank God for small favors. Alastair tiptoed across the room toward the wall that stood between his uncle’s and his brother’s room and pressed his ear against the cold, scarlet surface. He heard nothing. He sighed and looked around.