Heavy snowfall blanketed the world in white as two dark figures trudged across the deserted town square. The full moon, their only guide save for the bawdy tune being sung in the ramshackle tavern ahead of them, made the snow glow an eerie blue color. The tavern, its windows alight with the golden flames of candles, was the only establishment on the entire street still open. The two wrapped their cloaks tightly around themselves as they hurried towards the promised warmth of the tavern ahead.

Cassius and his brother, still wearing their full uniforms, stomped their boots on the wooden porch outside the tavern. The rickety wooden platform was less of a porch and more of a ledge that barely jutted out from under the building at the front door. Cassius was surprised it could even hold his weight, let alone both his and his twin brother’s weight. An awning riddled with holes, and tattered from the sun and wind, barely shielded them from the quickly forming blizzard. Cassius put a gloved hand to the Tavern door, it quickly swung open. The wind slammed it against the wall and snow drifted in, onto the stained wooden floors. The door’s chipped paint and cracks in the wood did little to stave off the winter chill.

A roaring fire lit up and warmed the tavern. With a swift kick of a black heavy boot, Callum slammed the tavern door shut, behind them. All eyes fell on the two black-masked royal guards standing in the doorway. Their cloaks dusted in snow. The tavern fell quiet for a moment before it erupted into laughter and drunken shouts.

The entire establishment was filled with almost every member of Prince Thidal’s personal guard. The Prince had an entire company of soldiers under his command. All of them were here. Cassius had never seen so many soldiers in the personal guard of any royal. Usually, they kept only a Squad or Platoon with them.

Prince Thidal did nothing small. In the last year alone, the Prince had almost doubled the number of males in his guard. Cassius was honestly surprised that no one in the palace seemed to care or notice that those protecting the Crowned Prince now outnumbered even the King’s personal guard.

Cassius was too tired to stop and drink or even mingle with his fellow guards. A few of the males had become his friends in the short time he had worn the black mask.

It was easy for him to make friends, even though he preferred the silent company of his brother. He spotted their small friend group towards the far end of the bar.

Cassius could have left his mask on, but he knew Liam had already spotted them. Liam had befriended Cassius on his first day as a member of the royal guard. Cassius was thankful to remove the stuffy mask, now that he was inside. He pulled it from his face and tucked it carefully under his arm.

It was an equalizer of sorts to the royal guards. Few, if any of the Prince’s guards were wholly human. But, with the masks, no one could easily tell that they were not. In Kilian, it made all the difference in the world. They were not half-bloods, mutts, or Etherie freaks with the masks on. With the masks, they were the Crowned Prince’s royal guard. Fierce, loyal, and strong. No one sneered as they passed. No one refused them service. Not as long as they had that mask and uniform.

“Hey!" Liam shouted to them from across the room. The lanky boy of a halfling leaned off his wobbly bar stool as he extended a hand in the air to the twins. Beside him, two equally uneven and dirty bar stools sat open at the small table. A miracle in the overcrowded bar.

This was only their second night here. The first night the tavern below the inn had run completely out of ale. The barrels of alcohol lining the far wall of the tavern suggested the same mistake would not occur tonight. Cassius had seen the panic in the poor inn owner’s eyes the night before. The inn owner had expected violence. But, when the ale had run out, the males, as Cassius now referred to them, that made up the royal guard did not turn on their host. Instead, they began to peacefully wander back to their rooms. The few that remained, circled round to tell stories. Two males even returned to share the liquor they had brought with them from the capital.

Their reaction had surprised more than just the owner of the small inn. Cassius was sorry to admit that the incident had surprised him too. His opinion of his fellow guards had forever changed. No longer were they men, in his mind. Now they were true males.

The distinction was important in Etherie culture. It was the culture he had grown up in. While he despised many things about where he came from and the social rules that the Etherie had, the distinction of being called a male was something he cherished above all else. It was an honor, not a right.

Cassius gave a half-hearted smile to Liam in response slowly shaking his head no before giving a pointed look up the stairs.

Liam seemed to understand. The male turned to the group he was with and laughed at a joke that Cassius could not hear.

As the brothers walked in silence, they politely nodded to the other royal guards leaving the inn and heading off to their shifts. Even if Cassius could have stayed for a few drinks, his shift at the prison had physically and emotionally drained him. He was in no mood or condition to paste a false smile on his face and drink the night away with the other guards.

If he was honest, what he had witnessed and heard in that prison made hims feel physically ill. Worse was that none of the other guards, save for Callum, seemed bothered by it. Their indifference to the suffering of the Etherie prisoners made the knowledge that these guards were his enemy almost easier to swallow.

He had seen them turn and follow orders like a switch had been turned in their minds. He wondered how a human Prince could inspire such loyalty in his guards? He had never heard a single one of them speak poorly of the crowned prince. And never seen them disobey an order. It was almost inspiring if it had not been so unsettling. He wondered if they obeyed out of loyalty or fear.

‘So you have noticed it too,’ Callum’s words were audible in his mind. Callum barely used the small amount of magic he had to speak. It used up too much energy if he did it too often.

Cassius had even less magic than his brother did, and had no energy to reply. So, he simply nodded yes. The weight of those thoughts and of the day's work wore on him as he picked up his heavy feet and climbed the questionably made stairs. Each step Cassius took made the stairs creak loudly.

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Two flights up and down one extremely narrow hall and they were at their room. They had no orders to stay in their rooms, or on the property. They could leave and wander the town freely if they wished. But, with the heavy snowfall, and lack of activities save for the single town tavern that was under their feet, most of the guards stayed in the building. That was if they were not working in the prison.

Cassius often wondered, on the trip here and all day during his shift patrolling the prison, why on earth the Prince’s personal guard was even here. It did not take this many guards to keep one man safe. Yet, here they were. Cassius knew he was too low-ranking to question the orders. But that had not stopped it from bothering him.

Cassius looked both ways down the small vacant hall. His curved ears listening for the sound of footsteps. The halls were silent. Using the side of his foot, Cassius knocked twice on the bottom of the door. Again, there was no sound. Cassius released a breath he did not realize he was holding as the distinct sound of the door’s lock clicked open.

He said nothing as he twisted the handle of the door and slipped into the dark room beyond. His brother following, quickly shutting the door and locked it behind them. There was absolute silence in the darkness around them save for the wind whipping through the snow outside.

Cassius knew they were no longer in the inn above the tavern. He had felt Valen’s magic push through him as he activated her spell and walked through the portal.

Before he could say a word or move, the sharp cold feeling of a dagger being pressed to his neck made him freeze.

“Lower your blade,” Cassius hissed into the blackness. Even his fae sight could not see through the shadows around them. He knew it was Valen’s magic blinding him. He could not even see the glow of the moon behind them at the cave’s entrance.

“Damn it, Valen, lower your blade,” he struggled to keep his voice steady. The witch’s long obsidian nails brushed his neck where her blade had been only moments before. Small orbs of floating flame appeared, illuminating the cave with their warm smokeless fire.

“You forgot the password,” she hummed in amusement. Witches were a strange breed of Etherie, and Valen was stranger than most. Her nail scraped across the black obsidian blade. She flipped it in her hand before shoving it back into its hilt.

The witch was a beauty and a terror to behold. It was like the beauty of a dragon. Marvelous, yet horrible at the same time. All witches bore marking that told of their power. Cassius had never seen another witch with markings like Valen’s. Nor had he ever met a witch with power like Valen’s, granted he had not met many witches. Several small dark brown markings circled her fingers, usually hidden by gloves. Three small circles crowned the top of her forehead. Her dark curly hair poked out from under her black hood. The firelight revealing the slight green color of her hair. The ringlets framed her nearly flawless face, the only imperfection a single scar that traced down her left cheek.

"Yeah because knocking on a door twice with your boot, coming in closing the door, waiting for the door to magically unlock, and locking it behind us is not enough?" Cassius countered. He had indeed forgotten the password, but he would not admit that to her.

"You can never be too careful," Seth laughed from the shadows of the cave. Cassius was honestly surprised their Commander was in the cave at all. Even though he knew Seth’s presence meant that Kat and Aaron must be out on patrol, it did not stop him from looking in the shadows for the small halfling female. Yet she was not there.

Seth was usually on perpetual watch during missions like this. The Commander rarely took a break. He could see the dark circle’s under his friend’s eyes, indicating that he had not been sleeping much these past few nights. Callum did not blame him. Undercover missions like these were becoming more and more dangerous.

Callum’s one green eye was alight with amusement as he looked at Cassius. Cassius’s brother was his mirror. Their dark skin and golden blond hair were a stunning combination. Their emerald green eyes were like jewels. The only difference between the two was the eye patch Callum wore over his right eye and that Callum was mute.

“You shut up,” Cassius said pointing at his brother before unceremoniously plopping down on a flat-topped stone. He leaned back against the cave wall, tossing his mask onto the floor.

They had been embedded in Prince Thidal’s guard for almost a month now, almost half that time had been spent marching here, and Cassius had quickly remembered just how much he hated the military in that short period of time. At least this time, he was not looked down on for his lack of magic. Barely any of the males serving the prince had magic to speak of. All of them, it seemed, were halflings.

“What is your report?” Seth said, coming into the firelight. Fates he looked so tired. Cassius could already see his friend bracing for the bad news. That yet another mission was a failure.

“Not much to report on, there has been no news or whispers of the Princess’s location,” Cassius kept his voice low as he spoke, even knowing that Valen had probably already spelled the cave to keep any listening ears from hearing what was being said.

“If she is here at all,” Cassius added even quieter.

The witch narrowed her eyes at him, her black nails curling around the sleeve of her black quilted jacket.

“Don’t you say that!” Valen hissed in annoyance, her body launching forward. Seth grabbed her arm, stopping her from yanking Cassius off the rock he sat on.

The sharp black nail of her finger pointed at his face. Cassius raised his hands in surrender. It was not that he did not want the Princess to be here, but it had been years since the Princess of Ameron had been taken. So many times they had infiltrated prisons only to find that she had already been moved, or had never been there at all. If they did ever find her, he wondered how much of that smiling Princess would still remain. He more than most, knew the toll a place like this took on a person.

Valen knew what he was thinking. The pain in her cold tawny eyes said it all. Despite Valen’s indifferent and sometimes impatient attitude towards their small band of friends, he knew she cared about them and about this mission. She was the only one in the group who had never known Princess Ellinna. She had offered her help, simply because it was the right thing to do. And from the hundreds of times the witch had used her strange magic to save their asses, he knew she cared about them too.

“So, there is no confirmation that the Princess of Ameron is actually here,” She said.

“No,” Cassius shook his head sadly.

“I see,” she muttered. Seth was strangely silent.

‘Someone is here though. Someone important enough for the Prince to take a special interest in,’ Callum spoke into their minds. Valen was one of the few people able to hear Callum’s words, other than Cassius. It was a trick that came in handy many times in the past.

“What did he say?” Seth asked, picking up on the way Valen stiffened whenever Callum spoke to her.

“Callum says someone that the prince has taken interest in is here,” Valen said.

“It is hard to explain,” Cassius sighed filling in what the Witch did not know, “but there is a cell being guarded by the Prince’s guards, not the prison guards. No one, save for the Prince, is allowed to enter it,” Cassius explained. He knew Callum had spent the better half of the day standing outside of that cell.

“Cell 304. If the Princess is here, she is in that cell,”

Valen nodded. Saying nothing as she thought over the information they had given her.

Cassius could already see the hope in Seth’s eyes. He hoped to the Fates that this was not another dead end.

‘The Prince’s guards have been ordered not to speak to anyone regarding a few prisoners in Arden,’ Callum added. He did not have to say that such an order, from the Prince himself, meant not a single guard was willing to say a word. Seth had already wandered away from the conversation, he stared up at the full moon outside and the snow falling on the ground.

“Thank you,” Valen nodded to them both.

After a long moment of silence, Seth spoke. “We can’t waste any more time, we attack tomorrow night, at the shift change,”