Connor shook with rage. This day had been nothing but disappointment and pain. He was used to his uncle's never-ending criticism, but today was just too much.

He couldn't take it anymore.

"You're right," he said, "I shouldn't have shown up."

He spat more blood onto the sand and stepped off the platform.

"I'm sick of you. I'm sick of pretending I want this life. I'm sick of taking your orders," he said, glaring at his uncle before looking at Adelia, "and I'm sick of having the crap beaten out of me. But mostly, I’m sick of how you just gave up on my parents. On your own brother!”

“Boy, you have no idea what you’re talking about! You think I gave up on my brother? I searched for him! I searched for years, and I found nothing!” Victor said.

“Then we should find the who or what did this and make them pay! Instead, you sit here hiding in this city. Protecting a bunch of senseless nobles! We should be out there! We should be hunting those bastards down! Not sitting here looking for traitors, or crooked guards!” Connor yelled and walked away.

"Get back here, we aren’t through!” Victor shouted.

Connor ignored his uncle and kept walking.

"To the twelve hells with you then!" Victor said, "ignore your training. Get yourself killed in the streets! See if I care!"

Connor snorted and waved his hand negligently over his head without looking as he walked away, doing his best not to limp.

He tossed his quarterstaff across the room with his good hand.

It clattered against the wooden floorboards, but he ignored it and picked up a jar of turquoise gel on his way out of the room.

He limped through the long, elegant corridors of the manor as he fumbled with the jar.

His hand was a mess of black and blue bruises, and he gritted his teeth against the pain as he twisted off the lid.

He generously applied the gel to his bruised hand and heaved a relieved sigh as the pain subsided.

He tested his bruised fingers and was surprised to find that they weren't broken.

Maybe she had been taking it easy on him after all.

She always beat him, but not usually this badly.

He sighed and shook his head. This wasn't like him. He was distracted, upset, and off his game, but he just couldn't calm down.

He hated this day. He hated his life.

He stormed out of the manor toward a marble mausoleum as white as bleached bone on the palace grounds. Most people didn’t like being around the dead, which is what made it such a perfect cover.

He checked over his shoulder, making sure he wasn’t being followed, and stepped inside. His footsteps echoed in the tomb as he passed row after row of noble graves.

Most of them were for the royal family, but a few belonged to other nobles and even a select few that weren’t strictly nobles but had done a great service for the royal family.

Each one had a statue depicting the owner of the grave resting atop the marble slabs as though they were merely sleeping.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He ventured down a long, winding staircase passing by more levels of the mausoleum, each much like the first.

He went down three floors and passed through a wide archway into another long room filled with rows of ornate tombs.

He walked to the far wall. It looked much like all the others, with a torch mounted on a metal bracket fixed to the smooth, white stone.

He reached up to the metal bracket holding the torch, and lightly twisted the bolt on the side back and forth in the combination he knew so well.

It clicked faintly, and the smooth stone wall slid away, revealing a dark passageway. Stale air whooshed out of the passage, and he coughed.

The air in the passageway made the mausoleum smell like freshly baked bread by comparison.

He stepped into the dark passageway, and the secret door slid back in place behind him with a grating thud that always set his nerves on edge no matter how many times he used it.

He stood still for a moment and embraced the darkness before he felt along the wall for one of the unlit torches.

He wished he’d thought to take one of the lit torches in the mausoleum with him before entering the pitch-black secret tunnel next to rotting corpses. He usually did, but today his mind was too busy replaying the earlier events in his head over and over.

His hand closed around a sconce, and he felt around for the torch it held. He lifted the torch out and explored the surface with the tips of his fingers until he reached the top.

He reached inside himself and pulled his magic down through his fingers. It resisted him, and he felt bittersweet as he struggled with it.

His magic had betrayed him earlier, and cost him his chance to become a wizard, but, at the same time, he was glad that he could at least do this much. Even if it was just lighting a torch, it gave him hope that perhaps he would still find a way... somehow.

The torch sparked to life, lighting up the dark tunnel with its flickering flame.

He moved on without worrying about replacing the torch he’d taken, someone else would take care of that.

The tunnels were a secret, but he wasn’t the only one who knew about them.

The labyrinth beneath the palace was a vast network of connecting tunnels that were used any time someone needed to exit or enter the palace discreetly.

There were servants and guards whose only job was to keep the tunnels operational. That didn’t just mean replacing torches, and sweeping floors. The maze concealed many dangers, from deadly traps to the many creatures that lived within.

In theory, the tunnels could be used to break into the palace. But, unless the intruders knew exactly where they were going, they were likely to stumble into one of the sections specially prepared just for them.

He shuddered. He hated thinking about what lay under the palace.

He heard a familiar, grinding thud behind him. He stopped in his tracks, and a shiver ran down his spine. Was that the secret door? Was someone following him?

He shook off the thought. He was just being paranoid. After all, he wasn't the only one who used the tunnels.

Even so, he picked up his pace as he navigated his way through the twists and turns of the long, dark tunnels.

He heard footsteps, and a low groan, but the echoes in the tunnels made it impossible to tell how close it was.

He automatically reached for the rapier at his belt, only to realize it wasn’t there. He hadn’t taken it with him when he’d gone to see the wizard, and he’d stormed out of the training room without thinking.

He’d just entered the dangerous maze beneath the palace, and he had no weapon.

He hoped the guards had been doing a good job of keeping the monsters that lived here in check as his eyes scanned every flickering shadow around him.

He felt like an idiot for letting himself walk around so unprotected. Especially here. Not to mention that he was still badly bruised and beaten from sparring with Adelia.

Well, whatever it was he still had a flaming torch he could use as a weapon.

There was a short scuffle, and the low groan and the footsteps cut off abruptly.

There were no further sounds after that, but he still had the sinking feeling he was being followed.

He reached his exit, opened the secret door, and slipped out of the dark tunnels into a private room beneath one of the city's temples.

The door slid closed behind him. He waited for several long minutes with his torch in hand, ready to strike at whoever, or whatever might’ve been following him. But, the door didn’t open again.

He smiled and shook his head.

“Now I’m jumping at shadows,” he muttered.

He left the temple of Anvilus, the god of blacksmithing, and headed toward his destination.

He frequently stopped, turned in the wrong directions and practiced the evasive techniques that’d been ingrained in him to make sure nobody followed him.

Finally, he reached a part of the city that had seen better days.

The streets were empty, apart from a broken down wagon missing a wheel. Paint peeled off long-abandoned homes, and a loose shutter banged in the wind.

It used to be an area for some of the wealthier merchants, but many had found better accommodation elsewhere, closer to the facilities they needed.

A few stayed, mostly those who enjoyed the quiet, and the rest of the buildings remained vacant as landlords struggled to find buyers to recoup the cost of their investments.

It was the perfect place to get away.