Blood for her Crown

Chapter Thirty-Five

Jamie

He knew something had gone wrong when they haven't heard from Grace after two hours.

They had been hiding out in the forest behind the onyx stream, waiting for her sign to come out. It never came.

He paced nervously up and down the small glade, telling himself it was nothing and that she was probably still dealing with her father's dead body. Aderah kept repeating that Grace would be back any minute.

Three hours had passed, and still nothing. He'd jumped over the stream and walked up to the wall four times to see what was keeping her, and each time he'd returned with his head down, knowing it would only cause them more trouble.

So he had sat on the grass with his face buried in his hands. Aderah had lost her optimism at some point.  Tanner was leaning against a tree, his gaze fixated on one of the towers.

Their plan hadn't worked. If it had, she would have returned already.

"Maybe she just can't find us," Aderah tried once more.

Jamie shook his head. "She knows where we are. She would have found us immediately."  His voice came out desperately, nearly having lost all hope.

Then there was a loud thud behind him. He leaped to his feet and whirled around, hoping to see Grace emerge in front of them.

But it wasn't Grace who was standing there with a grave expression.

It was Kaden.

Jamie could tell what had happened just by looking at him. Slowly, he fell back onto the cold ground.

"He has her," the prince said quietly. "Both of them. Harriet is imprisoned in the dungeons. Where Grace is, I do not know. He said he took care of her." Tears of guilt shimmered in his eyes. "I should have been there," he muttered. 

"So should I have," Jamie agreed. 

But they hadn't been there when Grace lost the final battle to her father.

And then he broke down.

Jamie buried his hands in his hair and began desperately pulling at it. When he began weeping, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Aderah was crying as well.

She wrapped her arms around him, and the three of them cried together over the loss of their friend and sister.

He only heard how Tanner slammed his fist into the tree he had been leaning on over and over and over.

"You know she isn't dead, don't you?" Kaden asked from beside him.

Of course he knew that. She'd told him enough about her father for him to know he wasn't about to let her go that easily. He wanted to torment her. And Jamie was well aware that this was far worse for her than dying. Death she could have handled. But not what her father most likely had in mind for her. And he hadn't been there to help her defeat him.

The sounds of bones colliding with wood stopped after some time, and Tanner approached. "Can't you find her? You live in the castle; why aren't you looking for her right now?" he asked Kaden.

"My father is aware that I was involved. I can't move around as freely as before. Guards are everywhere, and they won't let me pass. I have tried everything to look for her, believe me, it's just impossible."

"So, what are we going to do? We can't just leave her in there."

Jamie felt as if he was abandoning her by even leaving this glade, but what choice did they have? "We need to find someone," he answered, wiping the tears off his cheeks. "Grace has told me to find him in case something happens and she doesn't make it out."