Infinitesimal: A Tale of Dragons and Daring Deeds

Chapter 16: Castle Gates

Ahead of them, two guards laughed. They both had scarred faces and broad shoulders. They gawked at Lou and Cael, looking so pristine compared to the black and red and brown of the city.

Lou's face screwed into disgust. She, with Cookie for her feet and Cael at her back, stomped towards the guards.

She towered above them on her horse. Behind her head, the sun gleamed like a halo. Her grey eyes, just as scrutinizing as her father's, peered down on them. The men stopped joking. They stood straighter.

"Can you tell me where the stables are." Lou said. Even she felt the icy sting in her voice.

One of them gulped. He stepped forward, pushed by his friend, and stuttered out, "over there miss, uh,"

"Verrmien." Lou finished. "I am Louanne Verrmien."

Ther one sputtered. He whispered to his friend. "She's the one who took down Arpeggio with... some random kid."

Cael scoffed.

The guards looked between themselves.

"We'll stay outta your way, Miss Verrmien."

"Thank you, I appreciate it it."

They rode off to the stables, and Lou tried to ignore the gawking looks. There should've been plenty of knights in town. Why did they look up to her like some sort of goddess?

Then she remembered.

She's the daughter of a goddess.

She looked to Cael, pressed up against her back and consciously breathing. He stared at the cobblestone pathways and all the cracks in between. Lou hated taking him there. Why did she take him there. Even if the world was ending, no one should have to return to someone as wicked as Cael's father.

Lou gazed into the sky. She saw a pillar of light shoot up from a house and swirl into the cloud of black smoke coming from the castle. She blinked. She turned to Cael, but there was no way he could see it, staring at the cobble like that.

Uneasy and nervous, Lou locks up Cookie in a stable close to the exit of town, in case they need a getaway. She and Cael continue through the city on foot, and looked for the staircase to the next level.

They found it hidden away, next to an old tavern with a terrible pun for a name. Lou breathed out some sort of laugh and walked up the stairs. She was halfway up when she turned around, looking for Cael, but he still stood at the bottom of the stairs.

"Cael, my friend, what's going on?" Lou said.

His eyes broke away from the steps of the staircase. He looked to Lou and said, "I know a place where we can sneak in."

"So we don't have to clamber up hundreds of stairs?" She replied.

Cael sniffed, betraying his true emotions, and laughed. "Yeah. It's in this next area. I'll show you."

He ran up past her and bolted through the square the staircase emptied into. A large tree stood proudly in the middle, surrounded by benches and birdbaths. Cael turned to her for a second, making sure she still followed, and ran into the alleyway between a clothing store and an apothecary.

Lou's armor scratched against the brick walls and she cursed mentally, she'd need to repolish her armor again and it always makes the armor less durable. She'd leave the scratch until she killed Cael's father. That was more important.

They reached the end of the alleyway and Cael leaped over a short wall. Lou heaved herself over and found herself in a graveyard. Cael grinned at her. Still, Lou walked carefully across the yard until Cael led them into a small hut with the door locked.

Cael crossed his arms and pulled the lock open.

"It's fake." Cael said. He tossed the lock on the ground. He opened the door and disappeared into the blackness shadowed across the inside of the hut. When Lou walked after him, her foot fell and hit a step.

She caught her breath, and continued behind Cael.

"I thought you meant there'd be less stairs with this shortcut," Lou said.

"Well, you know me." Cael muttered without looking back. "Never exactly what it seems, right?"

Lou didn't respond.

She followed her companion through a long, winding tunnel that swerved upwards. The incline was shallow enough not to bother Lou for a long time, but at the end of their near hour long walk she was concerned where the tunnel opened up at.

Eventually, the tunnel broke into a large cavern. It reminded Lou of the Sixth's cave, and she shuddered.

Cael pulled up a rock and sat down. He looked up to Lou.

"You brought that bread, right?"

Lou sat next to him.

"Yeah, yeah I did."

**

For a few minutes, they sat and ate some of the food the mages from the College left them. The cavern they stumbled in had a few torches dimly lit by Cael's hands. Not his magic, just a match he happened to scrounge up from the bottom of his boots.

Lou, like most of her failed attempts at comforting Cael, opened and closed her mouth. She was never good with people. That was Cael's job.

"How did you-" Lou tried, but looked away from him before she even finished the thought.

Cael looked up, sullen, just for a moment. He breathed a small laugh out of his nose before he shifted closer to Lou.

He shoved her shoulder. "I thought Verrmiens don't pry?"

"I hardly feel like a Verrmien anymore." Lou said. Her eyes moved down to her hands. "I feel like some sort of.... Abomination."

Cael leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "Welcome to my world."

Lou looked to what Cael was staring at, still nothing, but it felt more meaningful than usual.

"Abomination, huh." Cael parrots. "That's.... Something I heard often, when I was younger. Sometimes at me, sometimes at my mother." His head fell down. "It's my mother's side that holds the magic, not my father's."

Lou blinked. "It's odd to think of someone other than Bellona being your mother."

She realized how insensitive it sounded after she spoke, but Cael took with a stride and a laugh. "I think the same thing, knight."

"When did you run? When did you find," Lou threw her arms around. "This?"

"I've known about this for a while," Cael responded. "It runs right under the castle, any self-respecting child would run off and find it."

Lou laughed. She knew of a few hiding places beneath her own manor. She pulled off her gloves and ran her hand through her hair, disheveling it. She knew her bangs flew off her forehead in ways she really didn't want to see. Despite this, she turns to Cael.

"And when you ran?"

Cael frowned. "I wanted to from the start. I don't remember a day when..."

"I understand."

Cael snorts. "You don't, but I appreciate the sentiment."

Lou's face cracks into a small smile, and she pulls Cael close to her. "I hope to understand one day."