Shattered: The Gregorian Chronicles Book Two

6: Rivals

        She couldn't have invested in a better-smelling dungeon? Kabos wondered in annoyance as he sat in his cell. The dungeons of Dawn's castle were located directly below the castle, far underground and nearly impossible to find unless you were looking for them. No one would be coming to bail Kabos out.

        The walls were something out of a fairy tale dungeon: dark and slimy, with oozing black gunk coating the brick. The whole place was dark, lit only by a single candle fifteen feet away. Kabos could hear the rats scuttling around his feet, but he didn't dare to look down for fear of vomitting all over himself. There was a lone wooden bench in the center of the cell, where Kabos had plopped himself down the second he had entered. The guards had barely even remembered to lock the door. They were so keen on getting out of this terrible place that Kabos's confinement had been put to the side.

        Yet they remembered to lock the door at the last second, thus Kabos was stuck.

        He had escaped Banishment before, it was true. Troya had desired that he, posing as a lowly village boy, gain access to Dawn and destroy her for them. He had all the qualities they were looking for: handsome, intelligent, no connections in the kingdom who would remember him, and, if Troya got him out of the Forbidden Forest, he would be in their debt.

        But Dawn? Dawn couldn't get her entire army out of the Forest. Dawn could leave whenever she pleased since she had come to the Forest by choice, but her army of Banished souls could never leave. They couldn't leave without Troya's help, and Kabos was the only one who had ever managed to get in contact with the feared organization without being blown to bits by one of their ruthless leaders. If Dawn tried to contact them, they would kill her--or worse, help her.

        If Dawn stopped being so stubborn and angry, then she could rejoin her family in Gregoria and just leave the Banished people alone.

        You made her like this, a nagging voice whispered in Kabos's head. You were the one who ruined her. You turned her into this monster that she is. If Gregoria's destroyed, it'll be your fault.

        Kabos stood up and started pacing around his cell. What was he to do? If Dawn managed to get in touch with Troya, Kabos was as good as dead; everyone was. Troya wouldn't help Dawn just for the fun of it, they would want something in return. Their goal was the destroy Gregoria, but they didn't plan it in the same way that Dawn did. They wanted everyone gone, every last soul who could possibly be at fault for the Ariesian fall. They were so ruthless that most believed them to be a myth, hardly daring to think that any organization could be so terrible.

        "Ow!" Kabos cried out, holding his foot in pain and sitting back down on the bench in the middle of the cell. He had stepped on something sharp and thin, and a few drops of blood were gathering around the wound in his heel. Looking down at the ground to find the object that had injured him, Kabos picked up a long, thin hairpin. It looked just like the ones Dawn used to wear.

        His eyes found the lock on the outside of the cell, just barely visible through the bars. Kabos stood and walked to the door slowly, drawing the hairpin out in front of him. He slipped his thin fingers through the bar nearest to the lock and inserted the pin, trying his hardest to keep his hands steady.

        After toying with the lock for a few seconds, he heard a click and the door creaked open. 

        Yet Kabos didn't leave the cell just yet.

        What am I going to do now? If I run, Dawn will eventually catch me...and kill me. I have to make this escape mean something.