Chapter 7: Haunted
Deirdre couldn't sleep. It had been a week since Angus' death and she still couldn't even close her eyes for a moment without seeing his face, let alone sleep without being tormented by nightmares over and over again. Every night she woke up wide eyed, shivering and breathless after seeing her friend fall to his death and each time she realised once more just how much they had all failed him.
She had seen how Angus had helped Rohan in his fight against the Ice Lord, because she always kept an eye out for the blond man in battle, but when the former thief had needed some support himself, none of them had been at his side. One of the most important defenders of Kells, no, one of her most important friends was dead just because the rest of the Mystic Knights hadn't been looking out for each other like they were supposed to.
The princess sobbed silently, sat up and tried to rub the tears from her eyes that threatened to run down her face.
"This can't continue!" she told herself sternly. "I can't wake up crying every night. I need some sleep and this won't bring him back." But just as she had said the words, a choked noise escaped her throat, accompanied by a new rush of tears to her eyes and a shiver down her spine.
"Nothing will bring him back…," she whispered slowly, letting the words sink in. This wasn't a new realisation; far from it, actually. Deep down, she had known that there was no hope the instant Angus had vanished from her sight as he had fallen over the edge of the cliff, but this was the first time she had ever said it out loud.
"Nothing will bring him back. Angus is gone. Dead." Deirdre forced herself to say it again, hoping that accepting the truth would ease the pain, but it didn't. Instead she had the feeling that she couldn't breathe anymore. The walls of her chamber seemed to close in on her and the sheets of her bed were suddenly wrapped around her much too tightly.
Gasping, the princess pulled back the blanket and stood up. The floor was cold, but she didn't even notice. She merely rushed to put a light robe over her sleeping dress and headed for the door. When her hand touched the handle, she stopped briefly and wiped the tears from her face; the guards in the hallways didn't have to see that she had been crying. Then she left her chambers to take a walk around the castle.
Deirdre didn't know where she was going and didn't really mind, either. She just wanted to walk, clear her mind and maybe later go outside for a moment to catch a breath of fresh air, but for now she was content to just escape the confinements of her room.
Some of the guards nodded to her as she passed, but most left her to herself and she was grateful for that. She needed to be alone desperately and so she walked into the direction of the throne room. There were no guards there at night, but it was larger than her own room and when the moonlight fell through the big windows, it had a much friendlier atmosphere compared to the dark corridors of the castle.
However, as the princess approached the large doorway of the room, she felt that something was wrong, even before she heard the noise coming from within. As she turned the corner, she saw a figure leaving through the door to the right of the fireplace, but she couldn't make out any details in the dim light. Deirdre moved faster to follow whoever the person was, but only a few steps into the room, something caught her eye. The moonlight was falling onto the mantelpiece to her left and she realised with horror that the wall above it was deserted.
Angus' mace was gone.
"Thief!" Deirdre cried at the top of her voice as she ran through the door in front of her and into the corridor behind it. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest and her hands clenched tightly as the thought rang in her head. Angus' mace is gone. That thief stole it! She couldn't believe that anyone would dare to do this, but she would personally make sure that this impertinent burglar didn't get off unpunished.
As soon as she had left the throne room, she spotted the figure at the end of the long hallway. This time she could make out dark clothes and equally dark hair, before the man – judging from his built, the thief was male – turned around a corner into a less important part of the castle.
Deirdre grinned triumphantly. Apparently, the intruder didn't know his way around the castle, or he wouldn't have chosen a hallway that only led to one room without any way of escaping. She knew she probably should have waited for the guards she must have alerted with her scream, as she was unarmed and only wearing a robe and a nightgown, but the rage burning inside of her made her forget her better judgement. Following the thief, she, too, ran around the corner, but froze instantly at the next step. Her robe had opened through the running and was now revealing her nightgown, but she didn't notice, as her attention was somewhere else entirely.
A few meters in front of her, the thief was just entering the room at the end of the corridor and this time he was facing her. He was already closing the door, but Deirdre could see his face clearly as it was being illuminated by a nearby torch on the wall.
Angus.
His jet-black hair, his pale skin, his dark eyes. There was no way she was mistaken. But how could it be?
The door closed, but before it did, there was a grin on the man's face that threw Deirdre off. She had only seen it for a split-second, but it hadn't been the mischievous grin Angus usually wore, or anything even remotely resembling a true smile. It had been an arrogant grin, taunting her, and she felt belittled just by thinking of it.
Suddenly there were voices behind her and a group of the castle guards appeared at the princess' side. They stopped as they saw her and bowed slightly.
"Princess Deirdre! We heard a scream that there is a thief in the castle. Did you see him?" the leader of the group asked, and even though seeing his future queen in her rather revealing night clothes was clearly making him uncomfortable, he was trying his best to hide it. Normally, Deirdre would either have been embarrassed by her unseemly state or made a snappy comment about the guard's glances, but right now she was much too shaken to do anything else but tie up her robe and point to the door in front of her.
"I was the one who called. I followed… an intruder… right to this door. He stole something from the throne room."
"Then he won't get very far. That room is a dead-end," the soldier replied smugly. Then he and his comrades approached the door, their swords drawn, only to find it locked from the inside. He cursed, but didn't lose any time. He motioned for one of the bigger soldiers to take care of the door and the man really didn't need more than two tries to burst the lock and allow the troop to enter the room.
Which was empty.
"By Dagda! That thief has to be a wizard!" the leader of the group exclaimed angrily. He moved aside as Deirdre entered the small storeroom to take a look herself, and began to shout orders at his men.
"I'm not going to be fooled by some burglar who thinks he can rob the castle under my watch! Alert the guards at the walls and search the surrounding area! I want him found!" Before he sent them away, he turned to Deirdre again, his voice much softer this time.
"Princess, what did the thief steal? My men need to know what they're looking for."
"The mace," Deirdre replied absentmindedly. However, as her voice wasn't more than a whisper, the soldier couldn't understand her properly.
"I am sorry, what did you say?" This time, something about his voice finally got the princess out of her stupor and she turned to face the taller man.
"That thief, whoever he was, he stole Angus' mystic weapon, his mace. Right out of my father's throne room."
The soldier took a sharp breath and his jaw clenched. He bowed to Deirdre before he spoke again.
"I won't allow the memory of one of ours to be violated like this. I swear to you that I will not rest until the thief is caught and the weapon returned." He kept his head bowed, waiting for the princess' reply.
The young woman eyed the man with mild surprise. She had always thought that Angus' standing with the troops of Kells wasn't exactly the best, due to his rather inglorious past, but this guard didn't seem to make a difference between the former thief and any other of the heroic soldiers of the kingdom, as he would surely defend their memory just as fiercely.
Deirdre's face lit up a little and a small smile crept onto her lips that almost made it to her eyes.
"Thank you, soldier. But I am sorry, I do not even know your name."
"Ulric, my lady. I've been transferred here from one of our outposts a month ago. But if you'll excuse me now, I have to coordinate the search so our troops know what they're doing."
"Of course. And I hope you'll find him."
Ulric nodded once more and then left the room, accompanied by the remaining soldiers. Deirdre stayed behind, still utterly confused.
She knew what she had seen, but her logically working mind was screaming at her that it must have been either a hallucination or at best one of Maeve's tricks. But no matter how much even his behaviour was telling her that this man couldn't possibly have been Angus, her heart was clinging desperately to the idea that her friend was somehow still alive. There had to be a reason for him braking into the castle, but the mace was his, after all, so if it really had been Angus, then no real damage had been done.
Deirdre's thoughts were interrupted, however, as Ivar suddenly called her name from the corridor. She turned to face him, surprised by his unexpected appearance.
"Ivar, what are you doing here? It's the middle of the night."
The foreign prince raised an eyebrow and looked at the princess of Kells slightly puzzled.
"I could ask you the same, Deirdre. There are guards everywhere in the hallways, searching the castle and I think even the area outside. It's hard to sleep with that kind of commotion going on."
"Yes, they're searching for the thief. He might still be around."
"What thief? Tell me what happened!"
Deirdre sighed deeply. She wasn't even sure herself about what had happened, so what was she supposed to tell Ivar? Then again, if she couldn't confide in one of her fellow Mystic Knights, then whom could she trust at all?
"Someone stole Angus' mace from the throne room. I followed the thief to this room, but when the soldiers broke the door open, there was nobody here."
Ivar gasped, clearly shaken by the news.
"But how could he get past Cathbad's protection spell? Did you see who the thief was?"
The princess hesitated, not sure if her friend would believe her or if she even believed herself.
"I'm… I'm not sure."
"How can you not be sure? Either you recognised him or not. So did you?" The foreign prince looked at her expectantly, confused by Deirdre's unusual hesitation.
"Yes," the young woman finally admitted with a small sigh. "Yes I did recognise him. And although I'm perfectly aware that this will make me sound insane, I'm sure that it was Angus."
The seconds following these words seemed to stretch on forever as Ivar was looking at the princess incredulously, apparently trying to figure out what would make her say something like that. After a while, however, Deirdre clearly had had enough of his silence and threw her hands into the air exasperatedly.
"Would you please stop staring at me like that and finally say something? I know that it sounds highly unlikely, but…"
"Unlikely? I'm still trying to see if you have maybe suffered any head injury recently that would explain this." Ivar broke off and took a deep breath to calm himself. He knew that Deirdre would never make something like this up, but the topic was just too painful for him and for all of them to be talked about lightly.
"You know he's dead. You have seen Angus fall just like me and if he had still been alive, Rohan would surely have found him on Pyre. He searched half the island after all."
"I know, ok? I do. But I also know that I saw him, as clearly as I'm now seeing you and since we've never found Angus' body, I'm just saying that it's at least possible that it was really him."
The prince looked at her intently once more, but this time he didn't seem to be as sceptical anymore as he had been before. He sighed and shrugged, giving up on the argument.
"Well, we won't know for sure until the guards catch the thief, if they can find him, that is. But whoever he turns out to be, we have to inform Rohan that Angus' mace has been stolen. He would want to know immediately."
Deirdre nodded in agreement and headed out of the small room.
"You're right. And as none of us is probably going to get any more sleep tonight, I'm going to get changed. I'll send the first guard I see to Rohan's hut and then we'll all meet back here as soon as possible."
Before the princess could leave, however, Ivar stopped her once more.
"No. I'll go myself. He shouldn't hear this from one of the soldiers. But I think it'll be best if we keep your little observation to ourselves for now. At least until we know something more about what's going on."
Deirdre looked back at him for a moment, uncertain, but ultimately agreed. The whole situation was horrible enough for Rohan as it was, she didn't want to raise his hopes if it turned out that she had just been seeing things. Although she didn't think that that was the case here.
"Alright. Then I just hope the soldiers will catch the thief tonight."
The princess was already standing inside the small storeroom again, this time wearing her battle clothes, as Rohan and Ivar appeared in the corridor leading to her position.
One look was enough to see the anger contorting Rohan's features, but Deirdre wasn't surprised at all. She hadn't expected him to take the theft lightly, and she assumed that it had taken all of Ivar's persuasiveness to stop the blond man from searching the grounds around the castle himself, looking for the escaped thief.
As the two men entered the room, Rohan didn't waste any time on courtesies and came straight to the point, startling the princess slightly with his harshness.
"Ivar told me you caught the thief in the act, so how could he get away from you? And did you see his face?"
Deirdre was taken aback for a second, but recovered quickly and tried not to take offence at Rohan's rude tone, given the circumstances.
"Well, I didn't exactly catch him in the act, he was already leaving the throne room when I entered. I pursued the thief to this storeroom, but although it's a dead-end he somehow managed to escape from it. My guess is that he was using some kind of magic to get out of the castle."
Rohan looked at her, his brow furrowed, seemingly surprised by her explanation, although the princess couldn't quite see a reason for this reaction. When he finally replied, however, she couldn't stop herself from involuntarily mimicking his reaction.
"But this room isn't a dead-end," the Mystic Knight of Fire announced matter-of-factly, as if this should have been obvious.
In the end it was Ivar, who voiced the surprise both he and the princess were feeling at this apparently nonsensical statement.
"It's not? But it's got no other exit, not even a window. So unless our thief can walk through walls, that sounds pretty much like a dead-end to me."
Rohan shook his head and went over to a shelf at the wall, which he then moved with much less effort than his friends would have expected. Behind it was an old and long forgotten fireplace, which not even Deirdre had ever seen before.
"Did… did Angus know about this?" the princess asked with trepidation in her voice.
"Yes, he was the one who showed me. Why?"
Deirdre and Ivar looked at each other, unsure of how to explain their, or rather Deirdre's, assumption to Rohan. It was the princess who finally decided to tell him everything despite her earlier decision not to, her demeanour suddenly more than unsure of herself.
"It's just that I kind of did see the thief's face. It was probably just another trick from Maeve, trying to hurt us, but I could have sworn…"
"What?" Rohan was getting tense, a part of him already anticipating what Deirdre was going to say, but still needing to hear it from herself. "What did you see?"
"I could have sworn that it was Angus."
Dead silence settled over the room while the words still seemed to ring in Rohan's ears. His mind was reeling, but his expression suddenly became calm, even cold, as he turned to leave the room wordlessly, his hands clenched into fists so tightly that his knuckles were turning white.
Ivar glanced at Deirdre for a startled second just to find her as surprised as himself, then he followed Rohan and blocked his way outside.
"What are you planning to do? We still don't know what's going on; you can't just storm out without any idea where you're going."
"Oh, I know exactly where I'm going. Temra. This is one of Maeve's illusions, like all those times she's fooled us before. But this was the last trick she ever pulled on us. She wants to hurt us, fine; I'll show her that that works both ways." Ivar stopped dead in his tracks, genuinely appalled by Rohan's ruthlessness.
"What are you going to do?" he asked, a slight hesitation audible in his voice.
"What do you think? I'll kill her."
To be continued…
