The Gentleman's Agony

Silas didn't sleep. He never really slept anymore—not in the traditional sense. Instead, he entered a state of rest that was somewhere between meditation and unconsciousness, his mind processing information while his body performed its endless cycle of damage and repair.

He was in this state when the door to the suite burst open at dawn.

Six guards entered, led by Captain Marcus Thorne—the Chancellor's nephew and the head of the Royal Guard. He was a man in his early thirties, built like a brick wall, with the kind of face that looked like it had been punched repeatedly and had learned to enjoy it.

"Silas Vane," Captain Thorne announced, his voice carrying the weight of official authority, "you are under arrest for the kidnapping and magical coercion of Princess Elara Velle."

Silas remained seated, his expression calm. "That's an interesting accusation, Captain. On what evidence?"

"The evidence of your illegal bond, your suspicious presence at the scene of the bombing, and your known association with the Red Hand terrorist organization."

"I have no association with the Red Hand. I was a Proxy to Lord Casimir Vane for fifteen years. My entire life is documented in palace records."

"Records can be falsified." Captain Thorne gestured to his guards. "Take him."

The guards moved forward, and Silas felt Princess Elara wake in the next room. Through the bond, he felt her confusion turn to alarm as she sensed the threat.

"Captain," Silas said calmly, "I would advise you to reconsider this course of action."

"You're in no position to advise anyone, Proxy."

"I'm not a Proxy. I'm a free citizen bonded to the Princess. And if you attempt to take me by force, you'll discover why that distinction matters."

The bedroom door flew open, and Princess Elara emerged, still wearing her ruined dress from the night before. Her hair was disheveled, her face pale, but her eyes were sharp and angry.

"Captain Thorne," she said, her voice carrying the unmistakable tone of royal command, "explain yourself. Now."

Captain Thorne bowed, but his hand remained on his sword. "Your Highness, I'm acting on orders from Chancellor Thorne. This Proxy is to be taken into custody for your protection."

"Silas is not a threat to me. He saved my life."

"With respect, Your Highness, you may not be in a position to judge that objectively. The bond between you could be influencing your perceptions."

"My perceptions are fine, Captain. What's influencing them is the fact that I was there when Silas pulled me out of a burning ballroom while everyone else ran for their lives."

"Nevertheless, the Chancellor has ordered—"

"I don't care what the Chancellor ordered." Princess Elara stepped forward, and Silas felt her anger through the bond like a physical heat. "I am the heir to the throne. My father died last night, which means I am the highest authority in this kingdom. And I am ordering you to stand down."

Captain Thorne's jaw tightened. "Your Highness, you haven't been crowned yet. Until the coronation ceremony, the Chancellor serves as regent and his orders supersede yours."

"That's a very convenient interpretation of succession law."

"It's the correct interpretation, Your Highness. I'm sorry, but I have my orders." He nodded to his guards. "Take the Proxy."

The guards moved forward again, and this time Silas stood. His shattered leg protested, but the bond was lending him Princess Elara's strength, allowing him to move with something approaching normal function.

"Captain," he said quietly, "if your men touch me, Princess Elara will feel it. Through the bond. Every blow, every restraint, every moment of pain. Is that really what you want?"

Captain Thorne hesitated, and Silas saw the moment of doubt cross his face. "You're lying."

"Am I?" Silas looked at Princess Elara. "Your Highness, may I demonstrate?"

She nodded, understanding what he was asking. Silas reached out with his ruined right hand and pressed his thumb against the edge of a nearby table, applying pressure until he felt the partially healed bones begin to crack.

Princess Elara gasped and grabbed her own right hand, her face going pale. "Stop. Silas, stop."

He released the pressure immediately. "You felt that, didn't you?"

"Yes." She was cradling her hand, even though there was no visible injury. "It was like... like my bones were breaking. But they're not. They're fine."

"Because the damage is to my hand, not yours. But you feel it anyway, because we're connected." Silas turned back to Captain Thorne. "So I'll ask you again, Captain. Do you really want to arrest me? Because if you do, you'll be torturing the future Queen in the process."

Captain Thorne looked between them, his expression caught between duty and doubt. Finally, he stepped back. "I need to consult with the Chancellor."

"You do that," Princess Elara said coldly. "And while you're at it, tell him that I want to speak with him immediately. In private."

Captain Thorne bowed and left, taking his guards with him. The door closed, and Princess Elara sagged against the wall, her temporary strength evaporating.

"That was close," she murmured.

"Too close," Silas agreed. "Your Highness, we need to leave. Now."

"Leave? Leave where? This is the palace. This is my home."

"This is a prison, and the Chancellor is the warden." Silas moved to the window, looking out at the palace grounds. "He's going to try again, and next time he'll be better prepared. We need to be gone before that happens."

"I can't just leave. I'm the Princess. I have responsibilities."

"You're the Princess who's bonded to a former Proxy in a way that threatens the entire social order," Silas corrected. "Your Highness, think about it. The Chancellor has already accused me of kidnapping and coercion. What do you think happens next?"

She was quiet for a moment, her mind working through the implications. "He'll claim I'm not fit to rule. That the bond has compromised my judgment."

"Exactly. And then he'll have me executed for treason, and you'll be locked away 'for your own protection' while he consolidates power as regent."

"He wouldn't dare. The nobility would never accept—"

"The nobility will accept whatever keeps them in power," Silas interrupted. "Your Highness, I've spent fifteen years watching aristocrats justify atrocities in the name of tradition and stability. Trust me when I say that the Chancellor will have no trouble convincing them that separating us is for the good of the kingdom."

Princess Elara moved to the window beside him, looking out at the city beyond the palace walls. The sun was fully up now, revealing the extent of the damage from the night before. Smoke still rose from the Grand Ballroom, and Silas could see crowds gathering in the streets, drawn by the news of the bombing and the King's death.

"If we run," she said quietly, "we'll look guilty. We'll be confirming everything the Chancellor says about us."

"If we stay, we'll be separated and probably killed. I'd rather look guilty and be alive."

"But where would we go? I'm the Princess. I can't exactly blend into a crowd."

"No," Silas agreed. "But I know people who can help us. People who owe me favors."

She looked at him sharply. "What kind of people?"

"The kind who operate in the spaces between laws. The kind who know how to move through the city without being seen." He smiled slightly. "Your Highness, I've been a Proxy for fifteen years. Do you really think I spent all that time just standing behind Lord Casimir looking decorative?"

"I... I suppose I never thought about it."

"Most people don't. That's the advantage of being invisible." He turned away from the window. "I've been building a network of contacts since I was twenty-two. Information brokers, smugglers, forgers, thieves. People who exist in the cracks of your perfect society. And right now, those are the only people who can help us."

Princess Elara was quiet for a long moment, weighing her options. Through the bond, Silas felt her fear warring with her sense of duty, her desire to run conflicting with her training to stay and face problems head-on.

"If we do this," she said finally, "if we run, we're not just running from the Chancellor. We're running from everything. My crown, my responsibilities, my entire life."

"Yes," Silas said simply. "We are."

"And if we're caught?"

"Then we'll probably be executed for treason. But Your Highness, if we stay, we'll definitely be separated and possibly killed. At least running gives us a chance."

She took a deep breath, and Silas felt her make the decision through the bond. It was like watching a door close and another one open, a fundamental shift in her understanding of who she was and what she was willing to do.

"All right," she said. "We run. But Silas, I want your word that you'll help me come back. Eventually. When we understand this bond, when we have proof of what the Chancellor is doing, when we're strong enough to fight back. I want your word that we'll return and set things right."

"You have it, Your Highness."

"And stop calling me that. If we're going to be fugitives together, you can use my name."

Silas smiled. "As you wish, Elara."

She almost smiled back. Almost. "So how do we get out of here? The palace is on lockdown, there are guards everywhere, and I'm fairly certain the Chancellor has people watching this room."

"He does. Three guards outside the door, two more at the end of the hallway, and probably a mage monitoring us through scrying spells." Silas moved to the wardrobe and began pulling out clothes. "Which is why we're not going through the door."

"The window? Silas, we're three stories up."

"I'm aware. But there's a drainage pipe that runs down the exterior wall, and it connects to the old sewage system that predates the current palace. If we can reach the pipe, we can climb down to the basement level and access the tunnels."

"You want us to escape through the sewers."

"I want us to escape through the most direct route that doesn't involve fighting our way through a dozen guards. The sewers are unpleasant, but they're functional."

Elara looked at her ruined dress, then at the clothes Silas was pulling from the wardrobe. "I don't suppose you have anything practical in there?"

"Lord Casimir kept a hunting outfit in this suite for when he stayed overnight at the palace. It'll be too large for you, but it's better than a ball gown." He tossed her a pair of trousers and a shirt. "Change quickly. We don't have much time."

She took the clothes and disappeared into the bedroom. Silas used the time to search the suite for anything useful—money, weapons, supplies. He found a small pouch of gold coins in Lord Casimir's jacket pocket, a letter opener that could serve as a makeshift knife, and a water flask that was probably enchanted to stay cold but would work just as well for regular water.

It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Elara emerged wearing the hunting outfit, the trousers rolled up at the ankles and the shirt hanging loose on her frame. She'd tied her hair back with a strip of fabric torn from her ruined dress, and she'd washed the blood and ash from her face.

She looked, Silas thought, like a completely different person. Less like a princess and more like a young woman who might actually survive in the real world.

"How do I look?" she asked.

"Like someone who's about to climb out a window and escape through the sewers," Silas replied. "Perfect."

He moved to the window and examined the frame. It was designed to open only a few inches—a security feature to prevent exactly what they were about to attempt. But the hinges were old, and Silas had spent fifteen years learning to notice structural weaknesses.

He grabbed the letter opener and wedged it into the gap between the frame and the wall, applying pressure until he felt something give. The window swung open, revealing the three-story drop to the courtyard below.

"Right," Elara said, looking down. "That's terrifying."

"Yes," Silas agreed. "But the drainage pipe is solid, and the climb is straightforward. I'll go first, you follow. Stay close, move carefully, and don't look down."

"Don't look down. Excellent advice for someone who's afraid of heights."

"You're afraid of heights?"

"Terrified. Have been since I was six and fell out of a tree in the palace gardens."

Silas paused. "Your Highness—Elara—you should have mentioned that before I suggested climbing out a window."

"Would it have changed the plan?"

"No."

"Then what's the point of mentioning it?" She moved to the window, her face pale but determined. "Let's go before I lose my nerve entirely."

Silas climbed out first, his ruined hand and shattered leg making the process more difficult than it should have been. But the bond was helping, lending him Elara's strength and coordination, and he managed to reach the drainage pipe without falling.

The pipe was exactly where he remembered it—a thick iron cylinder that ran down the exterior wall, installed two hundred years ago when the palace was first built. It was rusty and probably not rated for human weight anymore, but it would have to do.

He began to climb down, testing each handhold before committing his weight to it. The pipe groaned but held, and he made it down one story before looking up to see Elara climbing out the window.

She was moving slowly, her fear evident in every careful movement. But she was moving, and that was what mattered.

"You're doing great," Silas called up softly. "Just keep your eyes on the pipe, not the ground."

"Easy for you to say," she muttered, but she kept climbing.

They made it down two stories before the pipe gave way.

It happened without warning—one moment Silas was reaching for the next handhold, the next moment the pipe was pulling away from the wall with a screech of tearing metal. He fell, his body twisting instinctively to protect his already-injured leg, and hit the ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

Above him, Elara screamed as the pipe continued to collapse. She was still one story up, clinging to a section of pipe that was rapidly becoming detached from the wall.

Silas forced himself to his feet, ignoring the new injuries from the fall. "Let go!"

"What?"

"Let go! I'll catch you!"

"You can't catch me from that height!"

"The bond will help! Trust me!"

She hesitated for one more second, then let go.

Silas caught her, or rather, they caught each other. The bond activated the moment she started to fall, distributing the impact between them, using their combined strength to absorb the force. They still hit the ground hard, but it was survivable—barely.

They lay there for a moment, tangled together, both of them breathing hard.

"That," Elara gasped, "was the worst plan ever."

"It worked, didn't it?"

"We fell!"

"But we survived the fall. That's the important part."

She started to laugh, a slightly hysterical sound that was part relief and part disbelief. "We're going to die in the sewers, aren't we?"

"Probably not," Silas said, getting to his feet and helping her up. "The sewers are actually quite safe, as long as you know where you're going."

"And you know where you're going?"

"I've been mapping the palace's underground systems for fifteen years. I know every tunnel, every junction, every exit." He smiled. "Your Highness—Elara—I may be a lot of things, but unprepared is not one of them."

They moved quickly across the courtyard, staying in the shadows, avoiding the areas where guards were likely to patrol. Silas led them to a small maintenance door set into the palace's foundation, hidden behind a decorative hedge that hadn't been trimmed in months.

The door was locked, but Silas had the key—a copy he'd made three years ago during one of Lord Casimir's late-night gambling sessions. He'd made copies of a lot of keys over the years, just in case.

The door opened onto a narrow staircase that descended into darkness. Silas pulled out a small magical light—a minor enchantment that Lord Casimir had cast on a coin years ago and then forgotten about. It wasn't much, but it was enough to see by.

They descended into the sewers, and the smell hit them like a physical wall.

"Oh gods," Elara gasped, covering her nose. "That's horrific."

"Yes," Silas agreed. "But it's also effective. No one's going to follow us down here unless they absolutely have to."

The sewers were a maze of tunnels and chambers, some dating back to the original palace construction, others added piecemeal over the centuries as the city expanded. Silas navigated them with the confidence of someone who had spent years studying the layout, leading Elara through passages that were sometimes wide enough to walk upright and sometimes so narrow they had to crawl.

They were halfway through when they heard the voices behind them.

"—can't have gone far. The Princess doesn't know these tunnels."

"But the Proxy might. Vane was always too clever for his own good."

"Doesn't matter. We have mages tracking them. They'll lead us right to—"

Silas grabbed Elara's hand and pulled her into a side passage, pressing them both against the wall. Through the bond, he felt her fear spike, and he sent back a wave of calm—or at least, his version of calm, which was really just the absence of panic.

The voices grew closer, accompanied by the splash of boots in sewage water. Silas counted three distinct sets of footsteps, which meant at least three guards, possibly more.

"The tracking spell says they're close," one of the guards said. "Spread out. Check every passage."

Silas looked at Elara, then at the glowing coin in his hand. The light was giving them away—the mages were tracking the magical signature.

He made a decision.

He closed his fist around the coin, cutting off the light, and threw it as hard as he could down the main tunnel. It clattered against the stone walls, the sound echoing in the darkness, and the guards immediately moved toward it.

"There! I heard something!"

"Move, move!"

The footsteps receded, and Silas pulled Elara deeper into the side passage, moving by touch and memory in the absolute darkness. They crawled through a section of tunnel so narrow that Silas's shoulders scraped against both walls, then emerged into a larger chamber that smelled even worse than the main sewers.

"Where are we?" Elara whispered.

"The old cistern. It hasn't been used in fifty years, which means no one knows it's here except me and the rats."

"Rats?"

"Lots of rats. But they're harmless, mostly."

"Mostly?"

"Well, some of them are the size of small dogs, but they're more afraid of us than we are of them."

"I'm not sure that's true," Elara muttered, but she followed him across the cistern to a rusted ladder that led up to a grate in the ceiling.

Silas climbed first, testing the grate. It was locked from the outside, but the lock was old and the metal was corroded. He braced himself against the ladder and pushed, using the bond to borrow Elara's strength, and the grate gave way with a screech of protesting metal.

They emerged into an alley in the Merchant Quarter, several blocks from the palace. The sun was fully up now, and the streets were beginning to fill with people going about their morning routines, unaware that their Princess was currently climbing out of a sewer grate covered in filth and smelling like a cesspool.

Silas replaced the grate and looked around, getting his bearings. "We need to get off the streets. The Chancellor will have the city guard searching for us within the hour."

"Where do we go?"

"I know a place. It's not far, and the owner owes me a favor." He started walking, and Elara followed, staying close enough that the bond remained comfortable.

They moved through the waking city, two figures in stolen clothes who looked like they'd been through a war. People gave them a wide berth—partly because of the smell, partly because there was something in Silas's eyes that suggested it would be unwise to ask questions.

They reached their destination fifteen minutes later: a small, nondescript building wedged between a bakery and a tailor's shop. The sign above the door read "Madame Thorne's Boarding House," and Silas knocked three times, paused, then knocked twice more.

The door opened a crack, and a woman's face appeared—middle-aged, sharp-eyed, with the kind of expression that suggested she'd seen everything and been impressed by none of it.

"Silas Vane," she said, her voice flat. "I heard you were dead."

"Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated," Silas replied. "May we come in, Madame Thorne? We're in need of sanctuary."

Madame Thorne's eyes flicked to Elara, and something shifted in her expression. "Is that who I think it is?"

"Yes."

"And you brought her here? To my establishment? Silas, have you lost your mind?"

"Possibly. But I'm calling in my favor, Madame. You owe me."

"I owe you for one night of shelter, not for harboring a fugitive Princess."

"She's not a fugitive. She's the rightful heir to the throne, and she's being hunted by people who want to use her or kill her. We need help, Madame. Please."

Madame Thorne looked at them for a long moment, her expression unreadable. Then she sighed and opened the door wider.

"One night," she said. "That's all I'm offering. After that, you're on your own."

"One night is all we need," Silas said, ushering Elara inside. "Thank you, Madame."

"Don't thank me yet," Madame Thorne replied, closing and locking the door behind them. "You have no idea what kind of trouble you've brought to my doorstep."

But Silas did know. He knew exactly what kind of trouble they were in.

And he knew it was only going to get worse.

*

End of Chapter 3