Free A Royal Rebellion by Revella Hawthorne

the guards here? Did someone see them, report them to the palace? Maybe they had nothing to worry about, and the guards were merely here to check that Lord Estiary was obeying the banishment order.
    Were the guards even here for them?
     
    ***
    Mason
    ***
    Several days ago
    ***
     
    Blood almost made him lose his grip.
    Mason flipped his wrist, and the guard’s arm snapped. He fell, screaming to the floor, but Mason’s knee to the back of the head silenced him. Mason jumped over the guard, grabbing the metal tray that held his paltry dinner of stale bread and grayish gravy, and swung it across the face of the next man through the door. A resounding clang and the crumpled mess of limbs told him the man was out, and Mason stepped out of his cell, pulling the door shut behind him.
    Arianna gaped at him, mouth open, eyes wide. A handful of keys, a cell phone, and a dark leather jacket hung from her hands, and Mason grabbed them before she could drop them from her senseless fingers. She’d made excellent time. A part of him was certain she would have been caught running back and forth between his cell and room, but she’d made it back in time for his dinner tray. His father must be looking for her, given Camilla’s interference. If he wasn’t, then sometime soon he would be.
    “Don’t worry, dear sister,” Mason quipped, pulling the jacket on, and pocketing the keys. He woke the cell, and made sure it was one he could use before pocketing it. It was from the hidden stash in his room, and the battery was full. “I don’t think I killed them. I’m not too sure, though. Blood loss may have impaired my control. You can check if you like.”
    Mason strode past her, glad his boots weren’t thrown away, since the stones of the Old Palace were ice cold. He heard the patter of slippered feet behind him, and Arianna followed him, her skirts rustling over the stones. He waited, and sure enough, she found her voice after a few turns deeper into the Old Palace.
    “Mason…” He spun, putting his hand over her mouth. She stopped, and then her eyes narrowed in a glare and she yanked her head away.
    “Shush,” Mason said, pointing at her face, which made her glare even more. His sister-in-law looked ready to kill, and he smiled. “No talking.”
    He walked down the unlit corridor, heading for the throne room, buried in the center of Airric’s castle. He counted, and after about 30 seconds, Arianna’s control wavered.
    “Why are we going to the old throne room? Aren’t you supposed to be escaping?”
    Mason kept walking, listening for echoes of pursuit. Anyone chasing him now would likely think as Arianna did, and that he would try and get out of the palace. He would, but not just yet. He needed something first, and there was always a way out of the palace for a royal son.
    After what a few minutes, Mason paused outside the heavy doors of the throne room. He listened, but at this time of night, there was no one about. He opened the ancient portals, slipping inside, Arianna clutching his elbow as he led the way into the shadowed cavernous throne room. She had likely never been here in years, probably not since the grand tour of the palace before she wed Malcolm a decade earlier.
    The long room was cast in darkness, and he decided against the lanterns. There was just enough light in the throne room to illuminate the way. Airric’s throne, as ancient as the castle in which it sat, rose high from the low dais. Mason walked faster. To be this close, only to be caught, would be the height of cruelty, and considering fate’s treatment of him the last twenty years, he figured he had better hurry.
    Arianna was all but running to keep up. He jumped onto the dais, and went to the side of the throne. The ancient wood was polished by the centuries, heavy, battle-scared, bearing the marks of betrayal and attempted coups. In ancient times, the throne had been modified to hide weapons inside it, so that the king or queen upon the throne