43 – William

Six months. Six months was a long time to spend in a cage.

And a long time to go without a shave, Will thought, scratching the thicket on his chin. Gods, but he would kill for a razor.

George, one of the guardsmen watching the gold-rank cells, had bent over backward to accommodate him, which already made this heaven compared to a real imprisonment. But he obviously couldn’t sneak Will anything that stopped him from looking the part of a prisoner. If someone important came down and found him clean-shaven and smelling of soap, there would be hell to pay.

He had it better than he had any right to, and he was still miserable. Maybe that was why Rose’s words were sounding more reasonable than usual. Not enough to change his mind, but definitely more reasonable.

“You’re an idiot, Will,” his sister growled, the iron bars rattling with her frustration as she shook them with both hands. “This is the best you’re gonna get! More than you could’ve expected! How can’t you see that?”

Lying on his cot with one arm crossed behind his head, he stared at the nauseatingly familiar cracked ceiling. He was pretty sure he could draw the spiderweb formation from memory by now.

“I’m not licking his boots,” he said, “and that’s the end of the discussion.”

“You don’t have any choice in the matter!”

“Sure I do.”

“Not if you want free! What’s your plan? Stay down here forever?”

“They can’t justify that.”

“They’re the Caldimores. They don’t have to justify anything. They can do whatever they want, however long they want, for any reason they want. Maybe if you were important, Will, but you aren’t. You’ll rot away!”

“With my dignity intact, at least.”

“I’d mistake you for a vagrant if I saw you on the street,” Rose said flatly. “What dignity?”

“Cover me in shit, tar and feather me, that doesn’t change a thing. A man’s dignity is in his actions. Getting down on my knees and kissing the boot of that spineless worm—that’s how I’d lose my dignity.”

Rose went quiet. “Will, you can’t talk like that,” she said, a note of fear mixing with the anger. “You’ll get me killed too. Who do you think you are, to call Duke Caldimore a worm?”

He grimaced. That…had been too far, yes. To be fair, he wouldn’t have used those words if George hadn’t posted outside of the room, out of earshot, or if there were other prisoners inside the three cells of this block. Still, he grimaced and took the point. He could never be sure no one was listening in.

“I did nothing wrong, so I’m not apologizing.”

“You don’t want out?”

Gods, but he did. Badly. He was so desperate to walk under sunlight and breathe fresh air that even imagining it brought tears to his eyes.

His imprisonment wasn’t even as bad as most. He had a friendly guard who chatted and played cards and smuggled in entertainment. Without that, he would’ve gone insane. How did real prisoners survive?

“It’s never about where you are,” Will said, “it’s about how you get there. No, I don’t want out. Not if I have to beg and grovel in front of that—in front of Duke Caldimore,” he corrected last second.

“And what about Dan and me?”

He winced. That question hit much harder. As the leader of their team, not to mention Rose’s older brother, he felt no small obligation toward them. And his cornerstone position as the team’s captain and defender meant the past six months had crippled their advancement. They’d been making do with freelancers, but going out on life-or-death missions with someone they didn’t know well, much less weren’t seasoned with, was questionable in the extreme.

“Should probably just replace me. Like you said, I might be here a while.”

“Don’t be an idiot. We’re not replacing you.” She sighed. “But at a certain point, what choice do we have? It’s been six months.”

“You’re right. Don’t let me weigh you down.”

Rose scrubbed her face with both hands, a muffled scream leaking out. “You are impossible. I’m not asking you to burn down an orphanage. Say you were wrong, apologize, and eat crow just this once. For the greater good.”

“There is no greater good. Only how you act, day in and day out.”

“I respect you, Will. I really do. But sometimes you’re so far up your own ass you should have brought a lantern.”

“They’re only principles if you don’t compromise on them.”

Rose threw her hands up in the air, turned around, and took several deep breaths. She faced back when she’d calmed herself.

“Okay. So that’s how it is? Because at a certain point, we really will just need to find a new third.”

“Won’t blame you in the slightest,” Will said, trying not to flinch at the idea.

Rose stood in silence, and though she was only visible in the corner of his eye, he knew she was fuming.

However the exchange might have continued, he wouldn’t discover. Because the heavy clunk of George turning the block’s reinforced handle—Will was in the fortified cells meant for gold-rank adventurers, hence his lack of company—announced an intrusion into their conversation.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Two intrusions. He sat up in surprise.

George was his usual self. Portly and red-cheeked, belly squeezed into his uniform. He was a retired low-mithril now collecting the reliable paycheck of acting as guardsman for the gold-rank cells. His connection to the Guild was probably why he treated William so well.

Maybe it was because George was the only person Will had talked with consistently for six months, but he thought he was a swell guy. Two kids, one entering the Thaumaturgical Institute. He was always going on about her. Little Maggy.

The newcomer was more interesting. Demons weren’t rare in Meridian, but their pale skin and red eyes still drew attention. Not even reaching George’s chest, the tiny woman in plain black robes shouldn’t have commanded the entire room.

But she did.

Everyone here was gold-rank or higher, so they had better instincts than average. Or maybe they fed off George’s nervousness, because the man seemed so tense Will was surprised he wasn’t trembling.

George bowed at the waist so deeply Will thought he might tip over, and the seriousness of the action contrasted so completely with his normally jovial, inappropriately lax behavior that Will found himself sweating abruptly.