Rae Carson - The King's Guard

“She has to be there. She has to be. If we figure out which one, maybe we can get a message to her through the window.”

“Let’s all go for a walk,” Fernando suggests cheerfully.

Given Solvaño’s tremendous wealth, it’s a wonder the Fortress of Wind is in such disrepair. We stroll across crumbling ramparts, wade through overgrown gardens, clamber over the barnacle-encrusted foundation. Everywhere we go, someone watches us—usually a guard, sometimes a servant—always at a discreet distance.

We’re able to match a few windows with my sketches, but by afternoon, we reluctantly agree that we won’t get a good enough view without some distance from the tower. So we claim a desire to do some shopping, and head down to the market wharf.

We pretend to browse and sightsee, gradually navigating the maze of docks that twists through the harbor like tree roots. Lucio leads us down an empty jetty that takes us as close to the tower as possible—which is not very close at all. We look up, shading our eyes as the afternoon sun washes the tower in fiery orange, and we finally find what we’re looking for.

No wonder it was impossible to spot from a nearer vantage, for it is small and inset—barely wide enough for an arm to fit through. It lies three-quarters of the way up the tower and faces directly west. It’s just low enough to catch some ocean spray, which makes the wall too slick to climb.

But the window is open.

“Think she’d hear us if we shouted?” Lucio says.

“That high up? With that surf?” The waves pound at the foundation, then retreat to swirl dark and deep. “If we yelled loud enough, it would bring everyone in the fortress down on us.” The wind whips around us, pulling at our hair and clothes.

“Fernando,” I say.

“Yes?” He is looking around for danger, as he has been since I tasked him with watching my back. This jetty seems abandoned; the planking is worn and missing in places, and what’s left is covered in gull droppings. But I’m glad he’s on the alert.

“You won the king’s archery contest,” I remind him.

“True, my lo—” He stops short of calling me “lord.” He’s done that a couple of times now.

I point to the window on the tower. “Anyone can put an arrow through a man at short range. I need you to put an arrow through that window.”

He sizes up the distance, the target, and the wind, and doubt flows across his face. “We’re not on solid ground. And this is a terrible angle. Maybe if I got directly in front of it? But that would mean getting into a boat, which would be even less stable. . . . No, this is an almost impossible shot. Even for the best archer in the kingdom.”

“I’m looking at the best archer in the kingdom,” I say. “And I believe that you can make it.”

“You want to put a note on the shaft and send it through the window,” he says.

“Exactly.” He watches incredulously as I take out my charcoal stick and write in my book: Isadora, if you need aid, give us a sign.—The king’s envoys.

I tear the page out and hand it to Fernando, who folds it around the shaft and ties it with a piece of spare bowstring. “The added weight and drag of the note does make this an impossible shot,” he mutters.

“You can do it,” Lucio says.

Fernando draws, sights, releases. The wind catches it and carries it out to the ocean.

The next one bounces off the stone wall and falls into the swirling waves below.

So it goes, shot after shot. I have just torn another page out of the book when the wind whips it from my hands and carries it into the water. I am ruining my mother’s priceless gift, and possibly for nothing.

“This is my last arrow,” Fernando says.

He waits until he feels a dead spot in the wind. I hold my breath. He lets fly. This time the arrow looks as if it will miss, but it curves toward the narrow slit at the last second, hits the edge, and bounces inside.

We break out into cheering. “I can’t believe you made it,” Lucio says, and his huge grin makes him seem positively friendly and pleasant.

“You said I could!” Fernando replies.

“I was lying to make you feel better.”

Miria is looking back toward the busy docks and the shoreline. “I hope no one heard us,” she says. “Or saw us shooting at the tower.”

I frown. “I think it’s safe to assume that word of our actions will reach Lord Solvaño within the day. As soon as we hear from Isadora, we’ll have to move fast.”

And then we wait, a long time, with no reaction, no response.

The sun grows too hot. Lucio sweats like a beast, which I realize might be more from dumping his wine than the heat. Fernando polishes his bow with a rag, muttering about damage from saltwater spray.

“It was a good plan,” Miria says eventually. “But if she’s hidden somewhere else, if she’s not in that room . . .”

“She has to be there,” Fernando says, with all the fervor of someone who can’t bear to waste a perfect shot.

“Maybe she needs something write with,” Lucio says.

“We’ll wait,” I say.

Suddenly, an arrow flies out the window. The sunlight glints off something bulky as it drops, spinning end over end and hitting the wall twice before taking a final bounce into the sea.

I whip off my shirt and plunge into the cold waves. Fernando yells at my back—something about rocks and surf. I dive into an oncoming wave and come up the other side. Treading water, I try to figure out where the arrow went in and where the waves might have taken it next. My heart sinks as I realize there is only one place to go—the sharp rocks at the base of the tower, where the waves would pound my bones to sand.

Just then something bobs to the surface, mere yards ahead of me. I stroke forward as a wave crashes over my head. I come up, sputtering, but so does the arrow. I grab for it. It’s heavier than I expect, because it’s attached to a waterskin that has been filled with air and stoppered. Smart girl!

I swim back toward the jetty—at a diagonal to keep the waves from pushing me under—all while holding tight to my prize.

“What is it?” Lucio yells. He and Fernando grab my arms and help me roll up onto the wood planking.

I get to my feet and bend over, breathing hard for a moment. Water runs off me as I hold up the arrow and its attached waterskin. Tied to the shaft is a familiar ring, one I have seen many times. It has a ruby as large and red as a cherry, in a setting of tiny pearls.

Lifting my head up toward the window, I say, “Hang on, Isadora. We’re coming.”

“WE make our move tonight,” I tell everyone as we head back to the tower. “They’ll have noticed our outing today.”

“Not to mention your obsessive cataloguing of the tower,” Fernando grumbles.

I nod. “We can’t give Lord Solvaño the opportunity to smuggle her away.”

“This might require force,” Lucio says, in his most menacing voice. I’m glad he’s on our side.

“Or bribes,” Miria says. “It’s easier to bribe a fearful servant than a happy one. I think I know where to start.”

“We’ll be ready for both, if needed.”

“Will we just walk out the front door with her?” Fernando asks. “If Solvaño has her locked up, he has a reason. He’ll use his guards to stop us.”

“We’re going to need a lot of bribes,” Lucio says.

“When we get her out of the tower, we’ll sneak her along the ramparts to the wall on the harbor side. That’s only a fifteen-foot drop.”

“You can’t drop her that far!” Miria says.

“We’ll lower her with a rope. We’ll have the horses there, with an extra mount for her, and then we’ll ride out of the city and back to Brisadulce. We’ll be there before Lord Solvaño knows we’re gone.”