Page 90 of Given to the Black King

The hunt begins with a hinge.

I run again.

The old passage forks. Left goes toward the garden. Right loops past the abandoned signal room before joining the same path.

I take right.

My breath is loud. Too loud. Every turn looks like the last.

Behind me, one claw touches stone.

Scrape.

Then nothing.

I go faster.

The signal room has no door. I cross it and catch a movement behind the broken shutters.

Moonlight.

No. A horn.

He is on the narrow outer wall-walk, moving parallel to me.

The shape drops out of sight. Stone scrapes somewhere ahead.

A service panel in the passage swings inward.

He fills it.

No cloak on him. No coat. Bare chest rising slowly. Horns almost touching the low arch. Claws fully out.

His eyes are black.

I stop.

He breathes in.

The doubled voice rolls through the narrow room.

“Run.”

I do.

He lets me pass.

That frightens me more than being blocked.

I hear him turn behind me. Hear nothing after.

I hit the left-hand passage at speed, shoulder scraping stone. The ivy screen is ahead. I shove through it and burst into the night garden.

Moonlight lies across the frost. Hedges divide the garden into dark lanes. The fountain is frozen. The orchard court waits beyond the rose walk, open to the sky and closed on three sides by old walls.

I know where he wants me.

I turn away from it.