Accomplice to the Villain (Assistant and the Villain, #3)(86)
She stopped talking, and Gideon’s blood ran cold as they both got into position hidden among the bushes. “When you misbehaved what?” he whispered.
She touched the burned-off piece of hair at the end of her braid. “She’d hold me down, sometimes even using rope, and she’d cut my hair.”
Don’t let them cut my hair. Please.
The thought of a young girl with golden locks being held to the floor made his stomach twist hard in anger. Would she have screamed? Did she wait and hope someone would come for her, or did she fight back?
Before he could ask more, one of the Valiant Guards crested the hill, followed closely by the second. In the next moment, Keeley gasped as an arrow whooshed through the air and buried itself in the first one’s eye, a second spearing through the remaining one’s forehead.
Keeley straightened and slowly turned to look at Gideon, who was holding the crossbow against his shoulder. At her raised eyebrow, he lowered it and winced sheepishly. “I apologize. Did you want to do that part?”
Keeley fiddled with the end of her braid—a nervous tic that made Gideon’s chest burn. Indigestion. Hopefully.
“No, that’s all right, sir knight. Happy to have you pull your weight.” She patted his shoulder, moving around him and tucking her thick locks into the back of her armor and the rest into her helmet, which she then donned, obscuring her face. “Ready?”
“Let’s go free a mother-to-be.” Gideon clapped his hands together, securing his own helmet, now unable to see anything but Keeley’s honey-colored eyes. It was a comfort to know that even if her mouth wasn’t, her eyes were bright and smiling.
The ease between them didn’t last, though, as Gideon straightened into the same stance he’d done every day for as long as his recent memory allowed. Keeley followed suit, the instruction he’d given her the night before working to near perfection with little practice.
It had taken Gideon months to get the march right and to stop laughing at how ridiculous it felt to raise one’s knees up with every step like a deranged swan. Keeley didn’t look ridiculous, though. She looked regal and poised.
An incredible accomplishment in Gideon’s eyes.
When they reached the hidden tunnel, Gideon did the customary knock, hoping to all the gods that this side of the tunnels’ secret knocking pattern was known by so few that they wouldn’t have thought to alter it.
The stone wall slid open, pulling branches of hidden ivy leaves with it. Behind it stood a dark hall and two guards who were—as Gideon had predicted—piss drunk.
“Rordon. Luther.” Gideon nodded, attempting to alter his voice, though he wasn’t certain they had the presence of mind to recognize it anyway. “We’ve come to relieve you.” An empty bottle of brandy was still rolling back and forth on the ground as both guards exchanged a glance before scrambling out of the tunnels and presumably back to the barracks to sleep off the worst of it.
“Drunk? They were drunk on the job? Did you know this was going to happen?” Keeley grabbed his arm and tugged him along. The tunnel door swung shut behind them when Gideon pulled on the torch lever against the far wall.
“Those two are always drinking on the job. I’ve yet to see them take anything seriously. It’s why they were given a post at this tunnel,” Gideon explained, pulling two torches free, holding one and handing the other to Keeley.
She took it with a sputter of disbelief that he found charming. “Why were they given a post at all if they’re so irresponsible?”
“They’re the king’s cousins.”
Keeley held the torch with both hands and rolled her eyes, a marker for her displeasure. “Oh, of course. Mediocre men receiving positions of power they haven’t earned because of their birthrights. How against the grain.”
“That sounded sarcastic.”
He was surprised she didn’t set him on fire. “It was!”
As they walked, Gideon guided her carefully down corridors well out of use, yelping when a cobweb caught on his arm.
Keeley sighed. “It is a wonder that the kingdom agrees only men should be allowed among the Valiant Guard when they can barely defend against the threat of a spider.”
“I didn’t think it was a spider,” Gideon argued. “I thought it was a centipede.”
“What is the difference? In either case, you’re afraid of bugs.”
“I’m afraid of anything with more than twenty legs.” Gideon shuddered and narrowly avoided another spiderweb. “And I don’t think the kingdom agrees; I think it’s just how it’s always been. You’d be surprised how easy it is for some to ignore the problems of the world if they aren’t impacted by them.”
Keeley frowned, and her armor clinked an unpleasant sound off one of the stone walls. “That’s wrong.”
“You think there are no ignorant people in the world?” Gideon asked skeptically.
“For the first twelve years of my life, all I knew was ignorance, but I mean it’s wrong to be defeated by it. The only way for things to change is to not settle for what is and instead find a way to care.”
Gideon rubbed at his chin and frowned. “How does one manage that?”
Keeley pulled off her helmet for a moment and flashed him a small smile that gave him a similar feeling to when she’d kicked him in the shin. “You give them a very good reason to and hope they think it’s a good reason, too.”