Successors Read Online Free

times. Usually close up, though.
    “What is it?” Ethan tried to see.
    “It’s a castle,” she told him dubiously, almost asking for verification.
    “No, it’s a prison,” Danato corrected. He rested his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn’t even been away for a full day, but he knew what trouble awaited him on his return. He rarely left the prison, and rarer still did he take his second in command with him. However, for this particular endeavor, he needed someone he could trust. Not to mention Belus wanted to come along to make sure he did what he needed to do.
    Belus was nothing if not dutifully officious.
    “We’re going to be prisoners here?” the girl asked, as if being a slave was a lesser sentence to her than outright captivity.
    “We’re all prisoners to this place, one way, or another. I am the warden here. I make sure what is held in that prison stays in that prison, and now, so will you two.”
    The girl frowned in confusion, but resisted asking her questions. She pressed her face to the glass to observe their approach.
    Unlike a prison, but similar to a castle, a drawbridge lowered to allow the carriage passage through the thirty-foot stone walls that surrounded the prison. The inner courtyard provided enough room for multiple outbuildings, including residences, storage sheds, stables, and a few more non-vital appropriations. With most of the buildings on either side and to the back of the prison, the area near the gate entrance was just open acreage.
    At the center of it all was the prison. At nearly two blocks in length and a block wide, the prison in excess of seven-stories wasn’t a small operation. In contrast to the antiquated rock wall blockading it, the prison had modern poured concrete walls. Each floor offered some kind of narrow window that allowed just enough light in to keep everyone inside from going stir crazy. Except the basement, where the inmates required the exact opposite.
    The rooftop was punctuated with several armed guards. Their duty to the prison was as much about diverting trespassers as it was about stopping runaways. They were miles from anything resembling civilization and concealed in a valley, but the occasional outdoorsman would find them by accident.
    “Why would anyone house criminals out here?” the girl asked.
    “I try not to think of them as criminals. I prefer to think of them as mental patients: very violent and ingenious mental patients.” He paused in reflection. “They’re all just a pain in my ass, really.”
    She started to ask something else, but the carriage jolted to a stop and several guards rushed over to it. The doors opened on either side. Ethan and the girl jumped back, bumping into each other to get away from the double-sided attack. Danato raised a hand to calm them, as he listened to the guards ramble on simultaneously about fires, electrical outages, and melted walls.
    “Damn elementals,” he murmured. “Okay, okay, I’ll get things coordinated with those idiots upstairs.” Danato looked at his two new guests. They looked back at him, concerned, but curious. He supposed that was better than anger. “Take these two to my house,” he ordered the guards on his left. “She’s expecting company.” He beckoned Ethan to exit toward the guards. “Go on. It’ll be alright,” he assured the nervous boy.
    He stepped out, and one of the guards took him by the arm and led him away. The next man stepped in line and reached for the girl, but the fresh memories of her captivity were making her recoil.
    Danato could only imagine what they had put her through, but he did know that no one here would hurt her. He would make sure of that. He pressed down the guard’s insistent reach.
    “What’s your name, sweetheart?”
    She looked at him, then her eyes skirted the floor as if she couldn’t remember, but he knew she was just debating if she should tell him. When she looked up at him with her telltale obstinacy, he knew he