“It is for your safety that I tell you not to go, Syla.” Vorik raised a hand to defend against Fel if he needed but didn’t yet draw a weapon. “If my peoplearedown there and that’s their intent, they’ll need you to get into that chamber. If you walk down there, you’ll give yourself to them. Let your troops handle this, and stay safe in your castle.”
Though his mace was poised to swing, Fel didn’t strike. Maybe he agreed with Vorik’s argument.
But the summoner told Syla that the chamber had already been disturbed. Maybe the stormers had found someone else with a moon-mark to drag down there to open the door. She looked around, realizing it had been some time since she’d seen her cousin Relvin.
“They’re already in,” she said grimly.
Outside, fireworks continued to boom and blaze in the sky. Syla nodded to Fel that she wanted to join the troops in the tunnels. They had to. They had to stop the stormers before they destroyed another shielder.
When she stepped away from Vorik, he tightened his grip.
“Let me go!” Syla roared at him and almost ordered Fel to take his swing. But she’d witnessed Vorik disarming her bodyguard and driving him to his knees not once but twice. Fel wasn’t a match for Vorik, and she didn’t want him to be hurt. Or worse.
Vorik hesitated, his eyes grave. Maybe he genuinely wanted to protect her—if he didn’t, he would let her go—but he ultimately released her and stepped back.
She raced for the door, aware of how far into the tunnels she had to run and how close the shielder was to the hidden chamber door. She might already be too late.
As Syla ran into the castle hallways, she glanced up frequently, as if she might see or sense the shield dropping and dragons once more coming to invade. She half-expected to spot Vorik following them, but he was either still in the throne room or he’d gone to reunite with his people.
The loyal Sergeant Fel chased after her, following Syla through the halls to the theater, the closest access point to the tunnels, the one they’d used two weeks earlier when they’d been too late to stop the sabotage.
She couldn’t be too late this time. Her people were depending on her.
5
Vorik watchedSyla and her bodyguard race out of the throne room, then trotted after them before he’d fully decided that he should follow her. No, that hewouldfollow her. He doubted heshould. Jhiton would have told him about the plan if he’d wanted Vorik involved. That he didn’t… disturbed Vorik. It spoke of a lack of trust, at least when it came to something involving Syla. Hehopedhe hadn’t lost his brother’s trust in general.
There weren’t too many uniformed guards in the halls, men who would object to a dragon rider in black leather jogging through the castle, but therewerestaff.Numerous men and women with cleaning implements or carrying laundry spotted Vorik and skittered back in alarm or ran, shouting for guards. Vorik gave them cheerful waves and kept going, not wanting to lose Syla. Intelligence reports promised the way he’d gotten into the tunnels below the castle before had been blocked and that the lagoon was no longer accessible. He needed to enter by the same means as Syla.
Rounding a corner, he almost ran into the server that she’d sent for desserts. The man was returning with cylindrical boxesthat smelled of sweets, their tantalizing aromas wafting in the air. Frosting? Berries? Both?
Vorik darted around the man and directed his nose back into a forward position, telling himself that desserts weren’t the priority. Making sure Syla didn’t walk into a trap was.
As he knew from his previous incursion into the tunnels, it would take someone with a magical moon-mark on his or her hand to open the doorway to the shielder chamber. Vorik had spotted a blond man about his age in the throne room who’d had such a mark—some relative of Syla’s—but doubted Jhiton had been aware of the person ahead of time to include him in the plan. More likely, laying a trap was exactly what Jhiton, or whoever he’d put in charge of the mission, was doing. Luring Syla down so that she could be forced to open the door. With a dagger to her throat?
Vorik shook his head, irritation and exasperation creeping into him. That the generals and chiefs were scheming to bring down more shields and expose more islands didn’t surprise him, but he didn’t know why their plans kept involvingattackingthe royal family. Jhiton had better not be planning to put an end to Syla. It worried Vorik that his brother might be considering it and that was why he hadn’t said anything to him.
“You, stormer!” A guard that had been standing duty down a stub of a hallway spotted Vorik as he jogged past.
Ahead of him, two more men in blue uniforms rushed toward him from the direction Syla had gone. Had she sent them to deter Vorik? He’d been staying far enough back that he’d believed she wouldn’t see him, but she might have anyway.
Though he didn’t want to fight, both because it would delay him and he didn’t desire to cause trouble when he hadn’t been ordered to do so, Vorik had little choice. Before the invasion, he’d memorized a map of the castle put together by stormerspies, but that would do no good when he didn’t know Syla’s destination.
Grim but determined, he rushed straight at the men. They drew swords.
Vorik didn’t pull his own out, instead angling left, toward the man who appeared less lithe and formidable, and leaped for what was likely his weaker side since he carried his blade in his right hand. The guard lunged at him, sword leading, as his comrade tried to flank Vorik.
Though the men appeared competent, they weren’t as fast as the riders that Vorik trained with. He ducked and dodged slashes, shifting so that one man blocked the other’s attacks, then knocked his foe’s sword arm to the side, following with a heel strike to the jaw.
The guard’s head snapped back. His comrade grabbed him and tried to push him aside, but Vorik had the power of dragon magic surging through his veins, giving him greater speed than they had. He kicked the man, knocking him back into the wall, then punched the first guard as he struggled to recover. With three more kicks and a head butt, he’d driven them both against the wall, one’s knees buckling. Vorik grabbed their wrists, twisted hard enough to make them gasp and open their fingers, and took their swords. After delivering two more blows that would ideally daze them for a few moments, he continued on.
Though he’d escaped the guards, shouts elsewhere in the castle promised more would show up. Worse, the delay had allowed Syla and Fel to escape his sight.
Vorik hurried in the direction they’d been going. He tossed the guards’ swords into an open room that he passed, then ran down a carpeted hall toward an intersection ahead. There, he would have to guess which way Syla had gone. Or so he thought. When he reached an open door to his right, a sign labeling the cavernous room inside as a theater, he spotted movement.
Fel crouched atop a stage at the far end, a trapdoor open, and a lantern in his hand. Syla had already disappeared through the door—or so Vorik assumed—and Fel descended after her.
As Vorik ran down an aisle between rows of seats, the trapdoor thudded shut. He leaped lightly onto the stage and opened it as another door, this one set into the flagstone floor underneath, also shut. He dropped down and pulled an iron ring, debating how he would convince Syla to let him remain with her, but the ring didn’t budge. A tingle of forbidding magic buzzed against his palm, and he released it. Did this door also require someone with a moon-mark to open it? Might another type of magic do? Or break the seal defending the door? He knew, since his people had tried before, that only a moon-mark would allow one into the shielder chamber, but he sensed this was a simpler magic.
