“What’s going on here?”
Lexi spun at Sahira’s question. She grinned at her aunt, who gazed between her and Brokk with open disapproval.
“Brokk is teaching me how to defend myself,” she said.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Sahira replied.
“Why not?”
“It’s not appropriate for women to fight.”
“Maybe it wasn’t appropriate a couple of hundred years ago, but times have changed, Sahira,” Lexi said.
A muscle twitched in Sahira’s cheek. “You could get hurt doing this.”
“I could, but not being able to defend myself, especially if Malakai returns,willget me hurt.”
Sahira didn’t back down. “Your father wouldn’t approve of this.”
Lexi suppressed a wince as her words cut deep. Sahira always knew where to strike to get a response from her, but it didn’t matter. She’d already made up her mind. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life defenseless and hoping someone else would save her.
She got lucky Cole arrived when he did during Malakai’s attack. She probably wouldn’t be so fortunate next time.
“My dad is dead, and I refuse to have someone watching over me twenty-four seven.Refuse,” she emphasized. “Besides, it’s impossible for that to happen. Maybe my dad wouldn’t approve of me learning to fight, but he’d approve less of me being raped, forced into marriage, or killed because I couldn’t fend off an attacker.”
Sahira’s mouth closed, and her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t protest any further. “Be careful.”
“I will,” Lexi promised, and Brokk’s fingers brushed the side of her head, drawing her attention back to him.
“Hands up,” he said, and they started their dance again.
Though she disapproved, Sahira crossed her arms over her chest while she watched them.
Chapter Twenty-One
The tunnel was soblack Cole couldn’t see his hand in front of his face. There were no shadows here. For there to be shadows, there had to be light.
The lack of shadows had to be a test as the dark fae thrived in their presence. He missed the shadows and his ability to see.
For his entire six hundred and seventy-two years, he’d never been in a place as dark as this. Bringing his fingers to his face, he touched the corners of his eyes to make sure they were still there.
Without his eyes to guide him, he relied heavily on his other senses. Straining to hear, he tried to detect the presence of something else within the passageway, but the crunch of his footsteps against the rock was the only sound.
He didn’t know if the others had entered behind him; he didn’t bother to look back. It would be pointless. When he stopped to listen, he didn’t hear their footsteps or breaths.
It wouldn’t astound him to learn there were numerous tunnels and somehow the realm had made each of them traverse a separate one. Or that the trials were changing around them to accommodate their number.
He couldn’t see, but his instincts guided him onward, and he didn’t have to put out his hands to keep him from walking into the rocky walls. So far, they had guided him well as he made his way through twists and turns.
When he turned a corner, the sound became more muffled as the walls closed in around him. Jagged bits of stone brushed against his skin, tugged at his clothes, and scraped the top of his head as he bent to avoid smacking into a low-hanging rock.
Cole’s steps slowed as he strained to hear more while his eyes darted uselessly back and forth. Stopping, he rested his hand against the cool stone.
Something dripped somewhere ahead of him. It was a low, hollow pinging sound barely discernible over his breaths.
Sensing something was coming, he edged cautiously forward. He didn’t pick his feet up off the ground as he shuffled into the darkness. The wall curved beneath his fingertips, a stone grazed his temple, and with his next shuffling step forward, the rock changed.
Cole paused as his fingers slid over the smooth surface. He hadn’t expected this smooth surface after the jagged roughness of the rocks. His fingers dipped into two holes before sliding lower.
