His laughter drew the guard’s attention. Theman frowned at them before turning and stalking onward.
She did her best not to let her alarm show,but tension crept across her shoulders.
If it all goes wrong, we can open a portalout of here.
What if you can’t get one to open here?
She buried that niggling doubt. It wouldn’tdo her any good; it was far too late for them to turn back now, andithadto work. She was an arach. They were the only oneswho possessed the ability.
She tried not to think about the possibilitythat one of the last arachs to reside here might have magicallystripped the ability from all the others.
No, Kaylia said that was very unlikely, andthey would need your name, so just stop! You’re here. There’s noturning back. Work on controlling what you can, like yourshield.
Lexi focused on her shield, but it was stillfirmly intact. She didn’t feel so much as a tiny crack in it, andshe was doing great at keeping it in place without having to remainfocused on it.
As they stepped onto the bridge, pebblesbroke free of the rocky formation and tumbled into the river below.She hated being on the rickety structure, but she hated it morewhen they walked beneath the silver portcullis and through theopen, golden gates shaped like dragons.
The sound of music and laughter drifted tothem as the guard led them down a hall before taking a left. Lexiglanced up at Cole to discover his jaw tensed and his shouldersrigid.
She’d only ever been to the throne roombefore, and that was in the opposite direction of where they wereheaded now. When the guard took another left, the music andlaughter grew louder, but now she heard the clink of glasses andsilverware too.
A set of open, double doors came into view atthe end of the hall. Through the doors, she could see immortalsgliding across the floor, opening their arms in greeting to eachother and swiping glasses from the trays of the servants passingby.
They all looked like they were having a goodtime, but they drank their alcohol too fast, talked too loudly, andsmiled too brightly for it to be real.
Lexi braced for the worst, but her breath wasstolen from her when they stepped into one of the most lavish,beautiful rooms she’d ever seen. Her mouth parted, and her headtipped back as she tried to take it all in.
After what Cole had told her about the Lord’sthrone room and the bloody fountain, she hadn’t known what wouldgreet them at the ball. She hadn’t expected such beauty in a palacethat harbored such horrors.
A golden, domed ceiling arched far abovetheir heads and reflected the light of the giant chandelierdangling above them. It was so large it took up a quarter of theceiling. The thousands of diamonds encompassing the light fixturereflected hundreds of rainbow colors across the dome, walls, andwhite, marble floor.
Those rainbow colors came from the lightspilling through the stained-glass windows lining the bottom of thedome. Dozens of dragons, wolves, crows, cats, horses, phoenixes,and more comprised the multicolored panes of those spectacularwindows.
The walls of the room mostly consisted offloor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors that opened ontowhat looked like a courtyard or garden beyond. She hoped it wasn’tthe dead garden with the blood fountain Cole told her about, butshe couldn’t tell.
The room was mostly bare of furniture, butsome chairs and love seats lined the walls for the dancers whorequired a break. No one sat on the cream-colored furniture withits fluffy, inviting-looking cushions.
The four musicians sat on stools in a cornerof the room; one played the cello, another the flute, and the thirda lute, while the fourth sang. The woman singing had a mesmerizingvoice that wove a haunting melody throughout the room.
Lexi was so awed by the beauty around herthat it took a minute to realize all the immortals were turningtoward them. Some of their smiles faltered; more than a few lookedterrified, while hope filled the eyes of others.
She wasn’t sure if their terror or hopeunnerved her more.
Sitting at the far end of the room, high upon a black dais that stood out sharply from the room’s color, theLord sat on his throne. He must have had it moved from the throneroom for him.
When the monster spotted them, he slapped hishands against the arms of his chair and started to beam. “Silence!”he commanded.
The musicians immediately stopped playing,but the fading cords of their music hung in the air for a few moreseconds. Lexi found herself gazing into the wide eyes of atroubadour clutching his lute to his chest as he silenced thevibrating strings of his instrument.
Looking into that man’s eyes, Lexi saw herfuture staring back at her.
This was a game, and the pawns hadarrived.
And it was going to be bad. Really,reallybad.
CHAPTER 48
“Come forward! Come forward!” the Lord calledas he beckoned to them.
