But there was absolutely no denying that love any more. Fromeitherof them. After watching Draevyn rescue her, seeing them fight together on the ships, and then claim their revenge against Varis… it was impossible to believe there was anything less between the two than pure, unrelenting love. Similar to what he felt for his bride.
So now, even if he didn’t agree with it, he would follow them both. They would rescue Elowynne and bring her to safety and then figure everything out from there. Together.
For the first time in what seemed like years, he felt the spark of their brotherhood blaze to life again. And once this mess was dealt with, things may just go back to normal.
But now with him as king, and Draevyn at his side.
The jagged outline of the castle loomed, pale stone rising against the bruised sky. Even from here, Atlas could feel the weight of it pressing down. Somewhere beyond those walls, Elowynne was waiting for him to reach her, just as Esmyra had been waiting for Draevyn in Sumnae.
The seconds clawed at him again, each one a blade across his nerves.
Beside him, Draevyn lifted a hand, slowing them to a halt as shadow silhouettes stirred along the path ahead.
“Guards ahead,” he whispered as he turned to their men. “Several at the gate. We need to be silent and quick. I don’t want a single fucking horn going off warning them of our arrival.”
He was answered with several silent nods.
Draevyn moved first, a streak of steel slit the throat of the nearest guard before he could cry out. Atlas lunged into the second, the clash brief and brutal before the man crumpled at his feet. The third reached for his horn, but Jak was faster, whipping his dagger through the air, its blade twirling before it embedded itself in the guard’s chest.
“Let’s move,” Draevyn muttered, scanning the castle wall.
And then the air split as countless screams erupted from Maerinys’s shores, echoing from the far side of the kingdom.
Everyone’s eyes widened.
“Esmyra.” Draevyn’s head snapped toward the sound, the corner of his lips lifting.
Jenli lowered the hood of her cloak, stepping up to them as she pointed at the crimson sky. “Need I remind you that we must keep moving.”
“Aye,” Draevyn breathed, turning to the rest of them. “Follow me.”
They all sprinted toward the shadows of the wall, pressed tight until Draevyn motioned them forward. A side door waited there, half-hidden beneath crusted seaweed, and he wrenched it open.
“This way,” his brother ordered, already stepping through. “Esmyra and I used it the day we snuck out of the castle and found the crypt.”
Atlas saw the way Draevyn’s jaw tightened at the mention of the crypt, recalling how he’d said that was the dayeverythingchanged for them both. He silently followed with Jak at his back, and the crew thundering in after them.
The castle’s corridors swallowed them whole, pale stone hallsechoing with their hurried steps. A briny scent lingered in the air, the light of the crimson moon funneling down through the windowed ceilings as odd looking orbs glowed a vibrant blue overhead.
“Merlights,” Draevyn said from beside him.
Atlas’s brows pulled together in confusion.
His brother nodded up to the orbs. “It’s part of their magic. It was their only source of light once the kingdom sank.”
Interesting. He’d never seen that kind of magic before.
They turned a corner and guards appeared at the opposite end. There were four of them, spears raised, and they all began shouting in alarm.
Atlas’s vision tunneled red.
He didn’t hesitate. His shadows lunged first, the darkness excluding from him so thick it choked the merlights into nothing, pulling the men into a suffocating abyss. Shouts of horror sounded, and the spears clattered uselessly against the floor as he surged forward.
“Atlas, wait!” Draevyn yelled, but he refused to halt. They were so close to Elowynne. He could fucking feel it in his bones.
A figure loomed in the dark and one man managed a cry before Atlas lifted his sword and had its blade rip through the man’s throat, the spray of blood hot against his face. He whirled as a choking sound erupted to his left, where he found another had been driven back against the wall, Jak’s knee pinning him there, dagger buried between his ribs.
Draevyn appeared beside him then as a literal flame illuminating in the darkness as he incinerated another guard.
