Alexander’s stomach dropped. “They’ve expanded the caves.”
He didn’t delay. He grabbed his axe and made for the door. Krystoff stepped into his path, brow creased. “You mean to go alone?”
“I can’t storm in with a unit. If they’re hiding something in those tunnels, I need to move quickly. Quietly.”
Darion rushed forward. “I’m coming. You’ll cover more ground with a second pair of eyes. And if it’s a trap, better two blades than one.”
Alexander glanced toward Krystoff. “Can I trust you to keep our rat caged while we’re gone?”
The man’s eyes glinted. “I’ve kept worse creatures on shorter leashes. Go, pup. Find your wife.”
The forest thinned, giving way to jagged limestone cliffs, clawing at the bruised autumn sky. The road narrowed, a dark scar of trampled earth leading to a wide-mouthed cavern in the rock face. The chilled air was sharp with the smell of metal and wet stone. Ahead, the mine’s entrance loomed, a dark maw propped by groaning iron scaffolding. Crates and abandoned tools lay stacked beneath canvas.
Alexander stared into the mouth. Darion waited beside him without a word.
As a boy, he’d trailed behind his father’s long stride, boots too big and heart too eager. Back then, the cave had seemed like a dragon’s mouth, wide and noble, swallowing sunlight and exhaling stories of wealth and power. His father used to clap ahand to his shoulder and call it ‘the lungs of the kingdom’—proof that House Wulfbane was the one who shaped the kingdom.
He’d known every turn of this place. He remembered how the miners paused when his father passed through, offering curt nods of respect. Alexander would stand taller then, memorizing everything.
But that pride had long curdled into something else.
A voice spoke behind them. “You’ve always hated this part.”
A figure stepped from the shadow of the trees—Ulrik with a lantern in hand, his face grim. He must’ve ridden ahead the moment village gossip spoke of armed men heading for the manor, and some part of him had known Alexander would come here next.
“Lad,” Ulrik said. “The mine’s been quiet for three days. No workers. No carts. Bertrand’s men cleared everyone out.” He gestured to the cave’s mouth. “Something’s not right.”
Alexander’s gaze swept the abandoned site. The childhood memory of his father’s proud words echoed, then dissolved into the air. That legacy was ash and suspicion now. The only thing that mattered was what lay ahead in the dark.
“Funny how, back then, you’d gallop ahead with your father’s cloak billowing behind you,” Ulrik said, coming closer. “But as soon as you reached this point, you’d stop dead. Wouldn’t go in unless he held your hand. Said it felt like the mountain was breathing on you.”
Alexander’s brow furrowed. “I remember that.”
“That was my tenth year as your father’s foreman. You were barely five.”
A long breath passed between them.
“He brought you here every moon-turn after that,” Ulrik went on. “Your mother wasn’t keen on it. Said a boy should be running in the fields, not crawling beneath rocks. But yourfather”—his gaze drifted to the cave’s mouth—“said you had to learn the weight of stone if you ever meant to carry a House.”
Alexander swallowed hard, jaw flexing. “Sometimes I wonder what I’d be like . . . if he’d lived.”
Ulrik didn’t smile. “You wouldn’t be softer, if that’s what you’re asking. But maybe you’d have been kinder to yourself.”
A pause. Then, more gently, “Those of us who truly knew him never believed the crown’s version. Betrayal doesn’t run in the blood, my lord. Not unless you believe it.”
Yet Alexander had let himself accept that his father’s guilt was not just proven—it was irrefutable. That was the cruel thing about lies. If told long enough, and repeated enough, they became easier to believe than the complicated truth.
So he buried the good memories beneath hurt and shame, until even the echo of them felt like betrayal.
And then—then—a woman had crossed the ocean to become his wife. Blemished. Limping. Overlooked, just as he’d once been. And she carried something vast: a capacity for truth, for healing, for grace. Where others had shown him shadows, she held up a lantern.
And now, he would go into the dark, spend whatever was left of him to find her.
Any hesitation evaporated. He took one step forward.
“I’m coming with you,” Darion insisted, already moving.
Alexander didn’t argue. “Ulrik, wait here. If we’re not back by nightfall, ride to Bertrand’s estate and look for Lord Krystoff Reave. Ask him to bring men and raid the cave.”
