Down.
Another turn.
Down again.
The lanternlight thins further with each level until the shadows between them feel thick enough to touch.
Elyssara’s chest tightens.
The deeper they descend, the more it feels like the palace itself is closing around them like a hand around their throats—layer after layer of stone and iron sealing them away from the world above.
From escape.
From sunlight.
From anything resembling safety.
She stops halfway down the next flight of stairs.
“Kael.”
He pauses beside her.
“This is wrong,” she breathes.
He studies the darkness below them for a long moment.
Then his mouth curves into a humorless smile.
“Oh, absolutely.”
She tries to smile, to embrace the joke, but dread pools in her gut like lead.
But there’s no turning back now.
Another step.
Another.
The air grows heavier. Thicker. More oppressive.
Quieter.
Until finally the stairway ends at a heavy metal door with a handwheel in the center.
“Hey,” Elyssara says, gripping Kael’s arm. It’s not fear that runs through her veins, but gravity. The sense that this threshold will change something.Everything.
He turns, stormlight eyes meeting hers. He places his palm over her hand.
“There’s nothing we can’t face, El,” he soothes.
She nods, but it feels hollow.
He notices.He always fucking does.
His broad frame pulls her in, wrapping his muscled arms around her. One hand rests between her shoulder blades, and the other cradles the back of her head, his fingers threading through the auburn tangles falling over her shoulders.
His mouth presses against the top of her head, reverent and adoring.
