Page 20

Fuck.

Before I could even turn my head to draw a blade, the heavy inner door slammed open with a deafening bang.

Soren charged into the room, sword drawn, his dark eyes wide with panic. The residual magic of his rank hummed around his leathers, his jaw rigid as his gaze swept the empty corners of the room for the threat that had caused the vibration in the stone floors.

He stopped the moment his eyes landed on me.

I stood at the center of the room in damp, dirt-stained leathers, my daggers drawn at my hips.

Soren lowered his blade by a fraction, his chest rising and falling as he looked from my boots to my face. The protective terror faded, replaced by an exhausted disbelief that brought a small dimple back to his left cheek.

“Well,” Soren said, his smooth baritone carrying a dry edge as he sheathed his steel. “I usually expect my princess to be asleep the night before she enters a magical meat grinder. Care to explain why you look like you just climbed out of a ravine, Tauriel?”

I crossed my arms over my chest, defaulting straight to my usual armor to hide the heat rising on my neck. “I was heading down to the kitchens for some of that honey, Captain. But your impeccable timing caught me in the act.”

Soren studied my face, his dark eyes reading the lie with quiet understanding. He didn’t believe me—he was an elite vanguard captain, he wasn’t stupid—but he didn’t press for the truth either. He just let out a long, tired sigh that made me realize how hard he’d been working to keep me alive.

“Nice try, Princess,” Soren murmured, walking past me toward the open balcony doors. “But I’m not losing you to a midnight stroll before the high lords get their chance to watch you bleed.”

“Smartass.”

He stopped at the threshold, the wind catching his dark cloak as he lifted his right hand. He closed his eyes, his fingers tracing a precise shape in the freezing air as he spoke a low word of power.

A thin, shimmering blue thread of magic sparkled from his fingertips, weaving across the open framework of the balcony doors like a spider’s web before settling into the stone and turning completely invisible.

“Lunar ward,” Soren said, turning back to face me with a steady, honorable smile. “It won’t stop a dragon, but if a single boot heel clears this threshold, the alarm will ring straight in my head. Go to sleep, Tauriel. You’ll need every bit of that temper tomorrow.”

Great. Something else for me research. Usually breaking things is easy; this didn’t scream easy.

He offered a polite bow and stepped back into the corridor, closing the heavy oak door behind him until the lock clicked home.

I was left alone in the dark room, the hidden ward humming at my back, the three silver moons staring through the glass like three executioners counting down the hours. I looked down at my wrists, where the crescent markings were still throbbing with a dull, persistent heat from Mal’s touch.

Tomorrow, I would enter the Mani Vatn. Tomorrow, I would either survive the silver, or I would become another story buried in the stone.

Survive.

NINE

Hands were on me before my eyes could even adjust to the golden morning light spilling through the balcony doors.

I bolted upright, my right hand diving instinctively beneath the remaining feathers of my gutted mattress for a blade that wasn’t there. My fingers closed on empty air just as my gaze snapped to the foot of the bed.

Dagger. Where the fuck is my Dagger?

Standing in the pale light was a handmaid, her breath catching in a quick gasp as she carefully slid my sheathed daggers out from the torn lining, her hands trembling around the leather hilts.

Six of them moved through my ruined chambers—a hushed, efficient flock of Fae women dressed in uniform grey linens.

“The hour is close, Princess,” the lead maid murmured, her tone carrying the smooth, detached politeness of the inner palace servants.

Before I could get a word in about boundaries, they ushered me out of bed.

The adjoining bath chamber was already swallowed by a thick cloud of steam. The massive marble tub was filled to the brim with scalding water laced with astringent oils, crushed moon-lilies, and jasmine. They guided me into the heat, the water stinging the raw, split skin over my knuckles from yesterday’s training session.

They scoured my skin with coarse pumice stones and rough cloths until my limbs were flushed and tingling, scrubbing away the smell of tavern smoke and the faint traces of pine and black amber from my midnight trip into the woods. My skin felt raw and exposed, stripped of every protective layer I’d relied on since stepping through the portal.

When they finally dragged me out, shivering despite the heat in the room, they brought out my attire.