Page 31

You don’t owe her anything, she repeated in her mind. She’s still one of them. Worships him. Adores him. Is only doing all of this for him.

The silence that answered had her jaw clenching.

Elyria turned her chin, staring at the crack beneath the door, the thin strip of light flickering underneath. She doubted very much that venturing out into that hallway would lead to her freedom. On her leisurely prisoner-walks between her bedroom and Malakar’s study, she’d had the keen pleasure of observing the many cultists who seemed stationed in this place. They were plentiful, and without wings or weapons, with her strength and speed limited by blood runes and spells, even the infamous Revenant would surely find herself quickly overwhelmed.

On the other hand, she did only seem to see the majority of them when crossing over from the wing she was kept in to the one where Malakar worked. As if they didn’t want to spend more time than was absolutely necessary in her dreadful Arcanian presence. So the odds were, perhaps, relatively good that she could do a little bit of snooping without getting caught, right?

Elyria pursed her lips. This was, she admitted, probably not the most sound plan she’d ever made. Of course, she had never been particularly adept at making plans in the first place—let alone sticking to them. But what she did know was that she could really do with a change in scenery. And consequences or not, would she really be able to live with herself if she squandered this opportunity?

This might be her only chance to obtain even a modicum of the information she desperately wanted—needed. If she was quiet and she was quick, maybe she could at least learn a little bit more about the layout of this place, could glean something about what Malakar was truly doing here. Could arm herself with a different kind of weapon.

“Everyone’s been tiring so quickly,” Petra had said, “from all the digging.” Elyria had yet to get the girl to divulge more than that, to elucidate the “lower forge” she had mentioned in passing.

Elyria needed to know.

She lifted her gaze, eyes flitting to her bed on the other side of the room. In an instant, she was on her feet, darting across the floor, practicing being as light-footed and silent as possible. She withdrew Cedric’s token from its hiding spot, quickly fastening it around her neck and tucking it into her tunic. Already, just the feel of the stone against the bare skin over her clavicle made her feel stronger, surer.

Elyria inhaled, then exhaled. Hiked up the waistband of her leather breeches. Braided her hair into a tight plait that fell against the side of her neck, perfectly concealing her bondmark. “All right,” she said to the empty room. “Let’s go for a stroll.”

The stone under her bare feet was cool as Elyria tiptoed down the corridor. She’d been right. Aside from the lanterns dotting the walls in sparse intervals, the hall was empty. As was the stairwell she descended in a rapid flutter of quiet footsteps, and the new hallway she turned down after that.

Elyria’s magic was a low, skulking presence in her veins—dampened, muted. But, miraculously, still there. It answered only faintly when she reached for it, like she was calling across a great distance. But it did answer, dark smoke shrouding her feet, misting across her skin. Barely enough to wield. Certainly not enough to fight with. But enough, perhaps, to blur the edge of her presence, to help her meld the slightest bit more into the surrounding shadows.

Her hand skimmed along the walls, alternating between lightly brushing embroidered tapestries and running along smooth stone. It was more for balance than anything else, to ground herself in the present. Without her wings, Elyria was off-kilter, like a table with one leg shorter than the others. She might have kept them masked with magic more often than not, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still there. That she didn’t feel them everywhere.

Now, all she felt was the lack of them, and the sad realization that this imbalance was her new reality had her chest suddenly feeling tight. Made the air difficult to suck into her lungs.

Not the time, she scolded herself. Be sad later.

She rounded one corner. Then another. Twice she had to flatten herself into a narrow alcove when she heard footsteps approaching, pressing herself into the darkness until the cultists passed, red robes trailing on the ground after them.

She’d thought herself caught the second time, when two patrolling sanguinagi stopped only a few feet from where she hid. But all the two men did was turn to each other with mildly irritated expressions and begin speaking in hushed tones.

“Has he given any further indication as to how much longer this will go on? How much farther we need to dig?” said one, several inches shorter than the other, with hair shaved all the way down to his scalp.

The other one, a tall, thin man with swooping blond hair that fell over one eye, frowned. “No. And I told Darren and Sylvia to let us relieve them, to come back up and let us take a shift in the tunnel, but they refused. Sometimes I think all that mana must be addling their brains.”

“Careful, Cornelius,” said the short man. “They are simply . . . invested . . . in fulfilling our glorious purpose.”

There was a beat of silence.

“As are we all, of course,” he added quickly, head swiveling over his shoulder, making Elyria hold her breath as his gaze swept right over her hiding spot. But it was more like he was simply checking to make sure nobody else was around.

“Of course, you’re right,” agreed Cornelius, one palm going to his chest, to the wolven medallion centered there. “Pro voluntae regos.”

Elyria braced herself, remembering the way the cultists at Seastone had used their medallions to slice open their own hands and call their blood magic to the surface. But the man only gave the pewter wolf’s face a reverent pat before he began walking away, gesturing for his companion to follow.

Not risking a breath until the men had fully disappeared around the bend, Elyria slipped from her hiding spot and ventured in the direction they’d come from. She quietly picked her way through the maze of corridors, down another set of stairs, then another, keeping careful mental track of every turn, every floor she descended.

Just a little farther, she told herself each time. Just a little longer. She knew she did not have unlimited time to explore this place, which was far, far bigger than she had thought. She’d figured she was being held in some small citadel—a set of twin towers, perhaps, with a connecting keep between them. But this, she realized, was beyond that.

This was a whole fucking fortress, evidently.

Her mind raced with the possibilities of what that meant—of where she was. Was this the infamous Ironridge prison? But no, from everything she’d heard of the horrible human fortress, the dungeon in which the humans had thrown any and all Arcanians found on Havensreach land, it was a dank prison, a rotten place.

Then again, before everything went to shit, Kit had told Elyria that the prisoner exchanges between Havensreach and Nyrundelle were complete. Perhaps Ironridge was abandoned afterward, repurposed by Varyth Malchior and his cultists. Goodness knew that with the resources of Lord Paramount Leviathan Church, they’d have been able to make it livable easily enough.

Malakar had chosen the perfect vessel to inhabit, Elyria thought bitterly. There was no lost time, no need to go to ground, to wait and watch and build up his armies. No, they were already built. Already waiting for their blood king’s return. Even if they didn’t realize it at the time.