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He paused for another long moment before answering. “I was thinking that—”
He broke off, and as I looked up at the road ahead, there was no need to ask why. Indeed, I forgot what we’d been discussing entirely as the tops of the castle towers came into view on the horizon.
Far in the distance, enormous orange and red flames engulfed the tower, licking up the sides and sending plumes of thick gray smoke into the air. The sky, already gray, was growing darker by the second—a dull slate fading into black.
Alarm rang through me, and the ground seemed to tremble, shock tilting everything on its edge. Even as I watched, a tremendous slab of stone broke off from the top of the nearest tower, shaking precariously for a moment, before sliding out of sight and crashing to the ground below. A dull roaring filled my ears, and my mouth fell open in a silent exclamation.
From where we stood on the road, the entire castle and the sweeping grounds surrounding it would soon be visible, though it was still not close enough to hear the impact of the stone on the ground or the roar of the flames. The scent of acrid, sour smoke wafted to us, seeming magnified tenfold now that I could see the source in front of me.
My muscles seized up, my body warring with itself as I simultaneously wanted to run toward and away from the disaster ahead.
Scion swore loudly and took off sprinting several yards in the time it took me to blink. “Stay there,” he said, not looking at me.
“Wait!” I found my voice again. “Take me with you!”
“No!” His answer was sharp and final. Like he hadn’t even wanted to waste time with a second syllable.
I dashed after him, knowing there was absolutely no scenario in which I might actually catch up. The painful irony that would be running toward the danger of the burning castle rather than away from it was almost unbearable. This was how I died, surely: not in the hunts or by the hands of the Fae, but through sheer, stubborn stupidity. If my poor mother could see me now.
“Let me help!” I yelled.
Scion shimmered midstride and turned semitranslucent, giving me the strangest impression that I could see through him to the castle beyond. Then he stopped and became solid again, glaring silver daggers at me. “I do not have time to argue with you or to indulge your maladroit tendencies.”
“Why do you care?” I heard myself snap.
Shit.
Immediately, I was sure I’d said the wrong thing, which was only confirmed when Scion’s eyebrows pulled low in a scowl. “I most especially do not have time for your self-loathing.”
I made a rough noise of frustration in my throat. “That’s not what I meant.”
I could have kicked myself. For once, I hadn’t been trying to antagonize him.
Yet the question lingered. Why should he care if I injured myself? Why did it matter to him at all what I did—surely one bite, or even last night, could not be that strong of a motivator when he’d hated the air I breathed for months. Even so, he was right in the sense that there was no time to argue.
I had no words—nor, indeed, the time—to explain every thought racing through my mind, all jumbled together and confused. I hadn’t told Scion about my dream involving the fire—why would I tell him about any of my dreams? Now, though, I desperately wished I’d explained it. Wished I’d had the conversation about Rosey’s journals with him, if only to give it more context. If only I’d explained why I was so adamant about seeing Bael.”If you don’t take me with you, I will only make my way there myself.”
A muscle in the prince’s jaw twitched, and storm clouds rolled over his eyes. He stalked toward me, looking for the first time in several days as if he would have liked nothing more than to choke the life out of me. “You are the most infuriating creature.”
A spark of genuine fear lit inside me like cold fire, and it was all I could do not to flinch when at last he reached for my arm and dragged me into the darkness once more.
My stomach lurched, far more so than it had barely ten minutes prior, and it was several long moments before I could open my eyes. As soon as I did, I had to blink several times, not sure if I was seeing correctly. “Why did you bring us to the stables?”
The Everlast stables stood behind the castle, on the opposite side from the garden that hid the entrance to the servants’ quarters. I recognized them immediately—or rather, I recognized the emblem of the house crest emblazoned on the saddles hung along the wall to my right and inferred from there.
The stables were enormous, dimly lit, and smelled of smoke and manure. They housed easily fifty horses at any one time, perhaps more, and were attended by some two dozen or so squires and stable hands.
Scion and I stood in the center aisle, rows of stalls facing us on either side, reminding me uncontrollably of the dungeon. The unnerving sounds of terrified animals, stomping and snorting, filled my ears, and in the distance, I could hear the shouts of men over the blazing fire.
“I told you,” Scion said shortly. “I don’t have fucking time for this. Where is the crown?”
I recoiled, sure I must have heard him incorrectly. “The what?”
“The crown, Lonnie. The only fucking crown I daresay you’ve ever seen, no less owned! You do not have it, so where is it?”
“You are worried about finding the crown? Not your family?”
My stomach twisted into a knot. Some part of me had started to think maybe he was not quite as abhorrent as I’d believed, but this was unforgivable. They were not even my family, and I could not claim to be any great supporter of the Everlasts, but even I would have saved nearly any of them over thecrown.
