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“Dane,” Tavion growled, advancing until his chest bumped his uncle’s, and it took me a second to realize he wasn’t bluffing. He was as pissed as I was.
“What else is down here?”
“Nothing, I swear. Stop being so jumpy.” Dane lifted his brows. “I swear I’ve never seen anything this far south. Not ever. These tunnels are always empty, you know that. That’s the first living thing I’ve ever seen this far south of the mountains.”
“One more day,” I reminded him softly, putting enough menace in my tone so he knew I wasn’t fucking around. “You said we’d reach Tempeste by tomorrow.” I narrowed my eyes.
“We’re still too far away. We’ll never make it.” I was a damn good judge of distance, and we’d traveled less than twenty miles today. By the time we stopped tonight, we’d be close to the border wall separating Solarys from Caladrius, but not over it.
After that, we were still three days from the city.
“Fuck us over Dane, try to sell us back to the Fae King, and I’ll feed you to those eels myself.” Anger made it easy to think about dropping him in that water and letting them rip him apart.
“Now why would I do that?” His dark eyes raked me up and down, dismissed me, then landed on Anaria. His gaze stayed there, a speculative look on his face that I didn’t care for one bit.
“When I want that Fae King dead every bit as much as you?”
I hid my surprise. “Just get us to Tempeste, and we’ll go our separate ways.”
Tavion stepped between us. “This is the only way, Raz. Dane’ll get us there in time.”
Dane’s eyes glowed with something I couldn’t identify. “If you don’t trust me, then listen to my nephew. There’s a shortcut up ahead. Of a sort.”
I looked between them, my heart pounding when I turned to Tavion. “How well doyouknow these tunnels?”
My heart skipped a beat at the look on Tavion’s face. Not fear…not quite, but…something I couldn’t put my finger on. “How do you think I got back and forth to Tempeste for twenty years? Like my uncle said…” A flash of doubt flickered in his eyes before he hid it. “There’s a shortcut. But not like anything you’ve ever seen before.”
I tugged Anaria closer. One wrong move and I’d rip this collar off and then…then Zor would die, right along with Dane and probably Tavion, too, the way my anger raged like wildfire.
“Tell me right fucking now what’s up ahead, or we turn around and take the long way, damn the consequences.”
Tavion just shook his head and lit up another torch before he mounted up. “You wouldn’t believe me if I did, Raz. This is something you have to see for yourself.”
But his eyes landed on Anaria, and his face softened. “Other than the crossing itself, there won’t be any more surprises. And the crossing’s safe, I swear.”
11
RAZIEL
By the end of that first day, I’d lost all sense of time.
The darkness grew so dense it swallowed everything. Every muttered curse, our quick, panicked breathing, the rhythmic clomping of hooves all just…disappeared into a dense sort of silence.
Even our torches barely broke through the gloom, but every time my fear at being trapped underground flared up, I shut the feeling down.
And my approach was working, until out of nowhere, Anaria went rigid, the gelding snorting when she gripped her thighs tight around his sides.
“Loosen up on those reins, love,” I murmured. “You don’t want to get thrown in here.” My heart thundered at the thought. No, that would be a fucking nightmare with the narrow corridor and five horses, hooves flying everywhere.
“Can you feel that?” Anaria asked, her pale eyes shining mirrors to the torchlight. “That sound up ahead?”
Now I could.
A bone-deep hum, like the air was brimming with silent music, the kind that could only be felt.
Beneath the nulling iron around my neck, my locked-down magic reacted violently. Old magic, and not the good kind. Terrible and ancient, like the world was breathing in and out. “We’re probably close to the ward.” I jerked my head to the ceiling. “It could be right overhead.”
But the ward between realms never felt this…unpredictable.
