At long last, they hit a landing, an ancient wooden door before them. Carvings nearly identical to the ones on Lyriat’s throne covered the surface, accentuated by the striated stones glowing softly around it.
“I have seldom brought others to this place,” Lyriat said, casting a sidelong glance at Brand, “but it seems we have need of it now. I’ll trust you to keep its existence to yourselves.”
Lunara’s soul left her body when he laid his hand on the door and the hewn images jumped to life, creeping up his arm and teasing a wayward hank of his copper hair. The power was immense. Ancient, like the cavern pool. Beckoning, even as it repulsed her.
A click sounded and the door cracked open. Lyriat gently extracted himself from the grasping branches and they melted back into place as if they’d never moved at all.
The power remained, though, thrumming just below the surface.
Shitting stars. No. No, no, no. Bad idea to go through there.
He pushed and revealed a square room with no decorations or embellishments—only a huge, circular stone table in the center with a ring of benches around it.
Lyriat plopped down onto one of them with a weary sigh and lifted his hand. A fireplace she hadn’t noticed on the backwall blazed to life at his command, the flames casting him in a foreboding silhouette.
They filed in, and Brand led her to the far side of the table next to Lyriat. Faldir took a seat to the king’s other side, Magnus and Thad beside him. Only Caius remained standing, his eyes wary.
“I feel like I’ve been led to my grave,” he mumbled with a shudder. “It isn’t natural down here.”
Lyriat nodded. “I was only a boy when my father first showed me this place. Right before he died, in fact, like he knew it was coming.” There was something strange in the way he said it—a false lightness and a rigid set to his shoulders. “He swore any secrets whispered within would find themselves imprisoned, trapped in the stone for all time. The older I get, the more I realize he meant it quite literally. In all the years I’ve ruled Straelon, not a single word I’ve uttered in this room has escaped its confines.”
He closed his eyes and crossed his arms. “Speak. Explain. Leave nothing out.”
So they did—her, Brand, and Magnus weaving the story in turns. Glynmor, Fern, the burial. Thad blushed when they recounted his appearance, not even bothering to argue Magnus’s colorful version of it. It wasn’t until the part they realized Faldir was missing, how it had affected Hedda and the choices they’d made, that the conversation turned.
“We thought you’d been taken,” she rasped in Faldir’s direction, “so we followed you down into the Thodelemaia Chasm. Heard your screams and tracked your blood?—”
“The fuck?”
“Youwhat?”
They spoke over one another, Faldir recoiling while Lyriat slapped his hands onto the tabletop, all of his white-hot intensity directed at her.
Wonderful. You’re doing great. By the way, the portal is right upstairs.
“I…” Lunara swallowed, shrinking back and ready to run for her bleeding life if his face got any redder. “I shielded us from the shadows, and we?—”
“We had a deal, Lunara,” Lyriat seethed. “You were to protect them. Heal them. Not facilitate a jaunt into one of the bloody chasms.”
“I know, but?—”
Brand gripped her thigh, cutting off the rest of her words. “Watch your tone,” he said, his voice low. “I was going down whether shefacilitated it,or not. Your ire is misplaced.”
“All I’m hearing is that she incapacitated Hedda easily enough, but decided not to extend the courtesy to the rest of you!”
“It never would’ve crossed my mind to do so. It was bad enough taking Hedda’s freedom, and I only did it out of absolute necessity. ”
Lyriat’s laugh was not in the least amused. “So, in the midst of an as-yet-undiscovered political subterfuge, you not only didn’t try to stop them, but actually helped my family—Imperial Sons of Bordoroth—make their merry way into a Dread Chasm.”
“Lyriat…” Brand’s fingers tightened, and she dropped her hand to grip them. To find a modicum of calm in the touch.
“It wasn’t that simple. And technically, it was only Brand and I?—”
“What?!” Caius that time, his canines flashing with the growled demand. “Only the two of you?”
“There wasn’t another choice.” Brand drew in a deep breath.
Lyriat looked between them, his disbelief evident. “Have you lost your Sisters-damned minds?”
