My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. The questions are a frantic, silent scream in my head.How?Why?I look from him to Selen, then back again. The medallion. The one he wore, identical to the mark on her wrist. The word he traced in the dust.“Always.”
Selen’s teal gaze is sharp, analytical. “This way. Quickly,” she says before I can speak.
She turns and strides down a short, stone-hewn corridor.
I don’t even look at Zeriel. I can picture his chiseled face set back into that unreadable mask. He’s still keeping his emotions contained—thank the gods—though there’s an obvious tension thrumming through him. Like suspicion, aimed at our supposed saviors.
He doesn’t ask questions yet. Of course he knows as well as me by now that Selen only deigns to answer when she chooses.
I trail behind Byron, my mind reeling. We emerge into a larger cavern, illuminated by torchlight.
And it’s full of people.
My heart almost stops. Lira stands near a rough-hewn table, her arm in a sling but her gray eyes clear and alive. Her lips curveinto a relieved smile and she raises a hand to me. I’m too shocked to wave back. Nyx is beside her, looking weary but whole. Vex, Talyra, even Sariah—all of Selen’s women… They’re all here. Breathing. Watching us.
Even Dren is somehow here too.
Beyond them, dozens more I don’t know: some resting, some sitting and talking, the room full of quiet life. In one corner, five older fae with an air of authority stand with arms crossed, heads bowed in quiet conversation while still tracking us across the room.Is this the only chamber like this, or are there more?
My head spins. “You… they…” I turn on Selen, the words tumbling out in a rush of disbelief. “You said there was nothing you could do. You said you don’t traffick people.”
Selen doesn’t even flinch. “Correct,” she says, her tone crisp. “I am a trainer.” She gestures with her chin toward the silent, hulking man beside me. “Byron, on the other hand… trafficking is his work.”
I stare at Byron, at his quiet, somber face. The man who speaks in gestures and rides drakes in the dead of night. A man who smuggles people from the jaws of the empire? The disappearances in the arena, the impossible escape—it was him. It was all him. The questions pile up so fast I feel like I’m choking on them.How? Why?
But Selen still gives me no time to ask. Her focus is already moving on.
I want to stay back—talk to Lira, to all the others, get answers—but Selen’s silent command has me following her onwards, through another narrow tunnel carved from living rock. It’s something older than the harsh, chiseled stone of the empire, the walls smoothed by time and water, glowing faintly with veins of the same phosphorescent fungi that grow in the forest. It smells of damp earth and clean, cold stone.
We pass at least seven roughly shaped doorways and several more fae who seem to carry authority like a shadow. Finally we cutright through one of the archways and step into a smaller room… an office.
My steps falter as I take it in. The air here is warmer, drier, scented with burning herbs and old parchment, reminding me uncannily of Selen’s office back in the Ironhold. Except here, the cavern is a hidden sanctuary… a rebel’s sanctum? Maps are spread across a stone table in the center, held down by strange, carved stones. Shelves carved into the walls are crammed with vials, ancient-looking fae texts, and bundles of dried herbs. A fire pit in the center of the room glows with embers, casting a warm, flickering light across the space.
It’s a place of secrets. A place outside the empire’s reach. A place that shouldn’t exist.
Selen moves to the central table, her back to us. Byron takes up a position by the cavern’s entrance, a silent, immovable guard.
She shoves a plate of food and two cups of water toward Zeriel and me, the gesture practical, blunt.
“Welcome,” Selen says, her voice echoing slightly in the space, “to the heart of the matter.” She turns and her teal eyes pin us in place. “Eat. Then we’ll talk about the war you just declared.”
Chapter 51: Zeriel
“I’ll return in ten minutes,” Selen says.
Before Veyra or I can utter a word, the woman is out the door, the heavy stone grinding shut behind her. Her companion, the mute man, stays, taking a quiet seat opposite Veyra.
The sudden silence is like a physical weight, pressing in on me. Questions surge, spin through my mind in spirals.
But for a long moment, no one moves. The fire pit spits a spark, its light dancing over the maps and vials, casting our shadows long and distorted against the cavern walls.
She stands on the far side of the table, a rigid silhouette against the flickering embers, her arms wrapped around herself as if to hold her own splintering pieces together.
My anger hasn’t cooled. It’s a low, banked fire in my gut, a familiar heat I’ve lived with for years. I feel the echo of it from her through the tether, a wary, defiant tension. She expects another onslaught, another accusation. I have a dozen of them, sharp and ready on my tongue.
You could have gotten us killed. You stole my chance. You wrecked everything... And now you’ve set the entire empire against us.
But the paleness of her face cages my words. She already knows. Selen’s words just screamed it.
