Our story waits beyond their death.”
I freeze, staring. They seem to almost shimmer in the dim light, carrying weight beyond their simple presence. Poetry? A code? A warning?
My thoughts leap to Zeriel. His quarters. His wall. His hand?
Tomas’s voice resurfaces:“Son of the disgraced House Caelith… backed the wrong faction in the court. Instead of execution, he chose the arena. Been fighting his way back to honor for two years now…”
“My name was inked in blood, not gold,”suggests someone who gained their reputation through violence rather than wealth or privilege. Fitting for the arena champion.
But the rest…blood will call when tales are told…It doesn’t sound like the man I’ve seen: brutal, calculating, ice-edged. This feels older. Fae-old. Careful. A blade hidden in verse.
Though scattered now, we share one breath…Who are the “scattered”? The fallen courts? The bloodlines fractured when magic was outlawed? Or something Zeriel still ties himself to, long after the empire tried to burn it away?
By the time I dress, the verse is still circling in my skull. Whoever Zeriel Caelith is, he isn’t just an arena brute. And maybe that’s more dangerous.
I school my face to calm as I step back into his chamber. Whatever he’s scrawled on his walls, whatever he's hiding behindthat mask of his, I’ll keep to myself, for now—just like my conversation with Selen. I’m starting to sense that power trades in secrets here, and I’ve only just begun collecting.
“Ready?” Zeriel doesn’t look up, his attention still on a map sprawled across the table.
“As I’ll ever be,” I murmur, the verse I found in his chamber still whispering at the edges of my mind. “Though I’m still convinced this is madness.”
“Madness,” he says evenly, rolling the map into a cylinder with a snap, “would be ignoring an advantage when it falls into your lap.”
“Or drags you down into its grave,” I counter under my breath.
His mouth twitches, not quite a smile. “That depends who’s holding the shovel.”
He ties the map, steps closer, his presence filling the space, eyes fixing on me. “The guards move with precision. Twenty minutes after the western corridor patrol, fifty before the pens are checked again. That is our window.”
Like that means anything to me.The Ironhold is a maze carved from the bones of mountains, and without a guide, I’m just another lost rat in its belly.
“And if we’re caught?” I ask.
“Then you follow my lead, of course. A champion can excuse much as training. Though not everything.”
“Comforting,” I mutter, but my throat feels tight.
He picks up the vial of dark liquid and the curved blade from the table. “Follow me. Step where I step. And for once, keep that tongue of yours still.”
“Careful,” I murmur as I slip after him into the corridor, “if I go silent, you might miss the best part of this adventure.”
This time, the corner of his mouth does lift, quick and unwilling, before vanishing as he turns away.
The chill of the stone bites through my shoes as I follow, shadows pooling thick between the torches. Zeriel movesthrough them, his tall frame cutting a path I can’t help but take.
Selen’s warning claws at my mind:People are watching you now. You must not get caught again.
The risks ahead are bone-deep, maybe worse than I can even grasp. And yet, for the second time tonight, something stirs in me. Not fear. Something sharper. Alive. A pull toward whatever waits in the dragon pens.
Maybe it’s the chance to unravel what happened with the ashblood dragon.
Or maybe it’s the thrill of walking straight back into danger in a prison that’s taken everything and still expects me to kneel.
Or perhaps it’s the fact that, for better or worse, I’m stepping into the unknown beside a man who scrawls verses about blood and death on his bathroom wall. There’s a kind of poetry in that, too.
Chapter 17
Zeriel leads with the confidence of someone who has memorized every turn, every shadow of this fortress. I follow, matching his pace, hyper-aware of every distant footfall or voice. The male barracks are quiet now, but the Ironhold never truly sleeps. There are always guards patrolling somewhere, recruits screaming from nightmares in their cells. But Zeriel seems to know exactly when to pause, when to proceed, timing our movements between the regular patterns of those who maintain this prison.
