Her gaze was fixed on the front of the manor where several saddled horses waited. None that I recognized.
“Those horses weren’t there when we left,” she whispered.
Nikella suddenly appeared between us. Kiera jerked to the side, nearly tumbling from Ozlow. But I wasn’t surprised. Nikella had lived in the forest as many years as I had.
She looked up at me, a rare bleakness in her dark blue eyes. “Korvin is here.”
Chapter 31
Kiera
Korvin is here.
Numbly, I followed her instructions and took my saddlebags from Ozlow’s back. Two workers hurried toward us and led our horses into the stable.
Nikella assured us they would be taken care of. I kept a wary eye on the manor, waiting for Korvin to appear in one of the windows or to burst out of the front door.
I supposed we could keep running, but gods damn it, I was tired. We’d fought and ridden all night. My entire body ached and groaned with every step I took. The cut on my neck was my only injury from when that soldier first grabbed me. But I was coated in dirt and sweat, and the dead soldier’s uniform smelled like his body was still in it.
But now Korvin had caught up with us.
None of the workers seemed terribly alarmed. As if soldiers stopped to check in regularly. Maybe they didn’t know who Korvin was.
After we gathered our saddlebags, Nikella led us through the woods to the back of the manor. She fumbled through piles of dead leaves until she lifted a patch of them. A patch that wasreally a trapdoor in the ground, with grass and leaves threaded to it.
She gestured us inside, but her gaze never strayed from the back of the manor, which had no windows—only a simple door.
Sigrid and Yarina jumped into the tunnel, while Maz and Aiden balked for a moment. I couldn’t see their faces behind their Wolf masks. Perhaps the mine tunnels had been harder to navigate than they’d thought.
I’d nearly cried with relief when I saw the two of them near their horses. Yarina, Sigrid, and I had just ridden back, and I thought we’d have to wait hours for them. But I’d seen Aiden’s shadow and known it was him, even in his Wolf disguise.
Yet both of them had seemed different since coming back. Tense. Quick to lash out. Like wounded animals.
Aiden sneaking off to kill a soldier had unsettled me. As it seemed to unsettle the others. It was unlike him to be so reckless. To seek violence.
But I was coming to realize that everything Aiden did was to protect others.
Something had shaken him in that mine. Perhaps he would tell me once we were safe. If that ever actually happened.
Maz and Aiden disappeared into the tunnel, and I followed. The darkness and earthy smell reminded me of the tunnel between quarters in Aquinon. Collapsed now, according to Ruru. I prayed that Melaena was still alive and well since he’d left.
Nikella closed the trapdoor behind her, enveloping us in inky darkness. I gulped, feeling my way forward.
Gods, I hope there aren’t any spiders in this tunnel.
“It’s fairly straightforward,” Nikella said quietly. “But watch your head.”
There was a thud, and someone ahead of me grunted. “Earlier warning would’ve been nice,” Aiden muttered.
A hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat, but I held it back. Not the time or the place.
Only a few moments went by before a shaft of light beamed down the tunnel. Yarina swung a small door open and crawled through. We emerged in a small, musty room lit by a single lantern. Wooden shelves laced with cobwebs lined the stone walls. A few kegs rested on the shelves, still plugged.
Several stone steps led up to a rusty metal door with a heavy chain and lock securing it. Perhaps it led to another cellar or the main house?
Nikella brushed past me to join Jek and Ruru in a corner where they’d piled up their cloaks and bedrolls. Ruru was snoring while Jek cleaned his weapons. Bruises were already darkening Ruru’s jaw and cheek. His ribs probably looked worse.
I owed all three of them. Ruru for his distraction of the soldier. Nikella for killing the other soldier who had pursued me. And Jek for riding to my aid when I struggled with the soldier who’d held a knife to my neck by the stream.
