They rounded a bend, the walls narrowing around them. Loren slowed, his eyes scanning the tunnel ahead. “This was part of the old aqueduct system,” he said softly, though his voice still echoed in the quiet. “There should be—ah, there.”
The little ball of light darted to the side, vanishing into a narrow opening in the wall. Loren didn’t hesitate—just bent and gripped the cover, moving it aside with a grunt. Araya stepped forward, curious despite herself—but then the smell hit her.
“No,” Araya snapped, gagging on the stench. “I’m not going in there.”
“Your friend seems like she’s done this a few times,” Loren dropped to his knees, peering into the dark, fetid tunnel. “I’m going to trust her.” He glanced back at her, those green eyes as bright as a cat’s in the darkness. “It slopes down. I suggest going feet-first.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer before he shimmied into the tunnel feet first, barely managing to squeeze his shoulders through the narrow opening.
“I will not,” Araya hissed, digging her heels in as Loren’s magic needled at her, the shadows urging her toward the reeking hole.
You will, they seemed to chant back.
The only defiance she had left was refusing to go feet-first. Clenching her jaw, she crawled forward awkwardly, her injured arm tucked against her chest and every breath thick with filth. The tunnel swallowed her whole, closing around her like a grave.
It only got worse the deeper she crawled, the stone turning slickunder her palm. Loren had been right—it did slope down, steeper and steeper the further she crawled, until Araya started to regret going headfirst. She stopped, the compulsion prickling at her to keep going as she tried to gauge if there was enough room for her to turn herself around.
Her hand slipped.
Araya cried out, instinctively throwing out her injured arm to catch herself. It buckled under her—and then she was sliding.
The darkness swallowed her scream as she scrabbled at the slick, slimy rock in a futile effort to stop her plunge. But there was nothing. This was going to be how she died—smashed to pieces in a stinking sewer tunnel?—
Loren’s arms locked around her, breaking her fall as he muffled her scream against his shoulder. He was all sharp edges and wasted muscle, painfully lean but somehow brimming with a coiled strength that called to the faint wisps of aether just starting to flicker back to life inside her.
And his scent—Gods, with the iron gone, he smelled like thunder and cold stone—rain lashing slabs of frozen granite. It was raw and wild and old, and something about it made Araya long to bury her face in his throat and breathe him in until she drowned in it.
“Stubborn female,” he muttered, his voice a low rasp as it brushed over her scarred ear. The wicked smile in the words curled low in her stomach, kindling a fire she wanted no part of.
She smacked a hand into his chest—harder than necessary. “Put me down.”
“As you wish.”
Araya’s triumph at his quick obedience shifted into sharp regret the moment she splashed into the calf-high muck, a wave of nausea gagging her as the foul liquid soaked the hem of her skirt and rushed over the tops of her boots, filling them with freezing filth.
“You knew that would happen!”
“I told you I thought you should go feet-first,” he said, his hands still on her shoulders as if worried she would slip. “You made the decision not to listen.”
Araya’s face flushed, embarrassment and irritation tangling with her body’s confusing reaction to him. She shook off his hands, squaring her shoulders and glaring up at him. He was tall—taller than any human man she’d ever known—forcing her to crane her neck to look up at him.
“Why didn’t you just compel me, then?” she snapped.
“I could have,” Loren acknowledged. He cocked his head, studying her with the same fae stillness they’d beaten out of her at Kaldrath. “I could make you do a lot of things—follow, bow, obey…but I won’t. Not unless you’re dying, and you’re too stubborn to save yourself.”
He leaned in, his voice dropping to a timbre that sent goosebumps racing over her skin. “You’re not a puppet, Araya.”
The emphasis he put on her name sent a shiver over her skin as his gaze lingered, burning through her defenses like wildfire.
“Maybe you should just try trusting me,” he added.
“Trust you?” Araya echoed, her voice rising. “You used my best friend to escape—youkidnappedme!”
“It was completely her idea.” Loren shrugged, starting to walk forward again. “If you recall,Itold you to forget about me and have a happy life. You’re the one who showed up at my cell anyway.”
“This isnotmy fault.” Araya clenched her jaw as Loren’s magic tightened around her, forcing her to move.
For what felt like an eternity, they pressed on in silence with only Serafina’s seeking spell to light their way. The narrow tunnel forced them to walk single file, the ceiling dropping so low in places that Loren had to bend nearly double. Much to Araya’s dismay, there were places where the muck rose to mid-thigh, the cold sludge sucking at their legs as they struggled forward.
