And thanks to those who loved her most, she had three.
Three chances to escape.
Her heart steadied.
Ahead of her, Coreto barked, “Faster! The men should be in position by now,” yanking her onward without bothering to look back. His voice bounced off the narrow walls, nauseatingly triumphant. Lord Bennett lifted the torch higher, illuminating the next bend—a sharp corner plunging into deeper darkness.
Seraphina drew in a slow breath through her nose, forcing clarity into her thoughts. She would not die here. Nor would she be used as a pawn in Coreto’s political games.
She was a de la Croix. A queen.
And she wouldnotgo quietly.
Just as she steeled herself—just as her fingers curled, ready to ease Aldric’s dagger free—the wall to her left gave a low, grinding groan. Stone shifted. A section of the passage wall slid open. A flood of golden light poured in.
Seraphina recoiled, her eyes squeezing shut against the sudden glare.
“What?” It was all Coreto had time to ask before a blur of blue-green shot toward him with a furious screech.Alyx.
Her usuru slammed into the duke’s face, wings battering, jaws snapping. Coreto shouted and stumbled backward, releasing his hold on her rope. Lord Bennett screamed. Wellane cowered. Blades rasped free, her traitorous guards drawing steel.
A silhouette moved to fill the doorway—tall, slender, unmistakable.
Olivia.
Voice calm—entirely too calm—her friend ordered, “Get down.”
Seraphina obeyed on instinct, dropping into a crouch just as Olivia flung a handful of some sort of powder over her head.
And straight into her captors’ faces.
Screams of pain ricocheted off the walls. Men choked on nothing, blind. Disoriented.
She clenched her eyes shut and ducked her head, trying not to breathe in the powder.
Hands seized her wrists and dragged her through the hidden doorway, out of the suffocating dark. More cold air slapped her cheeks. Torchlight blazed against her eyelids.
Cautiously, she opened her eyes and found herself in what looked like a guardroom, but one deep in the palace. One with no windows.
The dungeons?
Sir Tristan was there, shouldering the hidden door closed again.
Her chest constricted. Alyx was still in there. “Alyx!” she tried to shout, though the word was muffled against her gag.
Yet still the usuru darted from the corridor and made straight for her just as Sir Tristan finished shoving the door shut. The rasp of stone slamming into stone reverberated through the room. Motes of dust floated through the air.
They were free.
Smooth scales glided against her throat as Alyx wound herself around her neck and settled in close—with a hiss instead of her usual purr.
“Hold still,” Olivia snarled, a knife flashing in her hands, cutting clean through the rope binding her. Her gag came off next, ripped free by her friend.
Seraphina worked her mouth, her tongue dry. “Thank you—”
Olivia seized her hand and tugged her from the room, out into a narrow corridor, Sir Tristan following close behind. More cold and damp clung to the air. Torches sputtered on the walls. To the left, a flight of stairs led upward.
Footsteps pounded against those steps, descending. Voices clattered against one another.
