It plummeted.
Chapter 66
Evelyne awoke with the taste of blood in her mouth and a sharp headache behind her eyes. The air was damp and cold, clinging to her skin like mist. Stone pressed hard against her back, and when she tried to move, tight ropes cut into her wrists and ankles. She was barefoot, still clad in nothing but the thin nightgown, its hem torn and stained with dust and blood. Somewhere, water dripped steadily in the dark.
She forced her eyes open, blinking against the flickering light. Her loose hair fell like a curtain over her face and stuck to skin.
Dusk bled through the cracks. She’d been unconscious for hours. Torches lined the crumbling walls veined with cracks and overgrown with moss. She knew it: the broken arches, the hallowed walls, crumbled statues, no ceiling, ivy.
She had been dragged into the ruins of the Ivory Bastion.
Panic clawed at her ribs, sharp and fast, but she swallowed it down, gritting her teeth. She twisted her neck, searching the darkness—and there, just beside her, was Isildeth. Slumped motionless, her hair matted to her forehead, her hands similarly bound.
“Isildeth,” Evelyne rasped, her voice raw and thin. “Isildeth, wake up.”
No response.
Fear surged higher, a cold thing threading through her veins, but she tamped it down ruthlessly. She could not afford to break.
“Evie?”
Her heart stopped.
She turned.
Thalen lay on his side, half-curled like a question mark. His wrists were bound in rough cord, and there was blood—dried,brownish red—at his hairline. The skin beneath the ropes had begun to purple. A wooden sword lay discarded near him, as if tossed there in mockery.
No...no, no, no…
Evelyne dragged herself toward him, ignoring the way the stones cut into her skin, the pins and needles rushing back into her limbs like fire.
“I’m here,” she whispered. “I’m here. You’re alright.”
He blinked up at her, eyes glassy. “I’m scared,” he murmured. “I woke up and—”
She swallowed. If she broke now, Thalen would watch her break. And if he saw her shatter, he’d never believe in safety again.
She hushed him gently. “I know. I know. You were very brave.”
He sniffled, swallowing back a sob that still escaped, wet and quiet. “Are they going to hurt us?”
“No,” her voice came out low, steady. “We’re going to get out of here. Father will come. He’ll find us.”
Thalen nodded, too fast, and another tear slipped free.
Evelyne leaned into him as best she could, bound as she was. Heart hammered against her ribs, trying to piece the scattered memories together.
She had been in Alaric’s chamber—she remembered that much. Isildeth had been there, preparing a bath. Then Thalen burst in, the wooden sword clutched in both hands.
Then it happened.
The door had crashed inward. Figures rushed in—tattooed men, hooded and rough. Evelyne had barely reached for the bell rope when something struck her temple, sharp and brutal. She heard Thalen scream, the world had tilted violently sideways, pain bloomed behind her eyes, and then darkness swallowed everything whole.
Her breath hitched. She froze as movement flickered at the edge of her vision. People stepped from the gloom, clad in long brown robes—robes that, for a disorienting heartbeat, looked exactly like the ceremonial garb of Rhyssa’s priests. But they were tattered, dirt-stained, as if they had been left too long in the rot and ruin. The men’s faces were obscured by heavy hoods, their movements too stiff, too rehearsed. The ropes cut deeper as she tried to recoil.
The crowd dragged stones into some shapes on the ground. Another figure stepped into the firelight, swaying slightly as though drunk on incense.
Evelyne froze. Her stomach lurched, sharp and sudden. The room tilted, unsteady. It was like sinking her teeth into a sweet apple and finding rot beneath the skin.
