“Teams of eight. Each passage. No wandering off, no playing hero. We sweep every damned tunnel until we find them. Report back to me if you spot an enemy. Dismissed.”
Alaric took a sharp breath and stepped forward instinctively, already braced to run toward the nearest descent.
Cedric caught his arm.
“Don’t expect me to wait,” Alaric said through clenched teeth.
“You’ll have to,” Cedric replied, firm and low. “You’re the heir. And I’ve been ordered to return with you and your wife in one piece. Got it?”
Alaric’s jaw worked, but he didn’t argue. Not out loud. Cedric didn’t need to ask him to know he was thinking the same thing.
We should have found them already.
But they said nothing. No need to give voice to the fear gnawing at all of them. Instead, they waited at the mouth of the cavern, listening to the soldiers fan out into the veins of darkness. Waiting for anything.
And as the minutes dragged by, each one heavier than the last, Cedric tightened his grip on the hilt of his sword and reminded himself that patience kept you alive. And right now, being alive was the only way to make sure they stayed that way too.
He stared into the black beyond the torches, jaw clenched. And then, as if summoned by the silence, the guilt came.
Cedric’s throat tightened. He had pushed the boy away. Called him annoying more times than he could count. Rolled his eyes at every enthusiastic question, every earnest declaration. Pretended to be unmoved when the kid looked up to him like he was some sort of legend instead of a tired bastard with a sharp tongue and bad instincts.
And now the boy was in danger.
All he’d ever wanted was company. Someone to take him seriously. And Cedric—idiot that he was—had brushed him off like a fly.
If anything had happened down here—if Thalen was… gods, what would he even tell Evelyne?Sorry, princess, your brother’s dead because I couldn’t be bothered to answer his stupid questions about sword grips?
The thought made his stomach clench like a fist.
No. Stop. Focus.
He ground his teeth and shook the thought loose before it could finish.
It’ll be okay. You’re supposed to be a soldier. You’re supposed to save him. He’s counting on you.
He adjusted the sword at his side and forced his feet to stay planted. Forced his lungs to pull in air and let it out slow. He didn't need to watch Vesena, she was a fixed point, steady asbedrock. If anything, he'd bet she was already calculating five steps ahead, preparing for whatever poor fellow was foolish enough to get in their way.
Alaric, though—Alaric, who normally carried himself like the world was a particularly interesting book he hadn’t quite finished reading—was now a man stripped to his nerves. Terrified. His grip on the blade wasn’t loose, but it wasn’t steady either; the faint tremor in his knuckles betrayed him. A bead of sweat slid from his temple to his jaw, vanishing into the dark line of his collar.
Cedric sighed under his breath, pushed off the wall, and crossed the space between them.
“You’re going to burn yourself out at this rate,” he warned. “You look like you're waiting for the walls to start bleeding.”
Alaric barely even looked at him.
“I should have protected her,” he said through clenched teeth.
Cedric shrugged, adjusting the worn leather strap across his shoulder. “You think standing at her door with a sword all night would’ve stopped this? You saw what they did with those guards.”
Alaric said nothing. His silence was answer enough.
Cedric tilted his head, studying him. “She’s smart. Smarter than all of us combined on a good day. The kid too. They know how to survive. And you...” He tapped a finger against Alaric’s chest lightly. “You’re not doing them any favors by losing your head now.”
Alaric finally looked at him then, some of the wildness in his eyes dimming, if only slightly.
Cedric smirked, thin and dry. “Besides,” he added, glancing toward the darkness where the soldiers had disappeared, “we’ll find them. You and I are far too stubborn to do otherwise.”
They didn’t have long to wait.
