We entered the tenth tunnel unseen.
I reached into the wide pockets of my large coat and pulled out the miniature hand lantern I’d brought along for this reason. I flipped the switch and watched as the short, dark tunnel was illuminated.
Solid, uneven black stone laid beneath our feet, climbing up the curved walls to form a domed roof over a small room which held nothing but two empty pods set into the wall at the end. I exchanged a glance with my grandmother before we both stepped toward them.
The paneling hissed open at our approach, some ancient form of machinery I couldn’t begin to understand at present. Perhaps it was magic. After some doing, we both managed to squeeze into one of the tubes. The moment the door was shut behind us, enclosing us in that small capsule of space, Nascha reached for the band of metal around the middle. After some probing with her bony fingers, she pressed a thumb into a piece of metal thatlooked like all the rest and a panel popped out. Hands shaking, she reached up and typed in the code.
1315.
The panel snapped shut and the capsule opened on the opposite end as a door slid up in front of us to reveal a brightly lit white room beyond. I stepped out of the capsule first, reaching back to assist my grandmother in her exit as well. Then I turned around to appreciate what I was seeing for the first time.
The tenth trial.
It was the only one not held in some far off arena. Instead, it was a simple room of pure white with a yawning black pit in the middle. It was exactly as I’d imagined it. The two bridges veered off in different directions before meeting at the end in front of two rings that weren’t glowing now but I knew would have been if we’d entered as the Oathed. I made my way onto the first bridge, inching carefully forward so as not to lose my footing. After only a step or two onto it, I turned back to Nascha and reached out my hand.
Nascha frowned back at me, chewing on her lip as if she were preparing to argue with me once again, but when I raised a brow, she reached into the folds of her dress and produced the necklace, handing it over to me without another argument.
I clutched the jewel in my hand, the pulsing glow turning my skin a sickly green. I could feel the bite of the cold metal against my palm. And then, the voice began.
Free me. I could make you a king. I could make you agod.Free me and I’ll–
I cocked my arm back once and hurled the necklace into the pit.
I watched the blue glow fade into the black as the jewel fell further and further down to the Underground. I waited, almost concerned it would somehow launch itself back up at me at any minute, worried my plan to get the thing away from whereCosmo could ever get to it had failed. Then I turned away and rejoined Nascha on the white tile before the tube.
She was frowning at the pit, staring at where the necklace had disappeared forever moments before. When she spoke, it was in a tired whisper.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, hafid.”
Chapter Forty
Olympia
Ididn’t see Myrine again after what I’d said to her during her father’s torture of me. She no longer came to bring me my food and water or take my laundry or stand guard while a servant cleaned the room. Instead, she sent some pudgy faced acolyte who dropped my food onto the desk and then glared at me with her arms crossed beside it. I didn’t eat that food. At the look on her face, I imagined it was more likely to be poisoned than not, and I realized for the first time why Myrine had been the one to care for me before. It wasn’t for any maternal love she’d been harboring for me but rather that she was probably the only one in her entire family who could be trusted not to kill me herself for what I’d done to Bade.
Once again, I’d opened my mouth and done more harm than good but I couldn’t say I regretted it. Every word I’d spoken to Myrine had been the truth. Harsh though it might have been, she’d needed to hear it. Wherever Dante was now, he was better off. Without his family, without his mother, perhaps he finally had the chance to find a life he wanted to live. I was almost jealous.
Only a day had gone by since my trial had been interrupted by Harrison and his band of rebels. Cosmo had come only once, demanding to know where that necklace I’d sent back to Milo was, and I hadn’t told him. He’d probably come again or send one of his more vicious grandchildren to attend the task for him. I wasn’t sure whether Milo had come to negotiate on my behalf again or not. I wasn’t sure what he could even negotiate for. I was supposed to be tried for murder but that had been interrupted and now I was in the hands of my victim’s family. It was only a matter of time before one of them decided to deliver justice themselves.
I’d considered an escape attempt. I heard the click each time the acolyte entered and left my room and knew the door would be locked at all times. The window overlooking the courtyard below was bolted shut so I couldn’t pry it open even a finger’s length, but it was still glass. I couldn’t tell how thick it was but a window could be broken. They’d hear the shatter, of course, and they’d certainly come running. It seemed like guards were posted outside of my door always from the glimpses into the hall I’d gotten during the acolyte’s visits. It would only take them moments to get the door unlocked and get inside but moments were all I’d need. The fall was considerable but nothing I couldn’t handle if I made my body relaxed enough to absorb it.
I turned back to glance over the contents of my room, eyes landing on the solid wooden chair before the vanity table that might just be heavy enough to send crashing through a thick glass window. Before I could move to retrieve it, however, something caught my eye in the courtyard below. I stepped up to the glass and peered down at the head ducked low as the visitor was let in through the gates in the dying light of day. I’d recognize that copper hair anywhere.
Cora.
She kept her head low and her steps quick as she hurried across the lawn and into the house below me, never once looking up so I could see her face, but it didn’t matter. I knew her well enough to recognize her from that alone, even in the growing dark of the evening.
Luca,I reached out across the bond for the first time since the trial. I’d been too worried he might have sensed my pain, that I might have accidentally cried out to him while Cosmo was threatening me and not known.
Olympia,he said my name with relief. Undoubtedly, he’d been waiting to hear from me. After everything that had occurred on the Deck just yesterday, he would be worried, but Luca knew me better than to reach out before I was ready.
Your cousin is here.
To negotiate your release, I imagine. Smart of Milo to send her instead. It’s almost a representation by a third party.
Not Isla. Cora.
Silence met my words and, in it, I could imagine Luca’s surprise.
