The others flowed past on either side of me, silent as death in the night.
I sat down out of sight and prepared for a long wait.
Twenty-Five
Casimir
Motioning tothe others, we started down the hillside. Above us, the orb continued to fade into the deep gloom of the lowest light of night. Dragons could see just as well around them in the night, but it severely limited our distance vision. From the estate, we would be effectively invisible now.
Halfway down the slope, Dirk, who had taken the lead spot, gestured for us to assemble around him. He had paused in the lee of a large outcropping of rock, free of any overgrowth or debris.
“It should be around here somewhere,” Dirk was muttering as we approached, searching the exposed rock face by running his fingers over the surface. “Ah. Here.”
He pushed hard on one section of rock, and it gave way beneath his fingers to reveal a hinged cover. Underneath were four holes. A half shift of his hand and Dirk stuck the claws of his right hand into the matching holes and pulled.
After a moment of resistance, a giant slab of the rock face simply slid aside, revealing an unlittunnel.
Dirk led the way once more, followed by me, and then Durion with Kolar and Florian bringing up the rear. I trusted these four dragons most in all of Hollow Earth.
We descended swiftly along the smooth, natural-bored secret passageway. About fifty feet before it ended, the walls changed from rock to hewn stone, fit so perfectly together as to be nearly seamless. A matching lock mechanism provided us entrance to the interior of Yarl’s estate.
The storage room into which the tunnel emptied was not where we were supposed to be.
“Dirk,” I hissed as we crouched among boxes of supplies piled up everywhere.
“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head. “The tunnel should have put us out in the lower levels.”
“These are not lower levels,” I pointed out, running a finger over the crate near me. “There’s no dust on these or on most of the floor. This room receives a lot of traffic.”
Dirk looked frustrated. “My contact only said the tunnel still worked. I had to go into the archives in the citadel to find out more, back from when it was still a military base. Yarl must have changed it.”
“Or any of the previous owners,” I muttered, shaking my head.
The estate had been originally built before the unification wars. Buried under us was a rather large subterranean aquifer. Freshwater was always a valuable resource, and so a citadel had arisen over it. After the first tyrant united the ice dragons millennia ago, it had been expanded, razed and rebuilt several times. It wasn’t surprising that at some point since its decommissioning and sale to private ownership the tunnel had been altered.
“What now?” Durion grunted as discussion among us dissolved into individual conversations.
“We continue.” I infused my words with a hit of alpha power. I wanted it made clear that there were to be no arguments.
The others stiffened in response, the noise dying away into silence. I met each of their eyes in turn. They were on board, and time was wasting. If Ella was in here, I wasn’t leaving without her.
Dirk moved toward the door leading deeper into the estate and reached up to pull it open. His hand froze short of the unlocking mechanism, and he turned back to us, motioning for silence. Then he tapped his ear and his mouth.
We heard voices on the other side and ducked for cover. Dirk had barely disappeared behind a stack of crates when the door opened. Crouched down behind a rack of laundry, I watchedthrough a crack as two women came into the room, chatting inanely between themselves.
Both of them wore slave collars, the silver metal tight around their necks, shining even in the dim light of the storage room.
I bit back a snarl. Using slave collars was technically illegal. But thanks to dear old dad and his desire to crush the weaker dragons beneath him at any cost, it was just another thing that went overlooked. Now, far too many of the other elites believed as he had. I was making inroads, trying to change things, but it was just taking too muchtime.
If I could just pin down whoever was behind the hunters’ markets in Kylma, with incontrovertible evidence, I could make an example of them. Show the rest of the kingdom that things were changing, and they needed to adhere to the laws.Mylaws.
When I’d first risen to the throne, I’d thought about simply fighting anyone who disagreed. Until Dirk had pointed out that using my strength to force others into line made me no better than our father.
That wasn’t the sort of ruler I wanted to be, especially not now that I had Anna. She wouldn’t approve. I was sure of it. And I needed her to approve of me. To know that I wasn’t the evil person she’d dreamed of.
I had to be better. For her.
“Now listen, Holly,” one of the slaves was saying as they gathered up fresh towels and linens between them. “I’m telling you, I saw people up there before it got dark. I’m not making this up.”
