But even as we held each other, I couldn't shake the feeling that Prager was already moving her pieces into place, setting a new trap that would spring around us.
Chapter 27
Reyla
Once dressed, we stayed together.
Farris slunk down the hall with us and poked around each room that had probably been searched by others but might still reveal the right key.
None did.
With my heart weighing me down, I walked up the stairs beside Lore to the next level. On the third floor’s north wing, we strode past a huge tapestry depicting fae battling mid-flight on dragons.
Mesmerized by the beasts, I stopped to study it.
“These dragons aren’t very big,” I said softly to Lore.
His hand rested on my shoulder. He’d kept touching me since healing my wounds, either by holding my uninjured hand, though it looked and felt like it had never been wounded, or touching my lower spine. “I heard yours are larger than ours.”
His people must’ve reported this to him. He and my friend, Tempest, had formed an agreement where he supplied troops tohelp in our upcoming battle, and in exchange, he would receive a willing fae bride. Me, to be specific.
“Why didn’t you join the fight?”
“I wanted to but worried that might create problems.”
He was no coward; he’d proved it over and over again.
“I could’ve met you earlier,” I said.
His lips curved up in that smirk I adored. “And fallen for me earlier.”
I poked his side. “Same, husband. Same.”
“The day I met you, you captured every eye in that marketplace.”
I had a hard time believing that. “I was trying not to stand out.”
“By stealing a nyxin from Prager in the middle of a busy marketplace.”
“I thought she was going to eat him.” Instead, she wanted him for some other, unknown reason.
Farris nosed the fringe dangling along the bottom of the tapestry, nudging it up and poking his snout beneath. Pulling back, he huffed.
“Dusty under there?” I stroked his silky ears. “Queen Naveer needs to hire more staff or start running a damp cloth around to collect the dust.” As if that would happen.
A breeze gusted down the hall, stirring my hair around my face and lifting the edge of the tapestry.
Farris darted forward, disappearing behind it.
My pulse quickened. A hidden passage. “Farris?”
He scooted back out, and the edge of the tapestry slid back into place. Sitting, he looked up at me, flashing his teeth in a nyxin grin.
Lore used power to lift the tapestry higher, revealing anarched wooden door cracked open wide enough for a nyxin to slip through.
“Feel like exploring?” I asked Lore, who grunted and kicked the door open hard enough to make it slam against the inner way.
The circular chamber beyond held a fountain of pearled alabaster surrounded by four sculpted guardians the size of horses. Their heads were lowered, and their mouths stretched wide, the one on this side cradling a key between arched fangs.
