“I am not a spy,” I wheezed. “I know Bylur. He wants—”
Smirky Soldier smacked my face with the back of his hand. “Your last warning,” he snarled. “Use his name without proper respect again, and you will bleed.”
My cheek stung as he wrenched my arms above my head and snapped metal cuffs around my wrists. “This is a mistake,” I tried again.
“Yes, your mistake.” The soldier pulled a knife off his waist and pried the tip of it through my collar until the cool metal touched my skin. “We’re obviously going to report you to Lord Bylur. But I can guarantee he will be in a better mood about the news if we tell him exactly why you’re here and who you’re working for. He might even choose to release you and take his anger out on the fae traitor. But if he has to come down here and get the information out of you himself—”
He wiggled the blade against my skin. “You’ll be much more miserable. If you survive.”
I shook my head. “I’ll take that risk. I’d much rather talk to Lord Bylur, please.”
He cackled. “So polite. I’m afraid it won’t help. We’ve dealt with enough attempts at—”
A door slammed far above us, cutting him off. It wasn’t close, but it was so loud that it shook bits of dirt off the ceiling, and then an inky black shadow rolled across the floor. Tendrils of it flowed toward us and touched our feet, like darkness with a mind of its own.
A sentient darkness? This was worse than the elves.
My knees almost gave out, but I forced them to stand because Smirky still had a sword touching me.
His nasty smile appeared again. “Looks like it’s too late.”
What?
My heart pounded as a terrible thumping thundered around us. Maybe someone else on the stairs?
In less than a second, the curling shadows snaked around my waist and the soldier’s arm, but then it stopped at his sword.
The thundering steps on the stairs kept shaking the room, but the shadow—
The shadow tightened around Smirky and wrenched him away from me. As he hit the floor, a slow, dark voice filled the prison. “Do. Not. Touch. My. Wife.”
Chapter 8: Bylur
Irushed down the last flight of stairs as I used my shadows to rip Amatavi off Auria. I paused at the entrance to the prison room. I wanted to storm in there and make sure she was not hurt, but she would see me. Everything we’d planned would be over before we even began.
But I could not leave her alone with Amatavi. He was trained to find threats and get rid of them. Of course, he would see a human showing up now as a threat. I should have thought of it before I sent her in.
She was not a threat. She was my wife. She’d put her life in my hands and left everything she knew to help me. And I’d sworn to protect her. Shadows burn me, I’d vowed it. My magic rolled off my body as inky shadows while I stormed into the room. If everything ended now, so be it. Daneira would not steal my honor.
I froze when I stepped into the room and saw Auria, strung up like a traitor, with her eyes pinched closed. My heart pounded with a fury I’d never known before—here she was, about to be tortured by a fae soldier for trying to help me, and instead of condemning me for my failure, she closed her eyes to save me from my curse.
I crossed the room to stand in front of her.
She bit her lip as I approached and whispered my name. “Bylur?”
“Yes.” I cradled the side of her face with one hand and poured magic into her swollen cheek, healing it in seconds. She breathed out and leaned her face into my hand as I ripped the chains attached to her wrist cuffs out of the ceiling with my free hand.
“Thank you for coming,” she whispered, and my heart twisted. We’d only been separated for minutes, but it must have terrified her.
“I will always come. I promised—” I’d vowed to keep her safe, and I’d already failed. I turned my head to the soldier on the floor. “Amatavi. Give me your keys.”
“I—” The soldier stuttered. I would have already killed him if I didn’t know he’d done it all out of loyalty to me. “I don’t have keys.”
Of course not. He wouldn’t have needed them to lock her into the shackles, and he probably had no plan to let her out. I picked up her wrists with my free hand and threaded my magic into the locks on the cuffs, easing solid shadows around the locking mechanism. It was crude. Simple. But it didn’t need to be fancy to hold the wrists of dying traitors.
I resisted the urge to crush the metal—that wouldn’t help her caged wrists—and pressed on the locking mechanisms with my shadows. The cuffs clicked open, and I tossed the metal away from us. I took one of her freed hands in mine and bent my head close to hers. “Thank you for closing your eyes,” I whispered in her ear.
She nodded and gripped my hand tighter. We needed to leave. But first—
