“Zephyra and I will go alone. She knows the castle better than anyone, and I’m a warlock. We don’t need the deadweight.”
Her storm-gray eyes glint with the faint hue of yellow lightning. “Interesting choice of words, warlock.” Her gaze moves to Zephyranow. “If you plan on betraying us, my men and women will run you through with swords faster than you can blink.”
“We aren’t betraying you,” Zephyra hastens to say. “We’re trying to find Abysses. Arion and I have the strength and knowledge to go alone. If you’re so worried though”—she waves a hand at Gavriall and Vesper—“take them with you.”
Gavriall balks at that, but Amaya grins. “Fine. I’ll accompany the siren and historian. Carmen, you stay with us. Valentino, Nomina, Philippe, and Jaime—you stay here. We need soldiers guarding the entrance.”
They nod at once. Even Philippe, who threw up mere moments ago. Amaya’s separate crews line up now, each facing different hallways and directions. Zephyra takes my hand and pulls me forward to the left of the antechamber. She doesn’t let go, her trembling fingers twining through mine. I squeeze hers tight. I don’t let go either.
I’m here, I wish I could use my magic to say.I’m with you.
“The castle won’t give up its secret easily,” Zephyra says to everyone. “But I know Abysses is here.”
“I can feel it,” I say.
“As can I,” Amaya adds. Her face is pale, drawn, but her eyes glitter with anticipation. “The greatest treasure is the hardest to find, so look where you’d least expect it.” To Zephyra, she says, “We’ll attempt to respect your wishes and debilitate the guards rather than kill them, but if it comes down to the lives of my men or his, I’ll choose mine.”
As will I.
If it’s between Zephyra’s life or theirs, I’ll choose hers. Every single time.
Facing the hallway beside ours, Vesper glances down at the boy’s hollow face. His jewel-bright eyes, still open wide at the ceiling. Her own eyes flicker at the sight. It almost looks like doubt—or regret. “A mercy, perhaps,” she says quietly.
The corridors shift once more in response. Something skitters in the walls.
When they settle again, each group picks a direction, and we all disappear into the dark.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
ARION
Zephyra leads me cautiously down a dim charcoal hall, our footsteps snapping and cracking overtop a floor of loose pebbles and ocean rocks. The longer we walk, the more the stone walls on either side of us seem to stretch, lengthening and pulling and dragging us deeper and deeper into some unknown void. Her messy pink braid swings behind her like a pendulum as she keeps her gaze fixed ahead. Firmly ahead of us. Not once does she turn to check on me. Not once does she turn back.
Confidence radiates from her posture, from her sure stance and her rigid spine, but her fingers are clammy in mine. They won’t stop trembling. That’s how I know, without the assurance of our bond, that she’s just trying to make it through this. She’s moving because if she stops, she’ll crumble.
I keep my hand clenched tight around hers. My wings reach forward to stroke her, soothe her, of their own accord. It doesn’t help. Iknowit doesn’t help. But I feel so useless here, walking farther and farther down the unchanging hall. No doors. No turns. Just the same rocks beneath our feet and the same walls pressing tight around us.
“Some decor,” I say, kicking a pebble ahead of us. “I feel like I’m standing at the bottom of an aquarium.”
Zephyra doesn’t glance back, and she doesn’t laugh.I just want her to laugh again.“They’re not rocks,” she says plainly. “They’re bones that have been crushed to rubble.” A pause. A breath. “They’re the bones of traitors.”
I look down, unable to distinguish the difference between bone and rock in the darkness.Gods.She was trapped here for eight years. Nearlythree thousanddays. I study her, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. Golden skin and freckles and meticulous footsteps. “Do you want to talk about any of this?”
She doesn’t respond. At least, not right away. We continue walking, walking, walking, until—“What do you want me to say? I want to leave. I don’t want to be here.” Her voice shakes with repressed emotion, and I wish I could feel it. I wish I could feelher. “I’m trying to be strong. Iam, but I… I’ve never been strong enough for this place,” she says—and her voice breaks on the last. I surge forward, pulling her into my chest. Holding her against me.
“Youarestrong. You are stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.” My lips brush her forehead, her hairline, her cheeks.
“I feel like a child,” she murmurs, wrapping her arms around me and burying her face in my armor. “I feel like I never left. Maybe the last six months were a dream, and I never actually escaped.”
“They weren’t a dream, and this isn’t forever. We’ll leave. I promise—I swear it on my life—I will get you out of here, Zephyra of the Syl. Do you feel this?” I hold her hand up between us. “This isreal. I am real, and you are real, and we are heretogether.”
She looks up at me, my white feathers still stroking her cheek, and meets my eyes. The pain in her turquoise depths shatters what’s left of my heart. She is so strong, and so vulnerable, and—my magic builds in my chest. It rumbles through me. Desperate to fix this. To save her. “I promise. I’m going to get you out of here.”
She smiles softly. Too softly. Toosadly. “I trust you, Arion.”
She untangles herself from me, then wordlessly begins creeping forward again. On and on. I join her, forcing us side by side even though the hall doesn’t want to permit it. It seems to press closer now. I don’t fucking care. I’m not leaving her side. I’m not letting her go through this alone.
Minutes pass. Maybe hours.
