“When were you going to tell me?” Polaris whispered. They entered the keep, following the endless hallway toward the dungeon’s steps, with Altair spearheading the way, his palm illuminated in sunlight.
“Tell you what?” Tethys asked, refusing to meet Polaris’s eyes.
“Don’t do that, Tethys. You and I both know what I’m referring to,” her sister snapped and glanced toward Tethys’s swelling belly, hidden under her draping cloak. Altair disappeared down a corner ahead, his sunbeams swaying with each stride. Tethys boots squealed against blue ceramic tile as she paused.
“You haven’t been here, Polaris. Why would I trust you with something like this?” she asked, her tone low and harsh.
“What do you mean I haven’t been here? I’ve always supported you. Am I not your sister? You know how much I love you,” the night goddess said, reaching for Tethys’s curled fist. Tethys ripped it away before her sister’s cool fingers touched her skin.
“You can tell me anything. Always. And to think you’re keeping something likethisfrom me? It breaks my heart, Tethys. After everything we’ve been through. Everything I’ve done for you…you shut me out.”
“You left me!” Tethys cried, her body trembling with a bubbling rage. Polaris’s eyes widened as she took a step back. “When you made your Arrival, you left and didn’t look back. And when youknewhow horrid Procyon was,you left again. You said yourself youwishedyou could protect me from him, and yet you and our brother stood by and let him hurt me and…and…andrapeme over and over again.”
“Tethys, I—” Polaris reached for her hand once more.
“I needed you,” Tethys breathed, letting her tears wash the heated anger from her cheeks. “You arejustas bad as Procyon for letting it happen. For supporting that marriage. So no, I didn’t tell you about my pregnancy. I didn’t tell you about Araes. Let’s just get this over with, then you can return to your palace of snow and ice and we’ll never have to see each other again.” Tethys turned the corner and followed the lingering sunlight from Altair’s trail, refusing to hear her sister’s response.
† † †
“Something is very wrong here,” Araes said, scanning the dimly lit hall. Silvery light, pouring in from the row of arched windows to his left, illuminated the thick layer of dust that’d settled over the room. He hadn’t realized it was already past sunset. Time snuck by among the shadows. He’d been wandering the keep’s halls until day transitioned into night.
Each creaking timber and fractured stone felt like the ribs of some monstrous beast, digesting him slowly. Araes approached a massive table, extending the full length of the great hall. Chairs in varying states of disrepair were scattered around the room, each stained and mildewed.
“Unless these rebel scum prefer to live like vermin,” Niko muttered, flicking a matted blanket off the table’s gnarled surface. Araes gaze caught on the half-eaten meal beside him, now wriggling with maggots. Although the keep was a crumbling relic of the ancient Venians, he’d at least expected a lit candle or two. Instead, rotten mist shrouded the room. Water dripped from holes in the ceiling, sending raindrops scattering across the stone floor. He adjusted his grip on the blade at his side, scanning the ruined chamber.
“Let’s check the storerooms,” Araes said, his voice low. “Stay close.”
They moved cautiously, boots splashing through shallow, murky puddles. The storerooms offered nothing but toppled shelves, shredded sacks of grain, and putrid crates of mold-covered fruit.
“Did something seem off about the men outside to you?” Araes asked, his knuckles bone white around the hilt of his weapon.
“They were a little sluggish, I guess, but these rebels are a rag tag group of farmers. I hadn’t expected elite warriors, regardless of Haidee’s reports,” Niko replied, his crimson cloak collecting mud as he followed Araes through the room.
“Alright, let’s go find Captain Haidee. I can’t stand another second of this smell,” Araes huffed, turning on his heels. There was nothing here. Not a soul in this place, save for the maggots and rats.
His attention snagged on a narrow passageway just beside the door, its entrance partially hidden beneath a torn banner—stained and frayed across its hem. A draft whispered from within, carrying an ancient, musty chill.
“I’ll check this,” he said, pulling back the banner.
“Alone?” Niko asked, tossing him a wary glance. Only darkness filled the narrow passage, as if even the moonlight knew better than to traverse its length.
“Just cover the storeroom,” Araes replied. “If anyone’s still here, I’ll flush them out. Be ready.”
Before Niko could protest, Araes slipped into the shadows. The passageway was colder than the rest of the keep, its air damp and oppressive. His breath hitched as he plunged deeper, following the narrow hallway as it slithered between the keep’s exterior walls. Araes raised hissword, surrendering to the mildewy darkness.
The corridor opened into a small room, no larger than a bathing chamber. Torn banners and flags hung from rotting wooden rafters. The ratty fabric swayed gently in the moonlit breeze creeping in from a small cracked window opposite the entrance. Araes heart thrummed a cautious beat as his gaze etched over the floor. Broken crates sunk into the damp flooring, their contents, rusted helmets and shields, scattered across the cracked stone.
His vision acclimated to the dim room and caught on a mass in the corner shrouded under a soaked woolen blanket. The leather sole of his boot cracked on something brittle as he approached. Araes didn’t dare get too close. Pale, yellowing bones, bare of any shred of muscle tissue, littered the floor.
The mass didn’t move as he tucked his blade beneath its cloak, but the hairs on the lieutenant’s arms pricked. He took a step back as he flicked the woolen fabric off. His defensive stance faltered. The corpse-like creature peering up at him, with jaw slacked from a silent scream, held a golden dagger, identical to those wielded by the rebels outside. An icy chill seeped into the room, like frost on a late autumn morning. Araes didn’t dare move, not as the decayed creature’s fingers loosened from the blade and it clanked to the floor. Leathery skin stretched over waterlogged bones as its hollowed chest inflated.
“Fuck…” Araes whispered, his gaze held prisoner by black, depthless voids. The creature’s teeth chattered as it cocked its head toward the lieutenant. He knew he should raise his weapon and plunge it straight through the death wielder’s heart. Every breath taken was a wasted opportunity, but his body refused to respond. Like roots burrowed through the broken stone floor, his knees remained locked.
The death wielder shivered to life, its teeth chattering and clicking with a taste of Araes’s fresh scent on the air. Bones cracked as its elbows bent the wrong direction.He’d faced enough of these things to know he shouldn’t be afraid, shouldn’t tremble with the terror now flooding his veins, but this creature was different. It rose on mangled bare feet, its toes snapping into place. Araes backstepped, attempting to gain distance before it lurched for him.
His boot caught on a tarnished helmet. The clank of metal echoed through the room, reverberating off the walls. After so many weeks of sneaking through the woods on intelligence missions, how the fuck did he keep letting this happen?
The death wielder’s neck cricked toward him, its unseeing eyes registering the movement of its prey.
