“This feels wrong,” Thane said quietly behind me.
“Yes.”
I crouched and pressed my gloved hand to the nearest stone marker. A low hum answered, traveling up my palm and settling against the mark at my wrist. Binding work layered over binding work. Not meant to kill intruders. Meant to hold something in place.
Or keep something contained.
I rose and paced the perimeter, counting steps, mapping sight lines, noting where the tower’s shadow fell even as the sun dipped lower. Every instinct I had honed in campaigns and sieges screamed ambush. Hidden mechanisms. Delayed wards.
None presented themselves, which disturbed me further. If this was where the weapon was hidden, why wasn’t it guarded more rigorously? Or maybe the magic was all it needed to protect it. Magical defenses were difficult to predict and even harder to overcome, especially without an experienced magic-user. Mine was locked and Thane’s control was limited. He would either destroy the tower or himself. Neither was an acceptable risk.
Thane shifted restlessly as I returned to his side. His gaze tracked upward again, following the tower’s height to the narrow windows set far above.
“I told you,” he insisted. “I saw someone.”
I glanced at him. His expression was tight, focused inward, the way it got when his magic brushed too close to the surface.
“This place could project illusions,” I said. “Or echo memories.”
“She saw me. I sensed her presence.”
That gave me pause. Sight could be fooled. Awareness was harder to fake. A woman? What would a woman be doing here? Another distraction? Or bait for a trap?
“Stay sharp,” I told him. “If this is a lure, it’s a patient one.”
I stepped closer to the barrier, bracing myself for an attack.
The thorns reacted immediately, but not as I had expected. They didn't lash out. They didn't tighten. Instead, the vines nearest me drew back, barbs uncurling with deliberate care, opening a narrow passage just wide enough for a single person to pass through.
I didn't step forward. Neither did Thane.
Traps rarely announced themselves with violence. The most dangerous ones invited you in.
I studied the opening, the way the vines held themselves tense rather than slack, the way the forest beyond didn't reclaim the space once it was made. Whatever governed this place expected us to cross. Expected us to comply.
That alone was reason to hesitate.
Thane’s breath moved at my side, shallow enough that it moved through the bond. His attention was not on the thorns. It had already climbed the tower’s gray length, fixed on something higher than the canopy. His gaze angled upward, eyes too bright, jaw set as though he were holding himself in place by force alone.
I shifted my weight forward and extended a gloved hand into the space between the thorns. The vines didn't strike. They didn't retreat further either. They held, coiled and watchful, as if waiting to see what I would do with the invitation.
“Women can be as false as men,” I said, more to remind myself than him. “If there’s someone inside, she may be part of the trap.”
“Or the reason,” Thane replied.
I considered the tower again. Its silence. Its patience. The way it stood untouched by time while the forest grew around it.
If the king had hidden a weapon, it wouldn't announce itself. It would wait.
“We go in,” I decided. “Weapons drawn. No assumptions. Take no chances. Be prepared for anything, no matter what face it wears.”
He nodded once, gaze still fixed on the cold stone. I stepped through.
The thorns brushed my shoulders, careful not to pierce, their magic humming low against my skin. The sensation crawled along the mark on my wrist, heat flaring briefly before settling into a steady burn. Magic licked along my skin but didn’t harm me. Thane followed a moment later.
We tread carefully through the thicket—only a few meters—when the smooth, gray stone finally confronted us. The thorns sealed behind us, leaving no sign we had ever passed through, cutting off the forest and its sounds as if a door had closed. They surrounded us so we only had one option into the tower, except no door presented itself. Thane was tight to my back as I probed along the stone, pressing for a door, but nothing moved. Maybe this was the trap. The thorn barrier would trap us here until we died.
I suppressed the flare of panic that instinctively rose inside me at the idea of being trapped, memories of that dark cell threatening to pull me back into a nightmare. Thane would sense it, and his magic would flare out of control, and I didn’t know how the old magic would react.
