“I won’t!” Marcus made the sound of a zipper. “My lips are sealed.”
“They better be,” I warned.
“Would you relax? You’re so serious lately,” Kallie said, and she punched my shoulder. “Lighten up every now and then, would you?”
I scowled. There wasn’t much of a chance to lighten up. Not when there was so much on the line.
Kallie and Marcus went off to the theater, while I headed toward the music room. It was one of my favorite places in the palace, with all kinds of instruments for the royal orchestra. It was often a bustling place, even when the orchestra wasn’t in session, because the Elves were such musical people that they enjoyed going there to practice. As the prince, I had free rein of the instruments and got to play with whatever I wanted.
I turned a corner, and my heart leapt into my throat as I rammed into someone. I nearly fell over, but caught my balance at the last minute. It was a little weird— servants in the palace usually gave me a wide berth, as it was seen as incrediblyoffensive to touch one of the monarchy without specifically being asked. But this person probably hadn’t seen me coming. An honest mistake.
“Easy there,” I said. “I didn’t mean to run into you.”
“My prince!” a woman cried. I didn’t recognize her voice, but it could’ve been any servant or guard. She hadn’t stumbled like I had. “Thank the gods I found you. You must come quickly. She’s hurt— your one true love is in pain!”
Alarm bells went off in my head, and I immediately started to panic. Something bad must’ve happened during mystic training. Why hadn’t I been informed the second it happened?
I quickly tried to connect with Ava through our bond, but I brushed up against an impenetrable wall. That usually meant Ava was sleeping… or that she was seriously hurt, and unconscious.
I tried to do the same with Oberi and was met with no response. That immediately made me worried. I should’ve been able to contact at least one of them, and I couldn’t reach out to either.
“Where is she?” I demanded.
“Follow me,” the woman urged.
I ran to keep up with her, and we twisted through a maze of hallways. I assumed we were headed toward the temple, but it wasn’t long before I lost my bearings.
I slowed and turned around, trying to use my magic to figure out where we were.
“Are we going the right way?” I asked the servant girl. “I don’t know this part of the palace.”
“This is the right way,” she said. “It’s just downstairs.”
My Air magic sensed an empty column rising upward through the palace— an elevator shaft. I figured Ava must’ve taken the elevator, so I headed for that immediately.
The servant girl grabbed my arm, but I was freaking out too much to remind her that was against the rules. “It'll be faster if we take the stairs.”
I didn’t know this part of the palace, and all I wanted was to get to Ava quickly. I followed hastily beside her. Her stone-like grip on my arm didn’t release as we hurried along, until we began to descend a twisted staircase. I was getting more anxious with every passing second, so I took the lead. The air grew colder around us the deeper into the basement we went. Heat radiated off torches burning on the wall, which I was sure provided the only light. I heard the servant girl behind me slip a torch off its sconce to carry, to help her see as we descended.
“This has to be the cellar, where the royal stores of wine are kept,” I mused aloud.
I didn’t know why Ava would be down here, but I guess it wasn’t unlike her to go exploring, especially in cave-like places where she might find a hidden passageway. It was the anthropologist inside of her. I just hoped she wasn’t seriously injured. Why hadn’t she talked to me about this before she went wandering off?
She wouldn’t. That didn’t make any sense. She always came to me about everything before she went and did it. That was the agreement we’d made, and she’d never broken it. Was she led into some kind of trap, where she thought something was safe but was actually dangerous? I didn’t think the Elves would put her at risk, but the mystics were desperate to contact the goddesses, so maybe something had gone wrong.
“Was this part of her mystic training? Is that why Ava came down here alone?” I demanded.
“Who’s Ava?” the servant girl asked innocently.
I stopped dead on the stairs. “My wife. You said the princess was hurt.”
“Oh,her,” she sneered. The way she said it tickled a memory in the back of my mind, but I couldn’t quite place it. “I said your one true love was hurt. I never said anything about Ava-Marie.”
Something was very wrong here. My magic tingled through the stairwell, and for the first time, I actually paid attention to it. I hadn’t been listening to my magic because I was so worried about Ava, but I finally recognized that the woman standing beside me wasn’t an Elf. That’s when I noticed the energy signature of the servant girl following me.
She was a vampire, and I wasn’t entirely sure?—
I didn’t finish the thought before she shoved mehard, with enough force to send me plummeting. I went tumbling head over heels down the stairs. My head smashed against the wall, then again on the corner of a step.
