Page 141 of Of Masks and Fury

“I’ll share my plan within three days,” I said.

I not only couldn’t trust them with the details, but we also had to fly south first. If we could close the veil, we could stop fighting a war on two fronts simultaneously. Without that, freeing twenty-three prisoners meant nothing if the Skathes overwhelmed us from the south while Cyril marched from the north.

The math was brutal. The timeframe was brutal. But there was no version of this where leaving first wasn’t the right choice, even if it looked like abandonment from the outside.

“Why not do it now?” Coralee asked.

“I need to leave Syllavar for a few days.”

“To go where?” Grayson blinked slowly. “If an attack is imminent and we’re going to rescue twenty-three people in just over a week, we need time to prepare.”

“I’ll share my plan when I return. While I’m gone, I expect Naveah to map the tunnels and put her armory crew on double time to craft weapons and fighting leathers. Grayson, coordinate Caldrith’s advance with the Beast Council and ensure everyone’s in place well before Cyril’s army has a chance to arrive. I’ll leave to rescue the prisoners the moment I return.”

“You said a few days,” Coralee said. “Yet the Day of Mercy is only eight days away.”

“The timeframe is too tight,” Malcolm said. “Are you sure you must leave? We should rescue them right away, not days from now.”

“I have no choice but to leave for a few days first.”

They all frowned.

“What if Cyril accelerates his timeline to move his army?” Coralee asked.

“Then we’ll adjust. Let’s make this happen.”

They all nodded, some with more reluctance than others.

“Anything else?” I asked.

They shook their heads.

“Dismissed,” I said.

Naveah remained seated while the others filed out. When the door closed behind them, I reinforced the privacy wards until the room almost vibrated with magic.

Naveah waited, her hands folded, resting on the table.

“Tell me about the tunnels,” I said, settling back in my chair. “Everything you remember.”

She took a breath, her eyes going distant. “As I said, my father was a stonemason, one of the best in Caldrith before we fled. He discovered the passages before he’d even met my mother.”

“Did he ever indicate how old he believed they might be?”

“They’re from many generations back.” She leaned forward, sketching invisible lines on the table. “He said it didn’t appear as if anyone had been inside them for ages. They’re small. A large man could crawl through them, but he’d find it a challenge in places. He took me to them once before we fled. I think he found them interesting, and he thought I’d enjoy learning a bit about Caldrith’s unknown history. I went through a few of them with him, and they were dark, spooky, and full of cobwebs.”

She grinned. “I thought they were amazing. I even went back once to explore them further, but he caught me and made me promise never to enter them again without him. When I think of it now…”

She shook her head. “If it was my child, I would’ve been terrified she’d get lost inside them and I’d never find her again.” Her smile fell. “There are bones inside there. A full skeleton in one area. So he wasn’t wrong to forbid me from going through them alone. Some poor soul probably got lost or trapped inside and couldn’t find their way out. They died there, I assume.”

“Could you bring me or an advance team to the hillside where your father believed there was an entrance?”

“I think so.” She dragged a paper and pencil over in front of her and started drawing, pointing out specific locations. “The main part of the tunnel runs from the old keep, the original castle structure before the expansions done by Cyril’s great-great-grandfather. It continues down through the bedrock and out to the hidden exit near the eastern woods. That hillside I mentioned.”

“Are there any passages near where the prisoners are being held in the dungeons?”

“One passes directly beneath them.” Her eyes met mine. “The dungeons were part of the original structure. If the access points haven’t been sealed, you could enter from the hillside and come up into the hallway outside the cells on the north wing of the castle.”

Exactly what we needed.