Page 2 of Throne of the Wolf Queen

I gripped my skirts. How many nights had these guards waited for their chance? Had they followed us from Asmar, desperate for the moment they could seek revenge for killing their king? I jolted as the door groaned. The hilt of a sword thudded against the lock, and I pushed away, gripping the wolf as I tried to make sense of my sister’s old rooms.

‘Tapestry,’ I ordered the wolf. I may not be able to see, but I knew this keep. Knew the hidden corridors Matthias and I had spent countless hours exploring in our youth, openings hidden by artwork that lined the walls of this infernal building. Pablo tugged me forward, my hip slamming into some lump of furniture. The door shook with a promise of violence as I pushed an unseen tapestry to the side, cursing as I failed to find the tell-tale slip of a hidden escape.

I didn’t even need to ask Pablo to find the next. He gripped the fabric by my hip, and I stumbled, following him to the other side of the chamber. The coarse fabric of another tapestry bunched up in my hand, my heart lurching as a breeze whispered against my wrist. Freedom!

I fumbled for a lever near the floor, yanking hard and groaning as it refused to give. The wolf grabbed hold alongside me. Glass smashed at the window. My pulse pounded as a portion of the stone wall parted, exposing an escape. We slipped in, sliding the door gently back into place as boots thudded across Enfys’s floor.

For the space of a few thundering heartbeats, I stared into the inky void. The damp walls narrowed against me, constricting my heaving breaths. The wolf licked my fingers and I clutched him. We took a step, the dark swallowing us greedily.

‘Asher,’ I whispered, the wolf pushing against me. ‘We need to find Asher.’

I glanced up as we hurried forward, tears prickling my eyes, cursing Evella. The corridor shrunk, and Pablo slipped ahead of me as we lost space. What was the point of praying to a Goddess of protection anyway? Where had she been each and every time the world conspired against me?

I tugged again on the silver threads within me, loosening a breath as they untangled themselves tentatively. The purple swarmed my chest, eager to consume another body, but I tamped them down. I was safe within the unused tunnels of the keep. All I had to do was find Asher, find my captain. But as my fingers trailed the damp walls, locating a crossroads I couldn’t recall, my heart stuttered.

‘Which…’ Pablo bumped my hip with his heavy snout. ‘Which way, Pab?’

His breath on my hand told me he’d turned. Pablo had never learnt these hidden routes. As a child, I’d always had Matthias with me, a torch or fluttering candle lighting our steps as we hid from the courtiers who held no love for us. Now… well, I had my wolf and his keen sense of smell. Bronzehold was a massive blot on the landscape, a sprawling mass of stone and power. But if anyone could find a single captain within these walls, it was the wolf.

‘Can you⁠—’

I halted, my pulse shattering as I peered over my shoulder. Despite the chill, a bead of sweat trailed down my back. The softest brush of leather boots stilled my breath. I’d taken myself into the heart of Bronzehold, where I should have been safe, not a soul knowing where I’d gone.

But we’d been followed.

Pablo nipped my fingers sharply, shocking me back into myself. Once more I grappled with the silver threads and this time, as I stumbled through corridors of ink, they finally obeyed.

I exhaled as the mice of the keep answered my call, thousands of beady rodent eyes turning towards the hidden corridors. Even the cats who hissed in my presence crept to come to my aid.

Pablo increased his pace. An amber glow of flames spread like a plague across the walls behind me, gaining with each harried step. I could only hear one set of footsteps on the hunt, but the eyes of at least two assassins sought me. I gripped my skirts, throwing the questions of the other man’s location to the back of my mind.

My elbow caught against the stone and I hissed, pressing forward and praying my assailant carried a torch. That it wasn’t the fire Anomaly my gut told me he was.

A satisfied huff bounced off the walls and boots thundered closer. I almost fell over the wolf as we ran through the belly of the keep. With each heartbeat, my silver threads called to the beasts scurrying towards me.

‘Keep running, you blind witch. You won’t see daylight again.’ The vitriol in his voice split my lungs and I gasped in air. ‘I spent my life by King Romero’s side. Was there when he found Mercy and you… the bloody bastard. Begged him to drown you, but damn Evella, the man was too good, too noble to listen.’

Crying out, I stumbled over the wolf’s tail, slamming awkwardly into the stone. Pab grasped my collar. Digging my trembling fingers into his pelt, I stood as the first few rodents spilled into the corridor. But they weren’t enough.

Not yet.

I swore as the boots thundered closer, and then I ran, throwing out my threads, desperate for any creatures.

‘And I watched you turn his daughter against him. Watched you kill him on that beach, Deviant.’ He spat the word as spiders, moths, the flies emerged through the gaps in the dripping stone walls.

Up ahead, the barest pale glow danced. At this time of night, there would only be one place lit up like that. The main hall, where there would be other guards. Salvation!

‘Years ago, after your accident, I caught him sneaking around here like a dirty thief, defying Romero after all he’d done for him. You should have heard that rebel scum husband of yours cry out…’ Tears streamed down my face as I heard the mewling of cats and I sent a message to ignore the rodents they usually hunted. ‘I beat him shitless again and again in these tunnels when he tried to get to you, the little fucker.’

I fought the urge to turn there and then, anger searing through me at the thought he’d been the one to punish Matthias for trying to see me after the accident. For being the reason I’d believed the one I loved had abandoned me.

The light grew. A few more steps and I’d⁠—

My chest heaved as the creatures swarmed the corridor, my shoulders finally relaxing as I reached the main hall, and turning, I saw the hazy form of the assassin burst from the dark.

The creatures streaked forward, smothering my assailant, and his screams broke through the silence of the night. The man – there was no way to make out his features – fell to the ground, his torch scattering embers into the empty hall, writhing as the mice and rats tore open his neck and devoured him.

Pab snapped his jaws at them. I tugged him back.