Page 219 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

Before I could open my mouth again, she was already moving.

A blade manifested in her hand, and without a blink, she sank it into her forearm.

Every single movement was precise, deliberate.

She moved like something timed to a rhythm I couldn’t hear—a machine more than a monster. Calm. Calculated. Controlled. She stepped up to a golden goblet on the altar and pressed on her wound, coaxing blood to pour into the cup.

My breath caught.

Ribs cinched tight as a circle of runes appeared on the stone floor, glowing an eerie blue. To my immense relief, Jax also flinched—at least a dozen symbols had lit up around us. Freya held her hand out, and Jax sealed the wound without even looking at her.

She turned slowly toward the stone wall, which now groaned forward, as if leaning to meet us.

And finally—finally—my brain caught up.

I’d been too preoccupied. Carr. Treason. Survival. I hadn’t stopped to register what I was standing in the middle of.

The girl who pulled me from the lake five years ago? Just a vessel. A shell.

The soul inside her was lore made flesh.

Her auburn hair shimmered in the light as mechanical cogs clicked to life behind the crucifix.

My breath lodged somewhere under my sternum as I realized: I was standing in the presence of a legend.

The wall began to lower.

Click-click-click-click.

The sound reverberated through the stone floor and up into my ribs. Freya didn’t look back. Feet planted. Jaw tense. She drew a dagger from the sheath at her side and faced forward.

“Eyes up, buttercup.”

With a thunderous boom, the wall disappeared into the floor, revealing a yawning black archway. Freya sighed—so dramatically it might’ve been a chore she'd been nagged into, rather than a legendary crypt. She swiped a torch off the wall, sneering at the cobwebs that came with it.

“Can you conjure flames?” she asked, tone clipped, eyes flicking to me with clear irritation.

I shook my head and she sighed again—this one even more put-on.

“Great. Well. This should be fun.”

Jax lit the torch with a snap of his beefy fingers and passed it to me as Freya grabbed a second and third.

A low, guttural groan echoed off the walls below us, every nerve in my body snapping to attention. My heart kicked up. I summoned my shadows into my palm, about to deploy them to scout ahead, when Freya’s hand clamped down on my wrist.

“What did I say about not touching anything?”

“Not even in the shadows?” I asked, incredulous.

“Especially not in the shadows, Prince.”

“I don’t understand.”

“And that,” she said sweetly, “is why I’m leading this op and you are not.” She turned to the tunnel—a spiraling staircase so steep and narrow I couldn’t see more than four steps before it vanished into curve and shadow.

“There are monsters in the shadows not even you want to play with. And I promise you—they loathe intruders. You may heed their warnings, but do not send your ribbons out.”

“Awesome.”