A Soul Like Glass (Kingdom of Betrayal #4)

Chapter 33

Chapter 33

“ I t’s okay.” My sister’s voice breaks through the buzzing in my ears. “You’re okay!”

Her arms are around me. My legs must have given way because we’ve sunk to the platform, and she’s half-crouched beside me.

There’s a thump as the platform reaches the ground.

“Water!” Tamra calls. “We need water!”

Thaden’s already running, pumping water from the fountain before returning to hold out a ladle of liquid to me.

I gulp it down, attempting to clear my thoughts.

“What happened?” he asks Tamra.

Her eyes are wide. “She went white, and then she collapsed.”

His brow is furrowed as he crouches to me. “Asha? Are you okay?”

I can’t possibly explain the awful pull or the impulses that felt like they were both a part of me and outside me at the same time.

“I’m fine.” I groan as I try to push myself upright. “I’m okay.”

Thaden and Tamra give each other worried looks.

“Maybe the rest of it needs to wait,” Thaden says, a question in his voice.

“The rest of what?” I ask, wondering how there could possibly be more than what I just saw.

“It can’t,” Tamra says. “It took us days to locate Asha.”

Thaden is quiet, his expression pensive.

I take another sip of water, drawing deep breaths and finally steadying myself. “I’m fine. Really. Whatever you need to show me, show me.”

Thaden doesn’t question me again. “This way,” he says. “But I need to warn you that I’m about to take you to the darkest place in the village. I don’t want you to think I’m leading you into a trap.”

“Okay,” I say, accepting my sister’s help to stand. “Let’s go.”

Thaden sets off slowly at first. Instead of leading me down the incline toward the main village, he heads to the left, along a wide ledge that leads to the mouth of a cave.

He was right. It’s filled with darkness and looks like a trap, but it doesn’t reek of death or whisper within my mind.

He takes up a fire brand that rests in a metal loop at the mouth of the cave before he strikes a flint across the rock wall itself, lighting up the brand.

Tamra doesn’t hesitate, going in first even without the light, and Thaden follows her, saying to me, “Stay behind us. That way, you can be assured that your way out is clear.”

The mouth of the cave forms a tunnel that stretches far into the distance.

Halfway along, once we’re engulfed in the dark and only the fire brand gives us light, an opening appears on the right, a soft glow emitting from it.

I think we’re going to head inside, but Tamra and Thaden continue past it.

Still, I pause at the door, surprised by what I see—or rather, what I don’t see.

The room contains a forge, fully enclosed except for the doorway. The fact that it’s enclosed is surprising enough, since all forges need large openings to allow smoke to disperse.

But the coal glowing in the forge isn’t crimson coal.

I don’t see a single lump of crimson coal, and it’s not as if it could be concealed. This forge is tidy and clean. Everything has a place. The wall is lined with regular tools—the same ones that human metalworkers use—although when I lean closer, I make out tools I’ve never seen before.

“Did you make those yourself?” I ask.

A moment later, the circle of light returns to me, and Thaden stands in the doorway beside me. “Make what?”

“Those tools.” I gesture to the wall. “Did you make them yourself?”

“I did.”

“I don’t see any crimson coal.”

“Because I haven’t forged with it for years,” he says. “I don’t use my hammer to forge here. It’s too dangerous.”

He gestures to the metal box sitting on a pedestal on the far side of the room. “I keep my tools in that iron box and only get them out when I have no other choice.”

He’s already turning away, but I stop him.

“You used your tools when you came for me before,” I say.

He gives a short nod. “Like I said, only when I have no other choice.”

“But if you don’t forge using your power, how have you helped those people?”

How does he make such intricate limbs?

He gives me a fleeting smile. “With hard work.”

I persist. “None of them were made with Blacksmith magic?”

His answer is firm. “None.”

I’m left with a sense of confusion. If I hadn’t seen his forge and all its neatly lined-up tools with ordinary coal smoldering in the bowl, I wouldn’t have believed him.

Several steps farther along the corridor, my eyes widen again. The firelight catches the walls, bringing into view intricate symbols carved into them.

“What are these?” Even as I speak, I miss a step, my eyes widening when I recognize one of the symbols: Courage .

The same rune is carved into my hammer.

“Did this place belong to the Einherjar?”

Thaden’s steps slow. “Can you read the runes?”

I shake my head. “Not really. I only know a few.”

He pauses to point to the wall, his hand trailing along the air beside the intricate lines. “According to the story written here, this was the birthplace of Fenrir, the monstrous wolf of war. He is one of the gods revered by the Einherjar.”

“A wolf,” I murmur.

“Also according to these runes, he now walks this Earth in the form of a man.”

“Did Malak ever come here?” I ask.

Thaden’s forehead creases. “Why do you ask?”

“He wanted to be a god,” I say. “Perhaps this was his inspiration.”

Thaden seems thrown, his shoulders tensing. “Milena said that members of her House were often sent out on diplomatic missions to dangerous territories. Their house was considered the lowest, so its members were dispensable.”

“That’s why he was sent to the fae east of here,” Tamra says, speaking up from Thaden’s other side. “Right?”

Queen Karasi told us that she met Malak when he visited her people, but everything she said is suspect, as far as I’m concerned.

Thaden nods. “Milena mentioned it to me when the fae first started pushing west. And yes, before you ask, he did kill their previous Queen. Karasi wasn’t lying about that.”

He turns back to the runes. “He also spent time in the north with the Einherjar. He taught himself to read runes. Then he taught Milena, and she taught me. I never imagined he might have been here, in this cave. Possibly even standing right here…”

He gives himself a shake, but his forehead remains creased and the tension around his eyes is more intense, as if the thought of stepping along here now unsettles him.

Tamra moves into his path, tipping her head back to see Thaden’s face. “You are not him.”

He gives a snarl. “You know I am, Tamra. Exactly like him.”

“But not for the same reasons. Not for hatred or malice.”

His shoulders slump. “Yet the outcome is the same: death and pain.”

“No,” she says, her small hand folding around his forearm. “ No .”

He glances back at me. “How about we let Asha be the judge of that?”

Tamra’s worried eyes meet mine, but for some reason, her expression softens. “Asha will judge.”

Then she turns on her heel and hurries forward into the dark as if she doesn’t care that she’s leaving the light behind.

Thaden follows her, but the tension doesn’t leave his shoulders.

I walk close behind him, my gaze flitting to the runes a final time before they come to an end.

That’s when we reach a set of steps.

They’re steep and I can’t see what they lead down to until we’re nearly at the bottom, and then my footsteps falter again.

Soft growls reach me, floating up through the air like a whisper from my past.

I’m suddenly transported back in time within my mind. The silver throne is once again pressed to my side. I’m desperately trying to hold Tamra and Gallium close, their young bodies trembling with fear as we listen to the approaching growls, the fierce snarls of a beast who would tear us apart and change our lives.

I stop right where I am, unable to descend, even though Thaden has moved ahead of me, and the light is a mere circle at my feet, illuminating the final two steps.

The growls sound again, but this time, they’re even softer, more plaintive somehow.

Thaden’s voice is quiet. Controlled. “How is she doing today?”

A woman’s voice replies. Not a voice I’m familiar with. But it’s equally gentle. “Maybe a little better. Precious thing, she caught a mouse but let it go instead of eating it.”

I find the courage to descend, my focus landing on Thaden first, taking in the tension around his mouth, the terrible vulnerability in his eyes.

Then I focus on the woman sitting on a chair in the far-left corner. She begins rising out of her seat but stops when she sees me. She has kind eyes and hair that might once have been auburn, but it’s mostly gray now.

Then my focus falls on my sister, who has retreated to the wall on the far left and watches me with an intensity that fills me with dread.

Finally, I turn to the right.

To the large cage filled with children’s toys and a soft bed and books that have had the corners chewed off them.

And then to a little girl with ink-black hair and sharp teeth, who watches me with bright green eyes as she slowly, very slowly, extends her black, metal claws.

She can’t be any more than two years old, if that.

I can barely breathe, my heart hammering in my chest and my left hand curling into an unwitting fist, seeking the hammer I didn’t bring with me. “Thaden… who is that?”

He steps between me and the cage, blocking my view of the little girl. “She’s my daughter.”