Chapter 66
Atlas
The sky bled red above as the crew raced through Maerinys, aiming for its castle.
They were moving fast now, but Atlas’s heart had already run ahead—straight to Elowynne.
Every step, every breath felt like a countdown keeping measure with the pounding of his pulse, until the numbers began to press against his skull.
Each second was another moment she was still in that sea bitch’s hands, another breath she might be forced to fear for her life.
He remembered promising her—swearing to her—that she would be safe with him.
And yet here they were.
Atlas’s jaw clenched, and he gripped his sword tighter, feeling like the only thing tethering him to what remained of his patience. Without it, he might have already stormed through every barrier between them with nothing but desperation as his guide.
He refused to lose her. Not after everything.
Atlas had once seen that masquerade ball as nothing but a death sentence to the life he’d always lived. And while he’d been right about that, the only difference now was he couldn’t have been prouder. Elowynne had made him a better man, had guided him into the ways of being a proper ruler.
Once they reached her, he didn’t care if the world was burning around them… he would never let her go again.
His stare lifted to Draevyn’s back as they all sprinted, following him to Maerinys’s looming castle.
The stench of charred flesh from the cave lingered in his nose, the sight of twisted, blackened creatures imprinted behind his eyes. He couldn’t shake the thought of what Draevyn had endured down there… Draevyn and Esmyra, cornered and surrounded by monsters that shouldn’t exist.
Real monsters.
Perhaps he should’ve taken his brother more seriously when he tried to explain all they went through together. He never believed something could force a bond between two people who loathed each other so intensely that it fueled the very reason for why they were there in the first place.
Esmyra was the worst kind of person and the most ruthless kind of criminal.
How could he have believed the man when he claimed to love her?
But there was absolutely no denying that love any more.
From either of them. After watching Draevyn rescue her, seeing them fight together on the ships, and then claim their revenge against Varis…
it was impossible to believe there was anything less between the two than pure, unrelenting love. Similar to what he felt for his bride.
So now, even if he didn’t agree with it, he would follow them both. They would rescue Elowynne and bring her to safety and then figure everything out from there. Together.
For the first time in what seemed like years, he felt the spark of their brotherhood blaze to life again. And once this mess was dealt with, things may just go back to normal.
But now with him as king, and Draevyn at his side.
The jagged outline of the castle loomed, pale stone rising against the bruised sky. Even from here, Atlas could feel the weight of it pressing down. Somewhere beyond those walls, Elowynne was waiting for him to reach her, just as Esmyra had been waiting for Draevyn in Sumnae.
The seconds clawed at him again, each one a blade across his nerves.
Beside him, Draevyn lifted a hand, slowing them to a halt as shadow silhouettes stirred along the path ahead.
“Guards ahead,” he whispered as he turned to their men. “Several at the gate. We need to be silent and quick. I don’t want a single fucking horn going off warning them of our arrival.”
He was answered with several silent nods.
Draevyn moved first, a streak of steel slit the throat of the nearest guard before he could cry out.
Atlas lunged into the second, the clash brief and brutal before the man crumpled at his feet.
The third reached for his horn, but Jak was faster, whipping his dagger through the air, its blade twirling before it embedded itself in the guard’s chest.
“Let’s move,” Draevyn muttered, scanning the castle wall.
And then the air split as countless screams erupted from Maerinys’s shores, echoing from the far side of the kingdom.
Everyone’s eyes widened.
“Esmyra.” Draevyn’s head snapped toward the sound, the corner of his lips lifting.
Jenli lowered the hood of her cloak, stepping up to them as she pointed at the crimson sky. “Need I remind you that we must keep moving.”
“Aye,” Draevyn breathed, turning to the rest of them. “Follow me.”
They all sprinted toward the shadows of the wall, pressed tight until Draevyn motioned them forward. A side door waited there, half-hidden beneath crusted seaweed, and he wrenched it open.
“This way,” his brother ordered, already stepping through. “Esmyra and I used it the day we snuck out of the castle and found the crypt.”
Atlas saw the way Draevyn’s jaw tightened at the mention of the crypt, recalling how he’d said that was the day everything changed for them both. He silently followed with Jak at his back, and the crew thundering in after them.
The castle’s corridors swallowed them whole, pale stone halls echoing with their hurried steps. A briny scent lingered in the air, the light of the crimson moon funneling down through the windowed ceilings as odd looking orbs glowed a vibrant blue overhead.
“Merlights,” Draevyn said from beside him.
Atlas’s brows pulled together in confusion.
His brother nodded up to the orbs. “It’s part of their magic. It was their only source of light once the kingdom sank.”
Interesting. He’d never seen that kind of magic before.
They turned a corner and guards appeared at the opposite end. There were four of them, spears raised, and they all began shouting in alarm.
Atlas’s vision tunneled red.
He didn’t hesitate. His shadows lunged first, the darkness excluding from him so thick it choked the merlights into nothing, pulling the men into a suffocating abyss. Shouts of horror sounded, and the spears clattered uselessly against the floor as he surged forward.
“Atlas, wait!” Draevyn yelled, but he refused to halt. They were so close to Elowynne. He could fucking feel it in his bones.
A figure loomed in the dark and one man managed a cry before Atlas lifted his sword and had its blade rip through the man’s throat, the spray of blood hot against his face.
He whirled as a choking sound erupted to his left, where he found another had been driven back against the wall, Jak’s knee pinning him there, dagger buried between his ribs.
Draevyn appeared beside him then as a literal flame illuminating in the darkness as he incinerated another guard.
The fourth man tried to flee, and then Ren, Riven, and Sam were there, backing him into a corner.
Riven held out his hand and the man froze, fingers digging into his temples as he began to scream at whatever horror the elven made him see in his mind.
Sam lunged then, his sword driving straight through the man’s chest, cutting his screams short.
The hall reeked of smoke and charred flesh now, the entire crew covered in blood, but none of it was their own.
“Someone surely heard that,” Jak said out of breath, sheathing his dagger.
“Move!” Draevyn bellowed.
They all stormed ahead, and Atlas let that fury pound through him. The walls themselves felt too narrow, too suffocating for what burned within him. The halls twisted downward, merlights thinning as the air grew colder and damper, as if the castle itself sought to drag them down into its rot.
At last, they reached the iron-barred doors of what he could only assume was the castle’s dungeon. It was thick, crusted with barnacles like the underbelly of a ship, and locked with a heavy clasp of steel.
Atlas growled, slamming his palm against the door as shadows snapped like wild dogs around his boots.
Draevyn cursed under his breath.
But then Jak stepped forward, rolling his shoulders with infuriating calm. “As I’ve told your brother,” he drawled, twirling his dagger, “locks are never a problem.”
Atlas’s brows furrowed.
“Unless, of course, they’ve got your shadows dancing around them,” he grumbled.
The crew let out a rough laugh. Even Atlas managed the ghost of a smirk, remembering the lock on Blackwood’s cell in his own dungeon.
Atlas’s head tilted to the side as the woodland male blew lightly on the lock, a gust of violent wind flowing from his lips and through the metal.
A sharp crack sounded, and a heartbeat later, the lock snapped in two, tumbling to the stones with a clang that echoed through the dungeon corridor that now lay ahead of them.
Draevyn placed his palm on the wall, and a blaze filled every crack in the stone and ceiling, appearing as fire-fueled veins as they filled with molten embers, lighting the way.
Endless doors lined the narrow hall, each one possessing a large lock that mimicked the one they had just broken through. These cells were different from the ones in Lephyrin and in the brig. In place of the barred cells he knew, there were thick, iron doors guarding each prisoner.
Jak stepped up to him and let out a low whistle. “That’s a… that’s a lot of locks.”
If his magic can break through locks, perhaps mine can too.
Jak twirled the dagger in his hand and went to take a step past him, but Atlas raised his arm to halt him.
Shadows surged, rushing ahead as they raced along the walls before burrowing themselves in each and every lock. They slithered into tumblers, prying, breaking, forcing them apart with a shriek of tortured metal.
One by one, locks snapped open in a cacophony of echoing clangs.
“Holy hells,” Jak whispered.
“Elowynne!” Atlas bellowed, shoving past him and through the door.
Everyone rushed in after him, every step faster than the last.
Atlas tore open the first door they came to, shoving his shoulder into the rusted iron until it gave way. “Wynne! Wynne, I’m here!”
“Atlas, we need to try and be quiet!” Draevyn barked, but he didn’t care.
Chest heaving, he crashed into the room, but it was empty. There was nothing but a pile of straw and a rusted bucket.
“Fuck!” he barked, not even bothering to look back.
They sprinted farther down the corridor, the glowing red veins in the walls illuminating the endless stretch of cells. Atlas ripped open another door they passed, hope clawing at his chest, only for it to wither away when nothing greeted him inside.
Every door led to nothing but an empty room.
Every. Single. Fucking. One of them.
“Keep moving!” Atlas snapped, voice ragged.
The further they went, the more frantic his movements became. He kicked a door until it flew off its hinges, only to find another barren cell. His chest tightened, heart hammering louder. He could feel her—he knew she had been here.
The last cell loomed ahead, and with a heavy grunt, he shoved his way through.
Dread cloaked him as a chain hung broken from the wall, stained with fresh blood. His stomach turned, shadows writhing faster, more violent as his panic surged.
“Where the hell is she?” Atlas snarled.
Draevyn said something behind him, but he couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t even think or see past the sick twisting in his gut.
Because she wasn’t here.
They left no doors unopened, no walls untouched. Elowynne was gone.
Atlas stood in the center of the hall, chest heaving, bile rising in his throat.
The dungeon spun, his vision blurring red at the edges.
He dug his hands into his hair, fighting the urge to scream until his voice broke.
His shadows lashed out instead, cracking stone and tearing at the cells as though they could claw her out of hiding.
“She was here,” he growled, the words tearing from his throat like broken glass. “She was here. I can feel it. I can—”
A heavy hand fell to his shoulder, and his eyes lifted to meet Draevyn’s.
“They must’ve known we were coming,” he whispered, an apology in his eyes.
Atlas’s knees nearly buckled as a wave of sickness rolled through him at the unbearable thought of what had been done to her—what was still being done. He slammed his fist into the wall, splitting the stone.
He wanted to tear the entire castle down with his bare hands.
Atlas’s spine straightened, his jaw ticking. “So where do we go now?”
Draevyn swallowed hard. “I think it’s time we kill that fucking goddess.”