Chapter 9
My heart hammers in my chest, and I scan the words a second time—forcing my eyes to slow over the slanted script.
Briar,
No apology would be enough to make you forgive me, but from the deepest swells of my heart, I’m sorry. There is no excuse for what I did, but please know whatever Kressa is planning—it’s worse. I saw her wield fire, and until she is stopped, we’re all in danger.
I have a courier falcon that followed you to Ignata, and it will return any correspondence you write to me. I hope you’ll help me stop Kressa, but I should warn you—you’re either with me or against me.
With all my love,
Isolde
A stone settles in my stomach, and I shift my gaze over my shoulder. The window stares back, only the night sky on the other side.
I dart toward it and find the latch, undoing it. The pane shoves open an inch, but not nearly far enough to climb out of. Even if I managed to smash the window, the face of the castle is smooth—no chance of scaling it.
Blowing out a breath, I rest my forehead against the cool glass. Movement catches my attention, and I straighten. On the nearest spire, feathers rustle. I narrow my eyes, searching the darkness, and a falcon turns my way, its black beak glinting in the moonlight.
It’s unlike the ones I fought in Caelus’s armada. This is smaller—far too small to carry a human. It cocks its head and taps its talons against the metal, waiting.
As if it already knows I’ll respond.
Crumpling the note in my fist, I shut the window and step back. The falcon straightens and spreads its wings wide, but doesn’t take to the air. It drops to an eave in the roofline and settles in, tucking its head beneath a wing.
I narrow my eyes. Regardless of what Kressa is planning, Isolde is a fool if she thinks I’d help her after what she’s done. She told Caelus about my thievery and led him directly to the safe house. She killed Marianne.
Ignoring the way my heart aches, I jerk the curtains shut. Come tomorrow morning, I’ll be living on borrowed time, and I have three days to get myself out of this—prove I’m valuable enough to be kept alive. Or somehow find my escape.
A door slams in the living room, and I press myself against the wall as voices filter through the crack under the door. My doorknob jiggles, then swings open.
“We have a problem,” Kressa says, her hair wild around her head.
I slip the note into my back pocket and let my hands hang at my sides. “What are you talking about?”
Gemma appears over her shoulder, eyes wide. A shadow crosses her face as she weaves around Kressa and steps into my room. “One of your crew mates is missing.”
My vision tunnels, and I dart toward them, forcing my way through the doorway. Kressa throws out an arm and shoves me against the wall, pinning me into place with her palm against my chest.
“You let her out, didn’t you?” she hisses.
I grind my teeth together so hard my molars pop against each other. “I was too busy saving your life. Perhaps I should’ve pushed you off instead.”
“I’m not an idiot.” She shoves me. “You were out of your cell, with your crew, then the emerald goes missing along with one of your crew mates? It’s not a coincidence.”
I stare into her eyes, straining my hands against the cuffs. “Don’t you think if I could help one of them escape, I’d free them all?” Swallowing, I turn my attention to Gemma, the words catching in my throat. “Who is it?”
She dips her gaze to the ground. “Inez.”
My knees nearly go out from under me. She’s the youngest—spent nearly half her life behind bars.
And arguably the most powerful.
Isolde’s note weighs in my pocket. I could show it to Kressa, and immediately we could try and track Inez down. But if what Isolde says is true, or if she’s not the one who kidnapped Inez, there’s no telling how Kressa would use that information.
“Can I see them?” I whisper, unable to look Kressa directly in the eye. “Please?”
She presses her tongue into her cheek and sighs. “Fine, but only for a couple minutes. And I’m going in there with you.”
Her hand falls from my chest, and she backs away, combing her fingers through her hair.
“Thank you,” I breathe.
“Don’t.” She strides toward the door—a slight limp on her right, where her ankle was pinched between the roofline.
Gemma sidles up beside me as we file into the hall. “How old is she?”
“Twenty-two.”
A shadow crosses her face. “That’s how old Marianne was.”
“Far too young.”
Gemma nods, and her hands curl into fists at her sides. “I’ll get revenge for what happened to her.”
We weave through the castle, taking a different route than I took with Gemma earlier in the evening. By now, it must be far past two in the morning, yet there are still hundreds of people roaming the halls—searching for the missing and wounded.
Or seeking answers for why wyverns have returned.
“Tell me about this emerald,” I whisper to Gemma as we cross through a hall.
She slows, giving Kressa an extra lead, then leans closer to me. “It was gifted to Kressa’s ancestors by Terra. It’s the source of their power, and if it gets into the wrong hands, their power can be stolen.”
My brow furrows, and my mother flashes through my mind—the ruby she always wore around her neck. In fact, I don’t remember a time I saw her without it.
But if the sea has something similar, and Caelus got a hold of it—
I shake my head. I’d know if our power was tied to something so material. The only thing my power is tied to is the sea.
“If it falls into the wrong hands,” Kressa says, her voice harsh as her gaze swings between me and Gemma, “the Earth doesn’t stand a chance. And if we don’t get it back, neither will the Sea.”
I go to argue—to press further about what would happen to her power, but she banks left and we come to a sudden halt in front of the dungeon doors.
The guards stationed out front stiffen. “No one is permitted to enter.”
Kressa holds out a hand, motioning for Gemma and me to stop, and steps closer to the guards. She pauses in front of them and whispers something too quiet for me to hear.
Their gazes shift to me, and they give her a small nod. “Only a few minutes.”
“Thank you,” Kressa says.
The two men bank left and swing around the hallway, but I catch their shadows lingering on the far wall. Far enough to go unnoticed, yet close enough if something goes wrong.
“What did you say to them?” I whisper.
“That’s none of your concern.” She tilts her chin toward Gemma. “You stand guard as a soldier, in case my father comes this way. After what happened this evening, you’re pretty good at doing that.”
Gemma bites on her lip but nods, then glamours herself into one of the guards who just left.
I huff. “You haven’t told him about the missing crew member, have you?”
Kressa narrows her eyes. “The less he knows, the better. Unless you’d rather him torture you and your crew mates one by one until they tell him where she went.”
The door clicks open, and I shake my head, following close as she leads me into the dungeon. Chains clatter, and whispers come to a sudden halt, the air taut. While the foundation and walls withstood the wyvern attack, bits of the stone ceiling lie on the floor.
Their eyes follow us in the dark, but none of my crew says a word as we stop at a cell in the middle. The door hangs open. Kressa twists the knob on an oil lantern, pooling light across the slick black stone.
I find eight pairs of eyes watching me. But it’s the ninth—gaze cast to the floor—that pinches my heart. Thea won’t look at me, her temple resting against the rusted bars of her cell.
“Why didn’t you come for us?” she whispers.
I lean closer. “What do you mean?”
Thea swallows, then knuckles a tear off her cheek. My stomach tumbles, and I scan the rest of them, searching for answers.
Celia steps to the door of her cell and wraps her hands around the rungs, eyes like a storm.
“You sent an Earth Court advisor to help protect us in the attack instead of coming yourself.” She tilts her chin at Kressa.
“Heard the guards talking about how you saved the future queen. And now Inez is gone.”
My breath catches, and I retreat a step, but my back hits metal. I didn’t think in that moment, when the wyvern blew a hole in the wall. All my mind could focus on was Kressa hanging off the edge of a roofline, her life in danger.
“Well?” Celia says.
“We’re not here to argue,” Kressa spits, glaring at Celia. “There are more important things at hand than your feelings being hurt.”
Celia narrows her eyes, but slinks away from the bars into the corner of her cell.
Kressa weaves into the empty cell and tears the sheet off the bed, then moves to the back wall, prodding the rough bricks one by one. She looks over her shoulder at me. “Are you going to help or not?”
I glance at Thea, hoping that she’d look up and give me some sort of sign that she’s not blaming me for this.
But she doesn’t acknowledge me.
“Don’t speak to my crew like that,” I hiss.
I follow her into the cell and drop to my knees, searching under the bed. There’s nothing but a stagnant puddle of water and dust piled into the corner. Bracing my bound hands on the mattress, I stand, wincing as the rhodium cuts into my wrists. I rub my hands around them, easing the ache.
Kressa blinks at the welts—my raw skin puckering around the edges of the metal.
“Then don’t let them speak to you like that,” she whispers, her voice so light I almost don’t hear it.
“I deserve it.” Swallowing, I back away from the bed and shrug. “There’s nothing here—no sign of escape. You should order a perimeter around the city and send guards to the harbor. If we’re quick, maybe we can catch whoever kidnapped her.”
“That was the first thing I did.” She pinches the bridge of her nose. “But our forces are stretched thin, fighting the fires and tending the wounded from the wyvern. And the ones who did reach the edges of Ignata found nothing. It’s as if she disappeared.”