Chapter 26 Basten
Basten
As we sprint through Raven Hall, I unlatch my heavy sword and let it clatter to the ground. It’s the weapon of a king, not a hunter. I need to be light on my feet. Lithe, fast. And lord knows I have enough knives strapped on me to skin a herd of deer.
Sabine heads for the grand staircase, but I stop in the center of the foyer, right on the raven mosaic, and tilt my head toward the high ceiling.
When she doesn’t hear my footsteps beside her, she stops on the first step, one hand on the stone railing, and looks back.
“What is it?” she asks, following my gaze toward the ceiling.
“I need to listen.” I drop to one knee, resting my head on my fist, and close my eyelids.
Hekkelveld Castle is surprisingly quiet at night.
Not like Sorsha Hall, which was filled with the sounds of debauchery ‘til dawn, or Drahallen Hall, where the fae hardly know day from night. Sure, it’s a cavernous structure, filled with hundreds of people on any given night, so even at midnight, there are still sounds of night sentries pacing, maids and stewards cleaning, dozens of people snoring.
I’m listening for something specific.
I’m listening for…
There.
The unique clatter of the two bone dice in Rian’s pocket.
“Third floor,” I say as I explode to my feet. Sabine hoists her skirt, and together, we race up the stairs. Back and forth, back and forth. Six flights. She keeps pace with me, not a flicker of slowing down, but when we reach the third landing, she grips the railing to catch her breath.
Her silver glow dims, flickering like dying firelight. She’s weakened. Malnourished, for a fae. And yet I’m struck by the absolute certainty that even diminished, she’s the most beautiful, vicious creature to walk the earth in ten thousand years.
“You need rest,” I say, cupping her chin to tilt her face to meet mine. “Stay here and guard the stairs in case he tries to come back down this way.”
Her eyes, sunken and tired, flash with a defiant spark. “Like hell. I’m going after him.”
I let out a sharp, growling exhale. “Then at least drink from me first.” Moving fast, I start to roll up my sleeve.
She slaps my hand away, turning her head. “I said no—I’m not risking you.”
“Sabine, you’ll die like this!”
“I’m immortal!” She practically bares her teeth at me, still leaning heavily on the railing. “When will you understand that, Basten? At worst, my powers will fade to human level. Your level. Still strong enough.”
I stalk in a tight, predatory circle. “I’m trying to help you. You’re too damn proud. You used to take what I offered with open hands, wide eyes. Used to beg me for it.”
Her cheeks blaze pink. “That was before a kiss might accidentally drain you dry.”
A whiff of sandalwood and saddle leather hits my nose, slamming into my lungs like a bolt of lightning, and the heat from our argument shifts to the thrill of the chase.
I whip my head around to the southern hallway, resting a hand on the hunting knife at my side.
“He’s close,” I say, then smell the air again. “Faith Tower.”
Her eyes meet mine, full of fire. She doesn’t ask permission. Hell, the opposite. There’s practically a challenge burning in her expression as she sprints toward the Faith Tower.
My hand tightens on the knife hilt. I don’t call her back—what would be the point? She’s already half a world ahead of me, headed somewhere I can’t follow.
I hate this. How we move more like clashing swords than husband and wife.
I watch her run, her silver glow flickering in the darkened halls. She’s burning herself down to the wick.
I run after her, catching up fast, and we pass beneath the archway to Faith Tower like two competitors racing to the finish. She leans against the spiral stairs; a hand pressed to her belly as she fights to catch her breath.
All five towers in Hekkelveld Castle contain a narrow, steep spiral staircase winding up through its center. At each floor, the staircase opens onto a circular landing surrounded by a ring of doors—each door leading to rooms arranged around the outer edge of the tower.
On the third floor, six doors ring the perimeter. I think back to the architectural maps Kendan tried to drill into my head, when I was more interested in scowling at the painting of Rian in the Council Room, barking for the servants to take the damn thing down and burn it.
Sabine starts to speak, but I hold up a finger. “I need to listen—he’s close.”
If memory serves, Faith Tower’s second and third floors house the lower castle staff, six to a bunk room. The senior staff are on the fourth and fifth floors. Each of the rooms here are filled with sounds of rustling sheets, sleep-sighs, crackling fires.
I frown, concentrating, listening for the telltale clatter of Rian’s bone dice. I step from one door to another, pressing my ear to the wood, frustration drumming against my ribs.
“He isn’t in any of—” A soft clatter grabs my attention, and I jerk my head toward the wall between the fifth and sixth bunk rooms.
I approach softly, keeping my own noise to a minimum, and rest my fingers against the wall. It’s a type of plaster; gypsum, I think. I knock, feeling for a hollow section between two wooden studs.
There—again. The clink-clink of bone dice in his pocket.
“He’s in the walls,” I mutter.
I pull back my fist and slam it straight into the wall. Plaster splinters, a crack giving way beneath my knuckles. Blood blooms across my hand, but I pull back and throw another punch.
A few confused cries come from the bunk rooms, where the noise has roused the maids. I ignore them, tuning my hearing to focus only on the sounds inside the wall.
It’s a scuttling. Scrambling, like a rat.
A big fucking rat.
With a growl, I slam my fist into the plaster again.
It shatters, chunks raining down and releasing a cloud of whitewash dust. I tear at the pieces, ripping through the wall to create an opening.
The wooden beams on either side are barely more than a foot apart—this castle is old enough that they used oak, solid as steel.
I shove my shoulder between the beams, gritting my teeth as I strain to squeeze through to the gap on the other side into Rian’s secret passageway.
The beams scrape at my clothes, digging splinters into my chest. I grimace, pushing harder, but I can barely fit my head through.
“Fuck!” I cry.
Sabine tugs on my arm, her face flushed, her heartbeat as vicious as my own. “I can fit through,” she breathes. “I’ll flush him out. You follow the sounds of our chase and be ready to catch him wherever he exits.”
Gods, she might be weakened, but her appetite for vengeance is as sharp as ever.
I slide out of the gap, shaking chunks of plaster out of my sweat-soaked hair. Sabine hikes up her skirt and steps over the rubble, her small frame easily slipping between the narrow studs. She looks back at me, reaching out a hand.
I clasp hers, a strange, tender wallop in my chest. “Together, little violet.”
My damn voice breaks.
She cocks her head. “I meant for you to give me one of your knives.”
I blink, stung, but act fast, tugging a small blade from the holster in my boot and sliding the hilt into her palm.
She starts to duck into the wall gap, but pauses, and emerges again.
For a moment, I see the same deep love in her eyes as when she stood beneath a bower of branches and agreed to be my wife.
“Basten?” She clenches my hand, hard enough that nothing could tear us apart, and whispers, “Together. Always.”
And my heart pounds again with hope.
Then, she’s swallowed by the darkness.
I listen for her movements on the other side of the wall; her dress scrapes against the narrow passageway, splinters catching on velvet and lace. If she can barely fit, Rian must be packed in there like a sausage.
Good. It’ll slow him down.
I bolt ahead, skirting around the backside of the spiral stairs, my senses sharp as blades as I pick up on any whiff of sandalwood, any clatter of bone dice.
The sounds of Sabine’s movements move further and further away; the secret passage is taking her back through other rooms, where I can’t easily follow.
“Shit.” I try a bunkroom doorknob. Locked. So, I slam my shoulder against it and burst into a room with squealing young maids bolting upright in their beds.
“M—majesty!” one of them cries, clutching the blankets high over her nightgown. The others quickly move to bow as best they can in their beds.
I power through their room, only glancing at the beds to make sure Rian isn’t hiding under one, and then slam through the door on the opposite side that leads to the servants’ hallway. A steward carting a load of firewood drops his bundle in surprise as I storm past him.
My heart slams like a stallion as I run my fingers over the walls, feeling for vibrations, listening for the telltale scramble of someone moving inside.
There. About a hundred feet ahead—I hear Sabine’s skirt drag against brick.
Then, another scuffle, about a hundred feet ahead of her.
Someone substantially larger is struggling to fit through the passage.
“Got you, you bastard,” I mutter from a clenched jaw. Now, I just have to figure out how to reach him. It’s a damn maze between the servants’ rooms, the main halls, the servants’ halls, and the secret passages, which wind and twist to their own chaotic logic.
I hurl myself through a door, finding myself in the third-floor servants’ sitting room. It’s empty now, the benches tidily stacked to one side, a basket of wool ready for tomorrow’s spinning.
Two doors lead to the rest of the castle, but fuck if I know where. I’ve never been in these sections before.
I pick the door on the left and shove through, stopping short when I come out in the formal hallway that overlooks the Reliquary Garden. Wind rattles the windowpanes, and I spare a glance down at the tombs looming in the moonlight, licking my lips to taste the air.
A woman’s cry, muffled by walls, snags my attention.
Sabine.