Chapter 25
The drainage tunnel smelled of death. They were exactly where his father had shown him thirty years ago.
Every castle bleeds somewhere, he had said.
Dunharrow bleeds here. Gareth had been seven, maybe eight, holding tight to his father’s hand as they’d crept through this very darkness, a lesson disguised as an adventure.
Alaric had never known. The knowledge had passed from Gareth’s father to Gareth alone, a secret kept even through the years of loyal service.
Gareth moved through the darkness, one hand trailing along the slick stone wall to guide his path.
Behind him, his men followed in single file, their breathing the only sound in the suffocating blackness.
They’d doused their torches at the entrance, no point in announcing their presence, and now they navigated by memory and touch alone.
His father’s map was burned into Gareth’s mind.
Fifty paces, then left. Hundred paces, then right.
The tunnel narrows at the old cistern. Watch your head.
The passage squeezed tight enough to make him turn sideways, scraping his shoulders against wet stone.
Water dripped somewhere ahead, the sound echoing off walls that had stood since before Alaric’s grandfather was born.
The Dunharrow drainage system had been designed to channel mountain runoff away from the keep’s foundations—but the builder had also been a cautious man, and he’d included this secondary route for exactly the purpose Gareth now used it.
A way in. A way out. An escape route that no one living remembered existed.
They emerged into a wider space, the old cistern, long dry, its floor covered in decades of sediment and rat droppings. Gareth held up a fist, and his men stopped behind him. He listened. Silence. No guards, no alarm, no indication that anyone knew they were here.
Good.
He signed to Miles in the dim light. Tunnels branch ahead. Main group continues to the dungeons. Secondary group to the gatehouse. When you hear fighting, open the gates for reinforcements.
Understood. Be careful, my lord.
Gareth didn’t respond. Careful wasn’t going to save Elodie. Only speed and violence would do that now.
He took five men and moved deeper into the tunnels.
The dungeons were old, built into natural caverns that honeycombed the rock beneath Dunharrow. Gareth emerged from a gap between two stones, a space so narrow he nearly got stuck, and found himself in a storage room piled with rotting barrels and forgotten crates.
He pressed his ear to the door. Footsteps, distant. The murmur of voices. Someone laughing, probably a guard entertaining himself during the long night watch.
Elodie. He didn’t know which cell held her. Didn’t know if she was unharmed. But he knew Alaric, knew the man’s cruelty and his vanity, knew he’d want her conscious and terrified when Gareth arrived. She was bait, after all. What good was bait if it couldn’t scream?
He opened the door.
The guard outside never saw him coming. One moment the man was leaning against the wall, picking his teeth with a bone splinter, the next, Gareth’s blade was sliding between his ribs and a calloused hand was clamping over his mouth.
The guard made a sound, a surprised grunt, nothing more, and went limp.
Gareth lowered the body silently. Wiped his blade. Moved on.
The dungeon corridor stretched before him, lined with iron doors set into stone arches. Most of the cells were empty, Alaric wasn’t the type to keep many prisoners. He preferred permanent solutions.
Third door. Fourth. Fifth—
A sound from behind the sixth door. Breathing, quick and shallow. The clink of chains.
Gareth pressed his palm flat against the iron-banded oak and closed his eyes.
The lockpicking skills he’d learned in darker years came back to him—angle the pick, feel for the mechanism, steady pressure.
His hands remained perfectly still as he worked.
The lock was old, rusted, stubborn—but it gave way after a few agonizing seconds, and the door swung open.
She sat against the far wall, chains running from iron cuffs to a ring above her head.
Her gown was torn and filthy. Her face was pale, streaked with grime and the tracks of dried tears.
But her eyes blazed green in the torchlight, and when she saw him standing in the doorway, she made a sound that lodged somewhere behind his ribs and refused to leave.
“Gareth.”
He crossed the cell in three strides and dropped to his knees beside her.
His hands moved to her face, her hair, her shoulders—checking for injuries.
Bruises on her wrists from the chains. A scrape along her cheekbone.
No broken bones that he could feel. His fingers lingered on her face a moment longer than necessary, thumb brushing the tear-track on her cheek.
“I knew you’d come for me.”
He signed, one-handed, the other hand already working on her chains. A single gesture, unhurried and absolute. Always.
The manacles were simpler than the door lock—crude things, all brute force and no finesse. He had them open in seconds, and then she was in his arms, clinging to him with a ferocity that matched his own.
“I knew you’d find me—”
Footsteps. Running. Shouts echoing through the corridors. Gareth pulled back and pressed a finger to her lips. Can you walk?
She nodded, though her legs wobbled when she tried to stand. He steadied her, drew his dagger, and pressed the hilt into her palm. Her fingers closed around it automatically, though her eyes widened.
Stay behind me. If anyone gets past me, use it.
“I don’t know how to—”
Point and push. That’s all. He kissed her forehead—quick, fierce—and turned toward the door.
His men had caught up, their silent approach through the tunnels had been successful. Miles appeared in the doorway, sword bloody, and signed so his voice wouldn’t carry. Alarm raised. We need to move.
Gareth nodded. Drew his sword. Stepped into the corridor.
The next minutes were a blur of steel and shadow.
They fought through the dungeon passages, Gareth in the lead, his blade singing through the darkness.
Guards appeared and fell. A servant ran screaming and was ignored.
He had no quarrel with servants. They climbed stairs worn smooth by centuries of feet, emerged into a torch-lit corridor, and found themselves face to face with a dozen of Alaric’s soldiers.
The silence that had been Gareth’s prison became his weapon. He signed commands to his men. Flank left, push right, hold center, and the soldiers obeyed without a word. No shouted orders for the enemy to overhear, no warning of their tactics.
Elodie stayed close behind him, the dagger clutched in her white-knuckled grip. She was terrified, he could see it in every line of her body, but she didn’t freeze. Didn’t scream. Didn’t do any of the things that might have gotten her killed.
Brave, he thought. My brave faerie queen.
A soldier broke through the line and lunged for her. Gareth was too far away, too engaged with his own opponent—
Elodie didn’t hesitate. She ducked under the swing, stepped close, and drove the dagger into the man’s thigh with a movement that was more desperation than skill. The soldier howled and went down, clutching his leg, and Elodie stumbled backward with blood on her hands and horror on her face.
Gareth finished his opponent and reached for her, steadying her against his side. Signed one-handed. Well done.
“I stabbed a man.”
He’ll live or not. Move.
They pushed forward, through the great hall that reminded Gareth uncomfortably of Greywatch, and into a courtyard lit by torches and the first gray light of dawn.
The gates were open. The men had succeeded.
Beyond the walls, Gareth could see more of his men riding in, the reinforcements he’d positioned before the assault.
They were going to make it. They were going to—
“Leaving so soon?”
The voice cut through the chaos like a blade through silk. Gareth turned.
Lord Alaric de Montrevain stood at the top of the courtyard steps, dressed in battle leathers and armed with a sword that gleamed with recent oiling.
Behind him, more soldiers poured from the keep’s doors, not the disorganized rabble they’d fought through, but trained fighters in matched armor. His personal guard.
Alaric smiled. It was the same smile Gareth remembered from the forest clearing three years ago, when he’d lain bleeding in the mud and listened to his former lord gloat.
“Hello, dog.” Alaric descended the steps slowly, savoring every moment.
“I hoped you’d come. Though I admit, I expected more dramatics.
Storming the gates, perhaps. A bold charge.
” He glanced at the tunnel entrance, visible now in the growing light.
“Instead you crawl through the sewers like a rat. How fitting.”
Gareth said nothing. He positioned himself between Elodie and Alaric, his grip steady on his sword.
“Not even a word for your old master?” Alaric’s smile widened. “Oh, that’s right. You can’t speak anymore. My men were so thorough.” He touched his own throat in mock sympathy. “Such a pity. You had such a lovely voice.”
Behind him, Gareth felt Elodie’s hand press against his back—not pulling him away, just... connecting. Grounding him.
I’m here, that touch said. Whatever happens, I’m here.
Alaric stopped at the bottom of the steps. His soldiers spread out behind him, cutting off retreat. Gareth’s men drew close, forming a defensive circle, but they were outnumbered three to one.
“Here’s how this ends,” Alaric said pleasantly.
“You can surrender now, watch me kill your faerie woman, and then die yourself—slowly, this time. Or you can fight, watch me kill your faerie woman, and then die anyway.” He tilted his head.
“Either way, you lose. But I thought I’d give you the choice. ”
Gareth’s sword came up. The movement was smooth, unhurried, inevitable, the gesture of a man who had made his choice long ago.
Alaric’s smile flickered. Just for a moment, something that might have been uncertainty crossed his aristocratic face.
Then he laughed and raised his own blade.
“So be it. Let’s finish what we started in that clearing.
” He beckoned with his free hand. “Come, dog. Show me what three years of silence have taught you.”
Gareth handed his dagger to Miles without looking. Signed to his men. Protect her. Whatever happens.
Then he stepped forward to meet his enemy.