Chapter 16 Silver
Silver
Leave, she says. As if I’d ever do that.
Within minutes, I am setting off a small explosion on the first floor. Not a big one, totally manageable. Just enough to keep Kiar occupied while I break into that door in the basement.
Because if Mance is this close to giving up, then it’s time to kick my own plans up a notch. I’m not quitting. Not even if she does.
In spite of myself, I flinch at my own thought.
Obviously, I know Mance is only trying to be rational about a hard situation. But that doesn’t mean her dismissal doesn’t hurt. Heart isn’t with her, that was clear, but it’s almost as though there was something else missing, too. Why isn’t she fighting like she used to? It worries me.
What I need to do is get her out of this marriage now, so that we can go home and get back to our regular lives. I’m sick of her sharing chambers with another guy, sick of her wearing his ring, sick of the secretive glances and private moments, sick of all of it.
So I’m breaking into this final door, because I know that Merod has holed himself up behind it like a coward, and one way or another I am going to make him release her from this agreement.
My hands are shaking so hard with emotion that it takes a few tries to find the right key.
But when I slide an oversized brass one into the lock and turn it, there’s a loud click, and then a groan, like I’ve unlocked more than just one bolt.
I take a breath to steady myself, listening for footsteps in case the noise alerts anyone to my presence, but fortunately there’s only dusty silence.
Everyone must still be preoccupied with the chaos I created above.
I push the door open, expecting to enter a room, but instead there is only a narrow, sloping tunnel that quickly descends into murky shadow.
A thrill goes through me at the discovery.
No wonder Merod hasn’t come out; there could be a whole living space down here.
I step inside, eager. But the second my hand leaves the heavy door, it shuts behind me with a bang.
And I am immediately plunged into darkness as the lock clicks shut behind me.
Alarmed, I spin and rattle the knob, trying to shove it back open with my shoulder, but it won’t budge now.
I swallow, flexing my fingers.
Forward it is.
Heart hammering, I turn back to the tunnel and take a couple steps, feeling my way carefully.
After a few seconds, something ahead flickers brightly and then goes out.
I still, pressing against the side of the tunnel until it flashes again.
When it does, I realize that it’s one of those solidified storm clouds from the Jungle Realm.
A tiny globe of thundering gray surrounded by a ring of metal to render its lightning harmless.
Which . . . seems like an unnecessarily ornate way to light a random tunnel.
Especially because, unlike the rest of the castle, these halls don’t give the impression of old, half-rotted grandeur. They seem new. So new that there isn’t even flooring or constructed walls, just carved-out earth.
But I’ve come this far and there’s nothing to do but push on, so I do, warily.
As I continue through, it gets even clearer that this passage is a recent construction.
Newly exposed roots poke through the ceiling and wind around the walls, sometimes forcing the tunnels to change direction suddenly in order to navigate around them.
I must be underneath the forest itself now. How far do these tunnels extend?
There are more solidified clouds strung up every few feet, which means the lighting is inconsistent.
Darkness, darkness, then a flash of illumination.
It makes it easy to hide but difficult to figure out where I’m going.
As I walk, I skim my fingers along the earthen walls, feeling for the seam of a door or the empty space of another opening.
It’s quiet down here, the sound of my footsteps lost in the soft dirt. And it smells like a fresh grave.
Finally, my fingers skim over wood and in a flash of light, I see a door.
I nudge at its edges, pushing it gently open, then steal inside.
It takes me a minute to process what I find there.
At first glance it’s fairly innocuous. Just a storage room for magical items. There are more solidified clouds, their bolts lighting up the space in a more frenzied way because of how many there are.
A whole wall is lined with Prime Gore’s trademark bottled explosions, which is expected.
This was his realm. There are heat rocks, although they’re sitting on a wooden table, so it seems unlikely they’re hot enough to melt anything. None of that takes me aback.
But when I look further, there are so many things that shouldn’t be here.
So many things that shouldn’t exist. I know there were days when magic was unregulated, so surely one or two artifacts from that dangerous period must have survived, but this room seems like it contains every scrap of magic that has ever taken form.
There are things that ooze and things that fester. Things that wilt and things that stir. Things that whisper and things that feel like they are staring at me, even if they don’t have eyes. There are rocks and statues and items of clothing . . .
And there are weapons. There are so, so many weapons.
With an arsenal like this, Reltas could wipe out every other realm. Why would he need so much power? And where did he get it all?
I’m afraid to touch anything, because I don’t know what any of it does.
No, wait, I know what the explosive jars do. I grab a few of them.
And, like, one sword made of ice, because I’m only human.
The blade is cold to the touch, but not unpleasantly so, and the heat of my skin doesn’t melt it. I wait a second to see if I spontaneously combust or turn into a clock or something, but nothing else happens.
So I hurry back into the hallway and shut the door firmly behind me, relishing the renewed darkness of the tunnels.
Troubled, I continue forward, but in the next flash of light I find that there’s a second door, not far from the first. And this one has a necklace bolted around it, one that looks suspiciously like one of Mara’s.
Probably the one she put on her father’s jail cell, which Reltas must have pried free after disengaging it.
Promising.
Still reeling but determined to see this through, I unhitch the latch and ease open the door, holding my breath. In the wake of what I just saw, the silence feels suddenly heavier. Weighted.
I brace myself and slip inside.
This room is completely unlit, so I can’t make out anything at first. He must be sleeping.
I don’t want to announce myself in case there’s a guard inside, so I shrink behind some boxes I feel by the door and wait for the next flare of light.
Shouldn’t I hear someone moving around, though? Breathing, at least?
There’s a weird smell, but I can’t quite place it. I strain my ears, but I don’t hear a thing, and the lightning feels like it’s taking forever to flash again.
Then, suddenly, it does.
And Merod is there, lying on his side in a bed.
I found my prey.
The lightning winks out as quickly as it came.
I creep closer, ready to pounce. Ready to demand he annul the engagement, not even caring about the threat of his magic. It shouldn’t be too hard to keep out of his reach.
But then, when I’m only few steps away from his bedside, the lightning flashes again and I jerk away, noisily toppling several boxes in my haste.
Because this time I got a much better look.
And Merod’s face is mottled with bruises and cuts, like some kind of morbid painting.
There are long red lines that imply he’s been whipped, some with flecks of skin peeling off.
Blood cakes his skin in different shades, from crusty brown to dark, slick burgundy, which leads me to believe that he was tortured more than once.
His head is lolling to the side at an unnatural angle.
His eyes stare sightlessly, straight at me.
And his neck has been brutally slashed, the jagged edges of flesh curling away from the wound, slathered with old, dried-up gore.
In short, he is unmistakably, unequivocally . . .
Dead.
As the light flickers out again, I stumble back into the hallway, shocked.
My mind races to make sense of what I just saw.
I can’t say that I’m exactly . . . sad about it.
No tears spring to my eyes. I don’t fall to my knees in despair.
That man was a monster, and some part of me thinks that what happened to him was justice.
He was responsible for so much suffering.
If those actions caught up with him, then it’s hard to say he didn’t deserve it.
But the smell—which I now realize is blood—pours out of the darkened doorway, and the image of his tortured body is burned inside my eyelids. I feel bile at the back of my throat.
Is justice really the right word for this?
I shake my head, trying to get it together. Trying to figure out what this means. How long has he been dead? And when were they planning to tell us?
Of course. They weren’t planning to tell us.
Because if Merod is dead, then Mance is the one who has the power to dictate her betrothal.
A rush of elation washes over me, because this means that it is over.
Finally. I only have to run upstairs and tell her and then we can .
. . leave. Be together. Have control again. We can—
In the darkness, I suddenly feel a blade at my throat, and I freeze, my thoughts completely derailed.
“He deserved what he got,” says a voice. “And worse.”
When the lightning flashes, I am unsurprised to see Kiar on the other end of the knife, her pale hair catching the light.
“Fancy meeting you here,” I mutter.
She walks in front of me, tracing the metal along my throat. “I told you to leave it alone,” she says in mock regret. “Now I’m going to have to do something about you.”