Chapter 25
The open hallway greets us, and Kressa pulls me to a stop.
“What is it?” I ask, glancing to the ballroom. Our exit went unnoticed, and no guards wait at the opening ready to interrogate us.
“Wait here.”
Turning on her heel, she disappears into the coat closet. She emerges with a cloak draped over her arm and circles to my back, wrapping it around me.
I furrow my brows and shrug it off. “This isn’t mine.”
“It’s yours if I say it is.” Her lips tease the arch of my ear as the pad of her thumb brushes my collarbones.
My power roils against its cage, begging to be released from the chains anchoring it down. I suck in a breath, but the air in the room is suddenly too thin.
She comes around to my front and threads the button through its hole. “This dress draws too much attention. It’s distracting.”
“Distracting?” I take in the dim, empty hallway. “To who?”
She looks over the top of my head and straightens the hood. “Me.”
I inhale a sharp breath. A shadow crosses her face, and her eyes sharpen to unreadable points. A tune floats from the ballroom, and she drops her arms to her sides.
My entire being begs for our lips to meet again, to release the fleeting, blissful thrill of my power. To discover exactly why she rouses it.
I wet my lips, and she watches, her mouth parting slightly. My skin buzzes with an insatiable need, and I risk a step closer, toeing a very dangerous line.
She clears her throat and retreats a step. “We have somewhere to be.”
I lower my gaze and pull the edges of my cloak over my dress, as if it could stop my heart from hammering against my ribs. “Right. We need to find Elias.”
She nods, her lips pressed into a thin line. I straighten and lead her through the arched hallway, clearing my thoughts with each footfall. Whether she stirs my power or not, I can’t get distracted.
Like me, she could be a spy, and I can’t forget that she’s hunting me for reasons I have yet to discover.
She’s as much my enemy as Caelus.
We pass through the unused hall with the grand piano, and she trails a finger over the top, disturbing the thick layer of dust. “Did you ever attend any of the balls here before the Sky Court invaded?”
I don’t slow. “Only one.”
My first and last. When finery draped these walls in shades of gold and honey. The night I killed Prince Barren.
When I lost my power.
The hallway curves to a part of the castle only frequented by guards and the prisoners they escort to the dungeon. We pause at the end, and I press a finger to my mouth. I lean around the corner, where a pair of heavily armed guards flank a set of doors.
Righting myself, I whisper, “We won’t be able to get past the guards.”
Sconces cast firelight over her face. “Give it a minute.”
“We don’t have a minute.”
But as the words leave my mouth, a thud comes from around the corner. I glance to Kressa, and she smirks. “The sleeping tonic is tasteless in water, too.”
“That servant is working with you?”
She nods and steps around the corner. I follow, where the guards sit slumped against the wall, their chests rising and falling with slow, even breaths.
I toe the one closest to me. “If you planned to knock them out, why do you need me?”
She sinks to her knees in front of the other guard. “Perhaps I simply enjoy your company.”
I cross my arms and glare at her.
She pulls a set of keys from the guard’s belt and twirls them around her finger. Looking up at me from under her lashes, her lips tilt into a smug grin. “Fine. I need you—one—because the sight of Isolde’s hands on you in the garden has haunted me all week.”
“Don’t speak of her,” I snap.
A smirk. “Wouldn’t dare.”
I swallow. “And two?”
She flips through the keys and pulls out a skeleton one, bent and knotted like a crooked finger. Rising, she fits it into the lock and slides the bolt. The door pops open with a click.
“And two, if we get caught, you’ll take the fall for it. I’ll tell the guards the king’s favorite courtesan wanted to borrow some chains to try out something more…adventurous in the bedroom.”
I grind my teeth. “They wouldn’t believe you.”
Stagnant air rushes out of the dungeon. “Oh, love, they saw you pin me up against the wall.”
“I was pretending.”
“Then it was quite a convincing performance.”
A blush crawls up my neck, and before she has a chance to notice, I shoulder past her into the maw of the dungeon.
My feet meet slick, black stones, and a chill sweeps over my skin. Damp, cloying air seeps into my lungs and somewhere nearby, water drips onto the floor.
Kressa pulls the door shut, blotting out any light from the hallway. Dim, flickering lanterns reflect off silver chains hanging from the walls.
She threads her arm through the scant gap between my cloak and lower back. “Stay close.”
A shiver runs the length of my spine, and my body aches to lean into her, to test if her skin has the same effect as her lips. But I jerk away. “Don’t touch me.”
Her hand falls. In the shadows, a mouse skitters across the floor.
“Do you know where you’re going?” she whispers.
“Yes.”
“How?”
Searching for my crew. “Caelus gave me a tour when I was first hired.”
“And he showed you the dungeon?”
I shrug. “I asked to see it.”
And after I saw the harrowing conditions he keeps his prisoners in, I never wanted to return.
We come upon a spiral staircase, and I go first, trailing my fingers along the rail as I descend. I don’t need to look to know Kressa’s hand remains out, ready to catch me if I fall.
At the base of the stairs, we step into a narrow, windowless dungeon lined on either side with barred metal doors. Whispers float out from deep within the shadowed cells, chains rattling.
My skin crawls, like it did during my first visit. Prisoners spend every hour behind bars, without a single window or sliver of natural sunlight to warm their faces.
Some of these people may have forgotten what the outside world looks like.
An arm shoots between the bars and a brittle, twisted hand wraps around the collar of my cloak. It yanks me to the cell and presses my face against metal. I grapple for the button at my neck, but it’s pulled too taut against my skin, constricting my airway.
“What’s this?” A tendril of hot breath brushes against my cheek. “A pretty little plaything?”
The man’s rough, corrugated voice sends a wave of nausea over me. I jerk myself away, but the hand holds tight. I press my eyes shut and try to inch my arm up, but it’s wedged between my body and the cell.
The hand disappears. I stumble back, pressing a hand to my throat as I inhale mouthfuls of stale air.
“Don’t you dare touch her.”
Kressa’s hand wraps around the prisoner’s collar, pulling him flush against the bars. Wide, brown eyes blink, and a thick layer of stubble brackets the curl of his lip.
His hands speak of someone much older than he appears to be, yet I’ve never witnessed the torture that takes place here. I only hear the screams while I lie in bed, unable to sleep.
“Who are you?” the prisoner snarls at Kressa. “Her keeper?”
I swallow and loosen the cloak, my skin raw from where the fabric dragged against me.
Kressa tightens her grip. “Apologize to her.”
The prisoner smiles, his teeth rotten. “No.”
I come to Kressa’s side and wrap my palm around her upper arm. “We don’t have time for this. Let’s go.”
As if she doesn’t hear me, she slips a switchblade from her pocket and flicks it out, holding it to the man’s throat. “Don’t make me tell you again. Apologize.”
Her words come out as a threat, a command. A tone only someone comfortable with doling out orders could use.
The prisoner swallows, his throat trembling against the sharp blade. “I’m sorry.”
Kressa turns her eyes to me, dark and unreadable. “Do you forgive him?”
Her jaw ticks, teeth gritted together with barely controlled restraint. I blink. She’d end this man if I so much as gave the word.
The prisoner shudders a breath.
I nod. “I forgive him.”
Kressa drops the man and folds her blade, stashing it in her pocket. The prisoner rubs at his throat and retreats back to the shadows.
I take a step toward his cell. “Wait.”
Kressa stiffens and slides a hand around the front of my waist, putting herself between me and the prisoner. I thread my fingers through hers and give a reassuring nod. “It’s okay.”
She lowers her hand, but I don’t miss the way she slides her blade back out.
I turn to the prisoner, half cast in a shadow. “We’re looking for a man.”
Chains and shuffling feet echo through the hallway. Other prisoners press their faces against their cell bars. They range in age, yet all as unkept and mistreated as the man before me.
“You’ll need to be a little more specific,” he says.
I tilt my chin toward Kressa.
She pockets her blade, but her hands remain clenched at her side. “He has blonde hair, dark brown eyes, and was captured when the Sky Court invaded Sarenia.”
The prisoner leans his arms against the bars and shakes his head. “Sorry, don’t think I’ve seen him. I’ve been here less than a year.”
I swallow. Only a few months, and he already looks like this.
The prisoner glances at the other cells. “Anyone else?”
They shake their heads, but in the last cell, shrouded in shadows, a gravelly voice speaks up. “I may have seen him.”
Kressa bolts down the hallway, and I follow at her heels. The lanterns’ glow doesn’t reach this far down the corridor, and my eyes struggle against the low light.
She wraps her hands around the bars and leans forward. “When?”
“They arrested me the same day, if I’m remembering right. When they brought me to this cell, I passed by a man being led out by a host of guards. There was a rhodium helmet over his head, masking the majority of his face. But I’ll never forget those knowing brown eyes.”
My stomach loops into a knot. A rhodium helmet? I’ve seen shackles and chains constructed of the metal, used to extinguish the power of the wearer. But a helmet?
“Elias is a mind reader?” I breathe.
Her silence is answer enough.
I stumble back a step, feet sliding over the slick stone. Mind readers are an unnatural anomaly. Their power isn’t bestowed by Terra or Serinos—isn’t gifted from a noble family. No, they’re born with the ability and killed as soon as their power manifests.
He’s not some harmless prisoner. No. This man is a weapon.
“Do you know where they took him?” Kressa asks.
The prisoner taps a finger on the metal bar. “No, sorry. But once he left, he never came back.”
Kressa bows her head against the cell and pulls the keyring from her pocket. She slides a key into the lock.
I lunge forward and grip her hand. “What are you doing?”
“Freeing them.”
“But they’re prisoners. Criminals.”
She nods to the cell. “This man stole food to feed his malnourished granddaughter. Another down there was arrested for sleeping behind a house, near a chimney, to stay warm during the winter. I saw their intake files, Briar. None of them have done anything to be behind bars, not even the man who put his hands on you.” She blows out a long breath.
“Imagine. A lifetime in this place for a petty crime.”
I pause and drop my hand from hers. The bolt slides, and the door sways open with a squeal, like it hasn’t been opened since the prisoner was locked in. An elderly man stumbles out.
He wraps his hands around Kressa’s. “Thank you.”
“You have nothing to thank me for.”
I wait at the base of the stairs as Kressa unlocks the rest of the cells. The prisoners step into the corridor, each with a sore on their ankle where chains held them in place.
They gather in a small circle, and Kressa whispers to one of them, her voice too low to overhear. The man nods, eyes set with determination. He turns to the next man and passes on whatever was said.
Kressa turns to me. “We can go now. They know the safest way out of the castle, and with the ball going on, they shouldn’t run into any trouble.”
We step to the side as the group passes in a single line, a dozen pairs of brown eyes staring at me.
“They’re all from the Earth Court,” I breathe.
The freed prisoners climb the stairs, their knees wobbly and feet unsteady from the days, months, years spent in a small cell.
Kressa motions for me to follow her up. “They are. And like so many others of the Earth Court, they’ve been wrongly accused and imprisoned of crimes. These ones are lucky though. They haven’t been executed.”
We emerge into the hallway, empty save for the guards slumped against the wall. The prisoners have already vanished, gone without a trace. Kressa locks the door and returns the key ring to the guard’s belt.
“That was very kind of you,” I say. “To free them.”
She swallows and lowers her gaze. “Elias would’ve wanted me to do it.”
Something slimy twists in my gut. If she expects me to help her find him, I need the truth of who he is. “Kressa—”
Footsteps sound from around the corner, and she clamps her hand over my mouth. Shadows dance on the hall, growing in size.
My eyes shoot wide, my heart a hammer in my chest.
Kressa lowers her hand from my mouth and drags me down the hallway. A curtained alcove comes into view, and she throws me behind it. My back presses against a cold wall, and Kressa settles herself over me, her arms caging me in.
Her lips brush my ear. “Don’t make a sound.”
The footsteps grow closer, drowned out only by the blood pounding in my head. My hands naturally fall to Kressa’s sides and, as if they’ve traced this path a thousand times, my fingers drift up her waist.
Our gazes lock.
“Briar,” she breathes.
Her hand weaves through my cloak and settles on my lower back. Warmth pools in my stomach, and my power swells in its cage, begging for release. Her grip tightens around my waist, her thumb rubbing slow, soothing circles over my spine.
An oily sensation flips through my stomach. I promised Isolde that Kressa meant nothing to me, yet here I am, shoved into an alcove with her while our hands roam each other’s bodies. But I can’t seem to pull away.
Footsteps pound closer, and a pair of shadows pass in front of the curtain, heading in the opposite direction of the dungeon doors.
I drop my palms from her sides and shove her away. “My room. Now.”