Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Skye fixed her eyes on Noah’s back as Austin’s guards marched them through the Citadel’s lower passages.
Austin had positioned her at his side the moment they left the deep cells, his grip on her elbow light but deliberate.
She allowed it. Fought every instinct that screamed at her to wrench free, and allowed it.
Ahead, Noah walked with his hands fisted and his shoulders rigid, stripped of the sword he’d carried into the labyrinth to find her.
Taran and Finn flanked him, equally disarmed.
Keir led the group, guiding them to Paige and the children through turns and passageways Skye herself barely recognized.
Her longtime, loyal protector’s jaw was set in the expression of a man who fully understood what his betrayal of the Keeper would cost him. And still, he’d been willing to pay it.
What had she cost them? All of them? This family who only sought help for a child, who’d accepted her into their fold simply for who she was.
She couldn’t ignore the fury revealed in the set of Noah’s spine.
The barely contained rage in every measured step.
And beneath it all, the devastation. She’d watched it crush him when she’d made her bargain.
Watched as he wrenched the promise she’d demanded from his lips like something torn from living flesh.
The memory of it sat in her chest like a stone.
She’d had to. For Emily.
She summoned the child’s face. Those beautiful eyes, enormous in a face grown pale and gaunt.
The shallow breaths that came slower and more tortured.
She held that image before her like a shield because without it, the weight of what she’d agreed to would crush her where she stood.
She would not let herself imagine the years ahead, hollow and suffocating, chained to a man whose ambition had consumed every remnant of decency he might once have possessed.
If she allowed even a single thought of that future to take root, her courage would fail.
So she thought of Emily. Only Emily. And kept walking.
Keir stopped before a narrow archway that opened into a darkened corridor, one hand raised. “Through here, quickly. Quietly.”
They filed through in near silence. The passage opened into a small alcove off the long-abandoned kitchen, its hearth cold and blackened, shelves bare except for a few cracked clay pots.
In an adjacent storeroom, half concealed behind old crates, Skye saw Paige sitting on the stone floor with Brody asleep at her hip and Emily’s stretcher on the other side, a single candle throwing unsteady shadows across the cold, cramped space.
Paige’s head snapped up at the sound of their approach. Relief filled her eyes as she watched them enter, then froze instantly when she recognized Austin. The joyful sob that tore from her was so raw it broke Skye’s heart all over again.
“Austin!” She scrambled to her feet, easing Brody aside, and crossed the space in three strides. Her arms enveloped her brother before he could react, her hands fisting the back of his tunic as she pressed her cheek to his. “Thank God. Thank God you’re here. I knew you’d come. I knew you’d help.”
Austin tensed, standing perfectly still, his arms at his sides. His face betrayed nothing but the faintest tightening around his eyes as he stared fixedly at the far wall.
Skye ached for Paige, knowing what was coming.
“Please, Austin.” Paige stepped back, her voice cracking. “Just talk to me.”
“Let it go, Paige.” He finally said, his voice flat and cold. He still refused to look at her. “Let me go. Can’t you see it’s too late? I’m not the person you think I am.” Something passed across his face, gone before Skye could name it. “I never was.”
Paige’s face crumpled. Slowly, she released him and stepped back, wrapping her arms around herself. Skye wanted to go to her. Wanted to gather this brave woman into her arms and tell her everything would turn out all right between them. But she couldn’t. Because it wouldn’t. Not ever.
Instead, it was Taran who gathered her close, held her as she buried her face and her mistaken dreams in his chest.
Austin turned sharply to his guards. “Keep them here. All of them. Watch them closely. No one leaves.” He straightened his tunic. “It’s already mid-morning. I should have reported to the Keeper with an update long before now.”
He looked at Skye. “You will accompany me to assure your father that after your night of…reflection, you’ve seen the folly of your actions, and you now recognize the wisdom of our arrangement and have agreed to the marriage.”
The sound Noah emitted, low and tight, had the guards stepping closer.
Skye couldn’t look at him. Instead, she forced herself to meet Austin’s gaze and nodded. “Let’s not delay, then. There’s work to do in the tunnel.”
The walk to her father’s study felt longer than expected.
Or perhaps it was simply that each step carried her further from Noah and closer to a performance that would require every shred of composure she possessed.
Her father was no fool. Convincing him of her sudden conversion to his schemes would not be easy.
Austin knocked and pushed open the heavy oak door without waiting for a response.
The Keeper sat behind his desk, as usual, his silver hair a stark contrast to the strength he emitted, his pale eyes lifting with the careful assessment of a man who trusted nothing.
“I’ve come to report the successful removal of our visitors, as directed,” Austin stated.
Skye noted his steady, confident voice. One of a very practiced liar. She hoped she could be half as convincing.
“I also brought your daughter,” he continued, positioning himself just behind Skye’s shoulder with a hand resting on the small of her back. “She has something she’d like to tell you.”
Her father’s gaze swept her length, taking in her disheveled appearance. Finally, he leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. “I’m listening.”
Skye drew a breath and lowered her eyes, not in shame but in the careful mimicry of it. She’d watched her father wield false humility as a weapon for years. She understood its power and reached for it now.
“I am ashamed, Father. It’s clear to me now, I made a terrible misjudgment.
” She kept her voice steady, stripped of defiance, stripped of everything except contrition.
“I was weak and allowed myself to be influenced by outsiders when I should have known better. I see now that their desperation clouded my thinking. Made me question things I had no right to question.” She paused, letting the words settle.
“I’ve learned a valuable and embarrassing lesson.
And I’m prepared to fulfill whatever role you need of me, without reservation. ”
The Keeper studied her as silence stretched between them. Skye endured his scrutiny the way she’d endured every test he’d ever put before her. With stillness. With patience. With the mask she’d spent a lifetime perfecting without ever realizing she’d learned it from him.
“I’m pleased to hear it,” he said at last, and something in his posture relaxed.
“I was confident you’d come to your senses once you gained some distance from such unsavory influences.
You are my daughter, after all.” He gestured dismissively.
“Begin making plans for the wedding. I expect a lavish affair. Something befitting the alliance we’re building. ”
“Of course, Father.” The words tasted like ash. “Although I beg to be excused for the remainder of the day.” She gestured at her soiled, crumpled gown. “After such a grueling night, I’d like to get cleaned up and rest properly before beginning preparations for such an important event.”
He waved her away. “Go. Restore yourself.”
Austin took her arm and she let him lead her from the study, all the while maintaining the measured composure of a dutiful daughter until the door closed behind them.
“I want to take food to Paige and the children. I’ll stay with them while you and the others work on clearing the tunnel.”
Austin studied her with that calculating gaze she’d come to despise.
“I will allow that. But you will not leave there. Not until I come for you. Everyone must think you’ve taken refuge in your chamber.
I will, of course, leave a guard with you.
The other three will accompany me and your friends.
” The word dripped with contempt. “And let us not forget Keir.” His voice went flat and cold. “Our traitor.”
Skye said nothing further as she went with Austin to the kitchens to gather what food she could without drawing attention and followed him back toward the alcove where the family she loved waited for the moonless night and the miracle they needed.
The tunnel was worse than Noah remembered.
He’d only been inside it briefly that one time before, just long enough to suspect it might lead toward a portal, long enough to note the instability.
But in the days since, the deterioration had clearly advanced with alarming speed.
Fresh cracks spiderwebbed across the stone above their heads.
Small cairns of rubble dotted the passage where sections of wall had given way, and the air carried the metallic tang of rock dust that coated his tongue and burned his eyes.
As they fought their way deeper, the tunnel narrowed, forcing them to move and work in single file in some sections while their torches cast long, jerking shadows that made the walls appear to breathe.
A low rumble rolled through the stone beneath Noah’s boots. Pebbles rained from the ceiling, and he threw an arm over his head, pressing against the wall until it passed. When he straightened, a fine layer of dust coated his hair and shoulders.
“Bringing our family through here might well be leading them to their deaths instead of the future,” he said to Taran, keeping his voice low.