Chapter 31
Iwas on the verge of an attack the entire journey back through the castle to my suite. Pierce trailed behind me, and all I could think about was the young porter’s final rattling breaths. I clutched the lamp in my hand so tightly, the engravings would be imprinted on my skin.
I flinched at every sound, every approaching step from others who walked the halls. We weren’t safe here, especially not in the presence of the guards ordered to protect us. What a joke. They wouldn’t protect us—their sole purpose was to keep us under watch, to stop us from escaping.
The king was wrong about one thing though. Our excursion into the dungeons and the horrors awaiting there was intended to frighten me, and it had. I was absolutely terrified both of us would end up there, but that only motivated me more. We had to escape; there was no other option.
When we reached my suite doors, Nathanial was stationed outside, meaning Eleanor was waiting for me.
“Adelia—” Pierce called, but I slammed the door in his face before the lying bastard could say anything else.
I was quick to prick my thumb inside the door, then held it to the lamp to release Shade.
The moment he formed before me, I fell into his arms, breathing in his comforting purloe scent and allowing his warmth to thaw my frigid body.
The murmur of voices sounded from the other room—Eleanor and Wista—but I couldn’t face them. Not yet.
“We have to get out,” I whispered into Shade’s chest.
He leaned back to study my face, his brow furrowing when he took in my clammy and pale skin. “What happened?”
I couldn’t swallow past the lump in my throat, couldn’t wet the dryness there. Shade swiped his thumb under my eye, smearing an escaped tear. “He’s torturing them. He’s killing them.”
Understanding dawned in gray eyes, and he hugged me tight, placing a kiss on my head. “We’ll get out, my Solis.”
I nodded against his chest, praying he spoke the truth. There was absolutely no way we could fail.
Once my heart settled into a steadier beat, we joined my sister and friend in the large open living space.
“Tell me you have a response,” I said to Wista before either could open their mouth.
“I do.” She held up a crisp white envelope, and I strode toward her, but my hands shook as I took the letter. When I turned it over, neatly cursive letters greeted me.
A Smith.
It hadn’t been a very inventive pseudonym, but I needed to use something to indicate the truth without being too obvious. When I broke the seal, the page revealed more of the same scrawling script, and I scanned the words, taking in King Siro’s demands.
“Well?” Eleanor asked from the lounge, and I met her hazel gaze. “What did he say?”
“He’s willing to work with us, but he has a condition.” I stalked to the fireplace and threw the letter into the flames, watching it burn to ash and destroy any evidence of the treason I was about to commit.
“Not surprising, he would be stupid not to. What does he want?” Eleanor asked, folding her arms across her chest.
“We have to stop Terym’s sentient army.”
Her mouth dropped open, eyes wide with shock. Shade pursed his lips, brow furrowing slightly, while Wista twisted her hands in her skirts. All of them looked at me.
“How does he even know you can do that?” Eleanor asked.
“It could be a test,” Shade rumbled, making a good point. According to what I’d just seen, Siro did indeed have a number of spies within the castle. If there were others who had escaped Pierce’s notice, they could be feeding Siro information, and he was using it to test us.
“Can you do it?” Eleanor’s brows furrowed, and she eyed me with concern.
“Maybe?” I rubbed my palms down my pants. “I could write a letter, but the instructions would need to be clear. If one of Terym’s men read it out, well, they wouldn’t read it aloud and the king would find out. Unless I go there myself, I don’t know how to stop them.”
“What if someone else read the letter? Someone we could trust?” Wista asked, a hint of excitement in her tone.
“Well, sure. But who could we trust with this?”
“Fallon. He’s headed to Yinora tomorrow, they need more cooks since Terym is sending more of his men there.
” Her words raised more concerns than just her trust in Fallon, like why his forces were converging in Yinora if he already had the sentient army.
It was the largest trade route between our kingdoms, therefore the most heavily guarded on both sides.
“He can be trusted?” I asked Wista. I would trust her judgment. I had no other choice but to if we wanted to get out. When she nodded, I accepted it, her loyalty to me was clear from the moment we met, even before we knew each other properly.
I quickly wrote a letter instructing the army since Fallon was due to leave early in the morning.
I also added instructions to not listen to any of my future letters unless a certain phrase was spoken first. A meaningless quote from an old fairytale no one would understand, then signed the letter with my own name.
An unavoidable risk since the army wouldn’t follow the commands otherwise.
If the worst happened and Fallon was caught—I couldn’t think about it, I just prayed to all four Gods it would work.
Days turned into weeks, and we continued in a strange routine, waiting to hear from King Siro and to travel to Ferveem Forest. Despite the king’s best efforts to keep us separated, Eleanor had already enlisted Harkin’s help to see each other. It seemed she was right to trust him after all.
Since my meal and little trip to the dungeons, Terym had forbade me to leave the castle walls, so we’d begun to walk through the many galleries within the castle.
All manner of paintings and tapestries covered the walls of the large room, the pale-yellow paint fading away as you studied the exquisite details of the artwork.
Harkin had left us alone this morning, helping Eleanor to meet me here then begging off to complete some task for the king. Thankfully, Pierce and Nathanial waited just outside the door, giving us some privacy.
“Are you being careful around Pierce?” I asked, standing in front of my favorite painting, the landscape eerily similar to the field of everlasting flowers I’d destroyed.
Eleanor rolled her eyes. “Yes, you’ve already told me this. I still don’t believe it, there’s no way Pierce could be bad.”
It was hard for me to believe too, but he had been with me in that room of horrors.
“And Harkin? You’re being careful with him too?”
She blushed then, tucking a stray curl behind her ear.
“I understand what it is to have male attention, Eleanor. It can be exciting, especially the first time, but you need to protect yourself, we are surrounded by enemies here.”
She waved away my concern, moving to the next painting.
“Like you and Shade?”
I scowled at her change of subject; trust Eleanor to direct the attention back to me when she wanted to avoid something. “He’s not the first.”
“How can I forget that simp Ergo. Why you even entertained him to begin with I’ll never know.”
My mouth dropped open. She’d never told me of her dislike for Ergo before. “He was kind.”
Eleanor raised a brow. “Yeah, until he wasn’t.”
“How would you know?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.
“I paid attention. I told you, Adelia, I’m not a little kid anymore.”
No, I was beginning to see that now, but I still hadn’t told her the truth about her lineage—her destiny.
“So, you and Shade? What will happen after the wishes are made? Can he stay, then?” Straight back to what she wanted to know, like a hound to a bone.
“No, he can’t,” I murmured, wandering toward a painting of dancing nobles, the landscapes too melancholy for this conversation.
“What happens?” Eleanor’s voice was careful, like she didn’t want to upset me.
I sighed at her treatment. I wasn’t fragile just because of what happened with the king, even if I was prone to more panic attacks. “Once all three wishes have been made, he’ll be locked inside the lamp forever.”
“What? Why?”
I shrugged. I’d considered this question before, but my mind had always been so wrapped up in everything else that I hadn’t given it much serious thought.
“I don’t know.” I hesitated, then admitted something I hadn’t even admitted to myself. “I want to free him.”
I’d use the second wish for our escape, then I would wish him free. He deserved true freedom, and selfishly, I couldn’t live without him. I refused.
Eleanor smiled wide, then drew me into a tight hug. “Of course you do, Lia, because you love him.”
That feeling—love—filled my chest when Eleanor voiced what I had been too afraid to.
With everything we had been fighting against, I refused to acknowledge the warmth growing in my heart.
His utter devotion and caring had chipped away at the walls there.
Eleanor saw it. Anyone looking close enough would.
Even Terym suspected. Why else would he demand I keep Shade locked away while in view of others?
“I do.” Tears pricked my eyes.
When Eleanor pulled back, her eyes shone brightly, then she wiped away the stray tears and carried on down the wall of paintings.
“This whole lamp thing is very strange. Why would someone agree to lock themselves inside one for all eternity if there wasn’t a reason?
I mean it would make sense if it was to save someone you loved, but how would being trapped in a lamp do that? ”
Her contemplations continued, but I stopped listening when her words triggered a memory with Terym. Not one of pain and panic, but a story of a brother who sacrificed himself to save his kingdom.
Shade had said he made an impossible bargain, the scent of purloe a gift from the Gods.
I had to check.
I was distracted the rest of the morning spent with Eleanor, and once she had left for her daily classes, I hurried to the library. I needed that book, the one Terym had shown me in Ferveem Forest.