Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
LYRA
Three days earlier . . .
Adriel nearly made it to Sorsha’s private quarters before he began retching. A cold sea breeze whipped across the narrow footbridge, and the prince’s royal guard doubled over the railing and emptied the contents of his stomach.
Sorsha and I stared as he braced a clammy hand on the stone, muscles bunching beneath his leathers. His face was ashen. Messy copper locks stuck to his temples, and his riotous hazel eyes looked glazed.
I didn’t blame Adriel for being sick. My own stomach was in knots, and my chest felt as though it were being crushed by a boulder.
In all the chaos, the royal guard had flown me out of the Dark Palace, leaving Kaden trapped in Dorthus. My mate was now a prisoner in his father’s kingdom, and Semphrys knew he’d been working against him.
“We have to go back,” I said for the fifth time in as many minutes.
“We can’t,” Adriel growled, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
“We can’t just leave him there,” Sorsha snapped. The wind had loosened her long braid, and strands of golden hair fluttered wildly around her beautiful face.
“If you won’t go with me,” I snarled, “then I’ll go by myself.”
“We stand no chance against Semphrys in his current state,” Adriel shot back.
“You would blaze into Dorthus to rescue Kaden, only to be taken prisoner and ruin everything we have worked for. Semphrys would torture you and warp your mind, forcing Kaden to watch as he broke you. You’d spend the rest of your days attempting to dismantle the veil between realms before dying a husk of your former self.
Then we’d have no hope of ending the Dark King. ”
My chest tightened at his words, smothering every retort swirling inside me.
“We will get him out,” Adriel promised. “But first, we must weaken Semphrys.”
“The only way to weaken the demon king is to restore the Death Bringer’s hands,” I countered.
The Death Bringer was one of the three sisters who wove the tapestry of Fate.
Of the Three, she was the only one who could cut a life short.
In his reckless pursuit of total immortality, the demon king had severed the Death Bringer’s hands so she could not cut his thread or separate it from the stolen souls he’d bound to his life.
“You said you’ve seen the hands before,” Adriel rasped. “In Mirabella’s crypt.”
“Yes. And Mirabella isn’t exactly an ally. The last time Kaden and I were there, we slaughtered two of her vampires.”
The royal guard sighed, dragging a hand down his sweaty face. “We’ll worry about that when we get there.”
“Even if we somehow persuade her to give up the hands, we still don’t know how to restore them — or if it’s even possible.”
At my words, Adriel whipped around and retched over the side of the footbridge once more.
Sorsha wrinkled her nose. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Earth wielding,” he choked, slumping back against the stone pillar, his face deathly pale. “When I travel a great distance through the earth, especially with a passenger, it makes me . . .”
“Hurl your guts up?” the princess finished.
Adriel nodded weakly.
A fresh thread of guilt twined around my insides, squeezing my stomach tighter. Adriel had dragged us through the earth all the way from Dorthus to save me from capture.
“Let’s say we did manage to retrieve the Death Bringer’s hands from Mirabella’s crypt. We would still need the blood from two more courts to unlock the Great Oak.”
“One court,” Adriel corrected, dipping his head toward Sorsha. “The princess is a half-blood, same as Kaden.”
I raised my eyebrows. With Sorsha’s fair skin, golden hair, and startling turquoise eyes, I sometimes forgot that her mother had been Drathen.
“Any idea where we might procure the blood of a demon?” I asked.
“The Great Oak requires the blood of three courts,” Adriel muttered. “Any three courts.”
Sorsha scoffed. “There may be those who claim other races in their distant lineage, but you know as well as I that there is no other true fae court left in the realm.”
Adriel arched a brow. “There is always the Scolendra.”
“The Scolendra?” The princess let out a trill of unhinged laughter. “Now I know you’ve lost your mind.”
“Who are the Scolendra?” I asked.
“An ancient faerie race that died out centuries before the Uprising,” Sorsha explained with an eye roll.
“They aren’t extinct,” Adriel argued. “They reside in the Demon Woods.”
“That’s a myth.”
“It isn’t. The Scolendra live in mossy knolls and sow discord among —” Adriel broke off, twisting once again to vomit over the low stone rail.
“Come on,” Sorsha murmured, casting a wary glance down the footbridge. “We should speak somewhere more private.”
“Didn’t think you’d want me hurling all over your pretty silk pillows, princess.”
A flush of color tinged Sorsha’s cheeks. “If anyone gets wind of our plan to contact a lost fae court, a bit of vomit will be the least of our worries.”
My stomach dipped. With her winning smile and skill with a blade, it was easy to forget that Sorsha was a princess living in exile.
Her uncle had stolen the throne from her and Kaden’s mother in a violent coup and banished Sorsha to Cragsmuir.
Any talk of contacting a foreign court could be seen as an act of war.
With another furtive glance over her shoulder, Sorsha ushered us down the footbridge to the corridor that led to her private chambers. Two Drathen soldiers stood guard outside the doors, but instead of leading us inside, she kept walking toward a smaller door.
The hinges creaked as she led us into a dank stairwell, which twisted down into darkness.
Down, down, down we climbed, Adriel pausing every few minutes to heave onto the stones. The air grew colder with every step we took until we finally reached the bottom.
A rough-hewn stone tunnel loomed ahead, balls of faelight winking every few yards to illuminate our path. My neck prickled at being so deep underground, but Sorsha kept going to the very end of the tunnel, where a set of enormous wooden doors beckoned.
They were weathered from age, arched at the top, and covered with carved symbols I did not recognize. I longed to reach out and trace the ancient markings, but the princess grasped the huge iron handles and threw the doors open before I had the chance.
The scent of old parchment and binding glue hit me at once, mingling with the earthy, mineral odor of the tunnel.
I gaped.
Just beyond the stone passageway was a magnificent chamber that stretched four stories overhead.
The ceiling was bare black rock, and walkways along each floor were carved from the same dark stone.
Narrow staircases meandered up and down in a disorganized fashion, leading to endless towering shelves groaning with thousands upon thousands of books.
Faelights twinkled from enormous iron chandeliers and hovered over long trestle tables heaped with books. Fae in pale linen robes roamed among the stacks, pushing carts laden with more tomes and reshelving the volumes.
Others sat at the long tables, poring over scrolls that looked as though they might crumble to dust. These they handled with cream-colored gloves, some of them reading with magnifying glasses held over the texts on spindly brass frames.
“What is this place?” I murmured, my mouth hanging open as I took in the enormity of the chamber and the unfathomable number of books.
“The Cragsmuir Repository,” Sorsha answered. “The library predates the outpost by several thousand years, and the monks who live here are charged with safeguarding the texts within.”
I shook my head, astounded not just by the scale of the place but by the fact that I’d had no idea that there even was a library concealed beneath the fortress.
“We can speak freely here,” the princess added. “The monks care only for the preservation of knowledge. They do not concern themselves with fae politics.”
Adriel scrutinized the monks with narrowed eyes, but if he worried about them overhearing our plan, he did not say. Perhaps he was too afraid to open his mouth, lest he start vomiting so close to the precious ancient texts.
Sorsha rounded on him. “Do you seriously mean to go traipsing through the Demon Woods in search of an ancient race of fae who haven’t been seen in a millennium?”
“Why not?” He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “If the Scolendra are myth, as you say, then we can simply capture a demon for its blood while we’re there.”
“You’re hardly capable of ensnaring a demon in your current state,” she muttered.
Darkness flashed in Adriel’s eyes as he loomed over her, and when he spoke, his voice came out as a growl. “Oh, princess. You have no idea what I am capable of.”
Sorsha blinked up at him, looking angry and flustered.
“There’s no point in hunting down the Scolendra until we get the hands,” I said. “And Mirabella’s crypt is in the mortal realm.”
“There’s a small tear in the veil that can take us there,” said Adriel, still holding Sorsha’s gaze. “Its terminus is just above the House of Guile.”
“That’s convenient,” I muttered.
“Three guesses who created the tear,” said Sorsha, glaring right back at the royal guard.
Adriel’s flat look was his only reply.
“And its origin?” the princess asked, finally stepping out of his shadow and drawing herself up to her full height.
“On this very isle. In a cave where we used to play as younglings. It’s about an hour’s hike from the fortress. Once we cross into the mortal realm, we’ll be less than a mile from Mirabella’s manor.”
I wanted to ask Adriel how he knew the precise location of the vampire’s lair. Had he visited when Kaden and Mirabella had been lovers? Instead, I said, “What makes you think she’ll give up those hands just because we ask?”
Adriel frowned, staring at me as though I’d grown two extra heads. “Who said anything about asking?”