CHAPTER THREE ISI
CHAPTER THREE
ISI
Victor followed me to my suite, and I shut the door to the hallway in his face.
My chambers were exactly as I’d left them, a museum dedicated to a girl who no longer existed. Perfect and lifeless, like everything else in this place I’d once called home. The air smelled of lilies, a sweet, cloying scent that turned my stomach.
Three of my ladies-in-waiting, including Mae, rushed forward, their faces full of relief and concern.
“Your Highness, we were told you were back and came right away to freshen your suite,” one of them said. “We were worried.”
“Where did you go?” another asked, plucking at my tunic with a frown.
“I visited a cluster,” I said, though my gaze remained on Mae.
Her face was pale and thinner than I remembered, her eyes swollen from weeks of crying for her son.
The sight of her grief hit hard. My every instinct screamed to whisper the words that would end her torment.
Leo is safe. He’s happy. He’s with other children, laughing and learning to use his magic without fear.
It was all I could do to keep the words from spilling out.
Revealing what I knew would not only endanger everyone, but it would also confirm to my father that I’d been to Syllavar. It would condemn Trew.
“No news,” Mae said softly. “It’s like our children disappeared. I just pray he’s not in pain.” A tear trickled down her cheek.
I pulled her into a hug, a poor substitute for the truth I couldn’t give her.
“I need to rest,” I said after patting her back. I stepped away from her before I broke completely. “I’m exhausted from my travels. Please leave me.”
They curtsied and opened the door to the hall.
Victor stood outside, a granite statue of my father’s will.
“You’re inside for the night, Princess,” he said as my ladies left. “Do not try to leave.”
A heavy click rang out. I carefully tested the knob, finding the door locked from the outside.
Damn Victor. Damn my father.
Pherin launched from my shoulder, zipping around the room with a flurry of chirps. She landed on a sofa pillow and her tiny beak twisted.
Too clean, she said. Smells nasty.
I knew what she meant. The scent of woodsmoke, rain-soaked earth, and baking bread filled Syllavar’s air. Trew’s chambers smelled of cedar, books, and the citrus of his soap. The farce I’d lived with my whole life tainted the air of this room.
I strode into my bedroom, Pherin fluttering behind me to land on my bedpost.
After stripping off my outfit, I brought Trew’s tunic up to my face, inhaling deeply. His scent was faint now, but still there. That warm, masculine smell that was uniquely his.
I folded it and hid it at the bottom of a chest, beneath gowns I would never wear again, whispering to the empty room, “Wait for me, Trew.”
I tugged on dark leathers I’d worn for my training sessions with Thorne. Armed myself with blades. This princess was not playing at rebellion. She was a warrior preparing for a mission.
Hours dragged as I paced, sending Pherin to scout patrols, my mind racing through escape routes if caught. The castle slowly fell quiet, sinking into the deep slumber of night. I pressed my ear to the door, listening. Outside, I could hear Victor’s steady breathing. Asleep?
“Can you check on him for me?” I whispered to Pherin.
Shift and maul? she asked.
Just see what he’s doing.
She launched from my shoulder. As she flew out the window and in through one further down the hall with an open door, something strange happened. My vision lurched, doubled, and then I was seeing the corridor from above, swooping through the air on her silent wings.
The sensation made my mind spin and my stomach lurch, like I was being pulled along by an invisible rope in a stiff gale. Pherin hadn’t only gone to scout, she’d somehow dragged me with her through our bond.
With her eyes, I saw Victor sitting with his back against the wall, breathing easily. His hand rested on his sword hilt, and his eyes were mere slits, watching my door.
Awake.
The vision snapped back to my own perspective so abruptly I had to grip the wall to steady myself. Pherin flew in through the window and landed on my shoulder, pressing against my neck.
Trap. Her thought whispered in my mind.
How did you do that?
Share travel whenever you need.
Thank you. Such an amazing thing.
Pacing my room, I gave it more time, sending Pherin again to check.
Finally, Victor’s head started bobbing. When it dropped to his chest and remained there, I raced to the door and got down on my knees, tugging my tools from my pocket.
I pictured the tumblers inside, the small metal pins holding the lock in place.
With a light touch, I wiggled a tool around the pins, trying to get them to release.
We explore? Pherin asked.
Indeed.
I nudged the pins and one by one, they eased to the side. With a nearly silent snick, the lock slid open. I held my breath, listening. Silence stretched thin as spider’s silk, ready to snap at the slightest touch.
Yet Victor’s breathing had changed, going lighter, more irregular. The darkness around me pushed closer, like the walls were leaning in to listen.
A floorboard creaked under his weight. He was moving.
After urging the pins back into place, I stood and pressed myself against the wall beside the door, not daring to breathe.
The handle turned one way. The other.
While my pulse thundered in my throat, his footsteps moved away. He settled with a grunt.
I waited until my hands stopped trembling and snores rang out from the hall before unlocking the door again and cracking it open. A quick look showed him sitting on the floor, asleep.
Go with. Pherin nudged my neck. Never alone.
A lump formed in my throat.
You’re a sweet bird, I told her.
Mighty firecat.
You are.
I slipped out into the darkened corridor, the cool air brushing my skin. After locking the door with the key Victor had placed on a nearby table, I moved silently down the hall, every sense on high alert.
First, I needed to find Commander Thorne. He’d sent the letter; he was my only possible ally within these walls.
I made my way to the guards’ wing, my steps a whisper on stone tiles. The castle felt different in darkness. Corridors that had been familiar now stretched like the throat of a massive beast. Every shadow could hide watching eyes and every scrape of a sound could betray my presence.
I ducked into alcoves to avoid guard patrols and skirted around torches burning in places that were usually dark.
Thorne’s room was at the end of a short hall. I pressed my ear to the door, but I didn’t hear any movement inside. He could be asleep. I tried the handle, finding it unlocked, and nudged the panel wide.
The room was empty. Not just unoccupied, it had been cleaned out of everything but a bed and a side table.
The walls no longer held his maps and diagrams of battle strategy.
Faint marks on the walls showed where his treasured collection of blades had once hung.
The air smelled like soap, not worn leather and the oil he’d used to keep his weapons pristine.
They’d stripped his bed and emptied his closet. It looked like he’d never been here at all.
A chill skittered across my bones.
Gone. My breath snagged. He was supposed to be my one sure point in this sea of unknowns. Had he been caught or betrayed? Questions twisted through my gut, but I’d find no answers here.
This wasn’t just a setback, it was a deep plunge into enemy waters.
I crept from his room and continued my mission.
More guards than I’d expected watched over the hallway leading to the dungeons, four alert men standing in front of the iron-banded door. There was no way I could slip past them without being seen.
Me, Pherin said, shooting down the hall, a tiny blur of teal and silver feathers. I remained hidden in an alcove, my heart pounding.
I closed my eyes, focusing on our bond, and the world shifted again, allowing me to see through her eyes.
The guards looked like mountains of metal below.
To her, the torchlight resembled a warm, dancing flower.
She swooped lower, letting out a series of trills that mimicked a songbird from the western provinces.
“Did you hear that?” one of the guards said, squinting around. “That’s a frost-lark. Haven’t heard one of those in years.”
“You’re mad,” another said. “They don’t come this far inland.”
“My wife would kill for a frost-lark. We could put it in a cage. They bring good fortune.”
“Good luck trying to catch it, then.”
“Help me. Think of my wife.”
As they argued, craning their necks and moving around, trying to find Pherin, who trilled from further down the hall, I slipped through the shadows, a ghost slipping past the distracted men.
I reached the door, tugged on the heavy iron ring, and eased it open enough to slip through, closing it as Pherin zipped in behind me.
The smell hit me first. Mildew, old blood, and despair. The scent of hopelessness.
A torch-lit stairwell swooped down into the darkness, and I descended, not stopping until I reached the lowest castle level far below.
Cells flowed away from me on each side, damp, barred boxes, empty other than twenty-three huddled forms sleeping on low bunks mounted to the back walls.
None roused or looked my way as I passed, and none looked like Addie.
My heart pounded against my ribs as I scanned each cell, searching for her.
Then I heard a cough. Weak, wet, and rattling, coming from the end of the corridor. I’d swear it sounded female.
My breath churned through my lungs as I ran in that direction.
The torches cast flickering light on the last cell, where a figure lay curled on the stone bunk in the back, a painfully thin frame wrapped in ragged clothing. A mess of hair, matted with grime, spilled over her shoulders.
Hope, fierce and blinding, surged through me. It had to be her.
“Addie.” Her name came out a barked croak. I gripped the cold iron bars until my knuckles whitened.
Stirring, the figure rolled over. She lifted her head, her face turning toward the light.
The bottom dropped out of my world. Everything I’d risked and everything I’d believed crumbled to dust between my fingers.
Not my sister.
The eyes were wrong. The face, gaunt and bruised, was that of a stranger.
The old woman stared at me with hollow despair before coughing again and turning back to the wall.
She wasn’t here. Addie wasn’t here.
Confusion and terror washed over me. Had my father moved her or was the letter a trap to lure me back, to get me to expose myself?
Footsteps rang out from further down the corridor.
I froze, every muscle tensing. This wasn’t the slow, plodding tread of a single guard on patrol but the heavy, rhythmic tramp of booted feet coming down the stairs. Heading this way. The damp stone walls trapped the sound, magnifying it, until every footfall hammered against my skull.
My mouth dried to dust. Discovery meant more than just imprisonment. It would mean torture until I revealed Syllavar’s secrets, until I betrayed Trew. Father would hurt me until I couldn’t stop myself from revealing all I loved. Then he’d blast his way through it all to hurt me again.
Torchlight flooded the corridor, swallowing the shadows I needed to escape into. The light moved like spilled blood, creeping down the walls in my direction. Each footstep rang out like a death knell, counting down the seconds until I was discovered.
The corridor had turned into a trap with no exit.