Chapter Thirty-Six
The passage in the eastern wall in Caelum’s castle smelled of cold earth and old stone. Calroy moved directly behind me, close enough that I felt the warmth of him in the dim lighting. Minha was a shadow at his back, then Fraya and Jina. Palto brought up the rear.
Rowhan trailed one hand along the wall, power humming off him in a low, steady pulse—like the ground was breathing beneath our feet.
Calroy, Minha, Jina, and I held out our pure stones. The light they cast was faint and blue-white, throwing soft shadows across the walls, making the passage feel less like a tunnel and more like the inside of something ancient.
“Two guards at the first turn,” Rowhan murmured without slowing. “Three more at the courtyard gate. They don’t know we’re here.”
That was his earth power at work, sensing what none of us could. Trusting him wasn’t a choice anymore. It was the plan. I reminded myself with every step. The passage narrowed even more, the stone scraping against our shoulders.
Then Rowhan finally stopped. “The entrance is here. There are soldiers on the other side, but I can take care of them.”
He pressed his palm flat against the wall and closed his eyes. A long, still moment passed, then the section of the brick wall opened to a courtyard.
Rowhan curled his fingers into his palms, jaws clenched.
The roots pushed up through the stone floor, cracking through the surface, coiling around ankles before the guards could register what was happening. One shout, cut short. The thuds of ten bodies hitting stone. Then silence.
“Come,” Rowhan said.
We moved passed the guards pressed flat against the walls by roots that held them with implacable strength. One of the soldiers was still trying to shout through a root coiled across his mouth. His eyes went wide when he saw us emerge from the brick wall like something the earth had grown.
Three more soldiers poured through the far gate before we’d crossed half the courtyard.
Fraya reached the first one before he’d drawn his sword, driving her elbow into his jaw with a crack that dropped him, and stepped over him without breaking stride.
The second came at her from the left and she caught his sword arm, twisted, and put him into the wall with enough force to crack the stone behind his head.
Minha moved like water finding the fastest path downhill. Quick and silent, her shell dagger finding the gap in armor that she always seemed to see. The third soldier lasted four seconds.
Jina took the fourth.
The soldier came from behind a pillar, blade already swinging, and Jina—not the hesitant sidestep of someone afraid, but certain, ducking under the arc of his sword and driving her palm into his chin with a force that snapped his head back. He crumpled.
She looked at her hand like she’d surprised herself.
“The sea in your blood,” I reminded her.
She blinked, then straightened. “Right.”
Rowhan was already sprinting toward the far corridor, one hand still pressed against the wall, reading the stone.
We followed him down two flights of stairs and into the lower level, the air growing colder with each step, the torches burning farther apart until the darkness between them swallowed whole sections of the passage.
The cells were ahead. The same cold damp and old straw smell of every place people were kept against their will. My stomach tightened.
Rowhan stopped at the first gate.
Empty.
The next. Empty.
Every cell on the corridor was empty. Just the dirty hay and no sign of life.
My throat tightened at the last empty cell.
“She moved them.” Calroy’s voice came from behind me.
“This feels like a trap.” Fraya gripped the bars.
“I agree.” Minha tightened her dagger.
“Is there more than one dungeon?” Jina asked.
Rowhan was about to speak when Palto came around the corner dragging a guard by the collar, roots still coiled around the man’s arms and legs, eyes wide and white with terror.
“I found him conscious at the end of the corridor,” Palto said, releasing him at Calroy’s feet.
Calroy crouched in front of him, the air crackling like lightning from his power. The guard’s breath caught, his whole body going rigid, unable to look away.
“The prisoners.” Calroy gritted the words through his teeth. “Where are they?”
“I—the queen—” The man swallowed, struggling against the roots coiled around his arms. “She took them with her to the shore.”
“How many soldiers are with the queen?”
Calroy wanted the count, to see if our few thousand had a chance.
“All of them.” His voice strained. “She took everyone. She’s using the prisoners as—” He stopped himself.
“As what?” Calroy hauled him up by the collar and pressed the shell dagger to his throat he grabbed from me. “Do you know what this blade does to human flesh?”
The guard nodded frantically, sweat breaking across his forehead. His eyes cut to me, then back to Calroy. “She said you would come. That the prisoners would buy her time.” He swallowed against the blade. “To buy her time to eliminate the winged soldiers before you reached the shore.”
Calroy shoved him back hard against the bar. The guard’s head connected with the metal and he dropped, unconscious before he hit the ground.
“I should have known her plan.” Calroy raked a hand through his hair, turning on his heel. “She never intended to defend the castle. She wanted us in here while she finished my people out there.”
I should have known the queen’s scheme the moment The Priestess said the queen had left her castle.
She had never intended to wait for us. She had been setting the stage from the beginning—drawing us here, emptying the castle, moving her leverage to open ground where she could see us coming and control what happened when we arrived.
“I’ll meet you there.” Calroy’s gaze bounced from Rowhan, Palto, Minha, Fraya, Jina. “I can only carry Yeri. You ride hard and you don’t stop.” His eyes settled on Rowhan. “Keep them safe. I’m trusting you.”
Rowhan nodded once, placing a fist to his heart.
Then Calroy’s wings unfurled in the narrow corridor, barely enough room, the feathers brushing both walls, and he pulled me against him. “Hold on tight, my love.” he said.
“Wait.” Palto rushed the short distance to us. “Why travel to the shore on horses. We can arrive before the queen expects.”
“What are you proposing, God of the Afterlife?” I narrowed my eyes at him.
“The spirits.” He spread his hands. “Why summon them at the sea when they can carry us there?” He closed his eyes, and when they opened, they had gone gold, blinding in the dim corridor, energy radiating out of him in slow pulses, traveling down through the stone floor like roots finding dirt.
“Oh no.” Jina took a step back, shaking her head. “Absolutely not.”
“I get to fly.” Minha’s grin turned wicked. “I approve.”
“I think I’m going to be sick.” Fraya went pale, pressing herself against the wall.
The spirits rose from the ground, pushing up through solid stone.
One, then ten, then dozens, then too many to count, filling the corridor with that charged energy, the living and the dead sharing the same air.
Each one wrapped in the same tattered, dark cloaks as tall as Oscan, hoods deep enough to swallow any trace of a face, only shifting darkness where features should have been.
One stepped forward and bowed.
“A pleasure to see you again, My Lady.” The voice carried no gender, but the same sound dragged-through-water quality I recalled, though warmer now than it had been in the land of the dead. Oscan’s voice settled over me like an old companion.
I would have known that voice anywhere—low and warm, threaded with the same dry humor I recalled. I couldn’t believe I had missed him.
“Same here, my friend.”
Oscan straightened, what would have been a smile passed through the darkness where his face should have been.
“I would hug you, My Lady, but that walking storm cloud beside you looks like he wants to rip me apart.”
“Jealous of a spirit?” I nudged Calroy with my elbow.
“Careful,” Calroy said, eyes still on Oscan. “Some habits outlive the body.”
Oscan bowed once more. “Then let us not keep the Seelie queen waiting,”
The spirits glided to their positions. And the dead carried us to war. I could have sworn I’d heard Fraya scream.
Of all of us, Fraya was the last person I’d have expected to lose her composure mid-flight. She’d faced pirates and soldiers without flinching. Apparently, the dead were where she drew the line.
I couldn’t judge. I was tucked in the arms of the sky god, who managed to steal kisses somewhere between the castle and the coast, and whispered we would win this war together.