Chapter 29
OATH-STONE: TWO DAYS LEFT
AMARIA
I don't remember falling asleep.
One moment I was watching the embers die, Brannick's warmth solid beside me, the taste of ale still sweet on my tongue. The next, I was drifting—suspended in that fragile space between waking and dreaming where my body had forgotten to brace for the next hit.
The catacombs breathed around me. Dozens of bodies curled on bedrolls, their exhales rising in soft, overlapping rhythms—a tide of sleep rolling in and out.
A child murmured in her sleep, pressed against her mother's breast. Brannick's arm was heavy across my shoulders, his breathing slow and even, his heartbeat a drum I'd started to time my own against.
Then the world exploded.
A blast tore through the catacombs, shaking the stone beneath me, rattling my teeth in my skull. I was on my feet before my eyes were fully open, daggers in hand, my weight low and every muscle pulled tight as a trap.
Around me, rebels scrambled from bedrolls, stumbling over each other in the dark. Shouts. Screams. The frantic scrape of boots on stone. The dying embers of the bonfire cast wild shadows across faces twisted with confusion and terror.
Then the light came.
A blinding, furious flare erupted above the central altar—so bright it burned afterimages into my vision. And in that light, a figure took shape. Massive. Shimmering. Terrible.
The King.
His holographic form blazed against the cavern ceiling, his face contorted with pure, absolute fury.
"Dual-marked abomination." His voice boomed through the stone, resonating in my bones. His gaze found me through the shimmering projection—found me and branded me. "And you, Uncrowned! All who harbor the dual-marked shall share one fate: Unmaking."
The crystal powering the broadcast shattered.
A devastating blast that dissolved it into blood-red splinters, raining down on the screaming rebels like crimson snow.
And beneath the screams, beneath the alarm that now shrieked through the tunnels—a sound that made my blood turn to ice.
Howling. Guttural. Hungry.
Nullatheon hounds. They had our scent.
"Move!" Kaelen shouted through the frenzy. He was already on his feet, shoving rebels toward the eastern passage. "To the safehouse! It's on the route to the Rupture Site—GO!"
We ran.
The ceiling dropped within the first hundred yards—low enough that I felt stone graze my scalp.
My boots hit standing water and the cold shocked up through my shins, each stride sending black spray against the walls.
The tunnel was narrow. Too narrow. Shoulders snagged on rough stone, elbows cracked against outcrops I couldn't see, and every impact spun me sideways before momentum shoved me forward again.
The howling bounced off the walls—ricocheting, multiplying, until it came from everywhere at once. Ahead. Behind. I couldn't tell how close they were. Couldn't tell if the sound was ten minutes away or ten seconds.
The alarm kept shrieking. Rebels fell behind, and I couldn't stop to help them, couldn't do anything but push forward, the Codex a dead weight in my satchel, mocking me with every step.
Serenya. Where was Serenya?
I twisted, scanning—bodies shoving past, faces streaked with terror, none of them hers. My chest seized. The crowd was too thick, too frantic, everyone running in the same direction but no one together.
"Serenya!"
My voice was swallowed by the screams.
Then—a flash of dark hair. A familiar silhouette stumbling against the tunnel wall, one hand braced against it.
I shoved through the bodies between us, elbows and shoulders, not caring who I knocked aside. My hand found her arm and I grabbed on like she might dissolve if I let go.
"I've got you." I pulled her close, tucking her against my side. "Stay with me. Don't let go."
Her fingers twisted into my sleeve. She didn't argue.
We pushed through the tangle of panicking bodies, fighting the current of rebels fleeing in every direction. I kept one hand locked on Serenya, the other on my dagger, and didn't look back.
We won, I'd thought. We actually won.
What a fool I'd been.
Why had we stayed? The question clawed at me, bitter and merciless. We'd erased the names—sent a declaration of war rippling through every patrol writ in the kingdom—and then what? Threw a party. Drank ale. Fell asleep like the King wouldn't notice his ledger going dark.
Of course he'd traced it back to the Codex. Of course he'd found us. We'd handed him a map and then curled up for a nap at the destination.
Stupid. Reckless. Arrogant.
The howls grew closer.
We kept running.
We outmaneuvered the first wave of Enforcers—barely. A sliver of desperate hope flickered. Maybe we'd make it. Maybe—
Sound drained from the passage ahead.
My boots hit dry stone and the silence swallowed my stride. No splashing. No echo. The air changed too—thin and scrubbed clean, sharp enough to sting after the rot we'd been breathing.
The tunnel had widened here—an old junction, maybe, where merchant routes once crossed.
The ceiling vaulted high enough to swallow the torchlight.
Iron sconces lined the walls at measured intervals, their flames burning bright and clean.
Not catacomb fires. Not rebel fires. These had been lit on purpose. Recently.
Someone had prepared this corridor.
They emerged from the shadows like wraiths.
A smaller force—not the usual Enforcers. The black talons. Their armor was dark as obsidian, polished to a killing shine. They moved in perfect formation, every step synchronized, like violence was something they rehearsed for fun.
And at their head—
My boots locked to the stone. Serenya's grip ripped at my sleeve.
Eryndor.
He stood motionless, one hand resting on the hilt of his blade, his face a mask I no longer recognized. No warmth. No recognition.
Just the Crown's perfect weapon, standing where the male used to be.
Eryndor's gaze swept over the fray, over the cowering rebels, over me—and blazed with frigid assessment. Not even a flicker. I was scenery. When he spoke, his voice was flat. Empty.
"Secure the Rupture."
Two of his soldiers moved toward me. I snarled, raising my daggers, but there were too many—hands grabbing my arms, wrenching my weapons away, forcing me to my knees.
Eryndor turned away. Already done with me.
But the captain at his flank wasn't.
His eyes slid from me to Serenya—calculating, unhurried. The look of a man measuring what a prisoner was worth by what she had left to lose.
"The priestess too." He jerked his chin at his men. "She'll keep the dual-marked compliant."
Serenya's ceremonial dagger clattered to the stone as a soldier wrenched her arms back. She made a choked sound—half sob, half snarl.
"Separate cells."
My heart hit the floor. I couldn't protect her if I couldn't reach her. Couldn't know if she was hurt, if she was scared, if she was even still breathing.
I thrashed against the soldiers holding me—kicking, twisting, snapping my teeth at any hand that came too close.
I caught one in the shin with my heel and he swore.
Another grabbed my hair—and jerked back with a hiss, blood blooming across his palm where the razors bit.
I slammed my skull into his face before he could figure out what cut him.
The crack of cartilage was satisfying, even if it made my vision swim.
They wrenched me around and bashed me face-first into the wall, pinning my arms behind my back. And Eryndor was just standing there, watching, like I was a problem to be managed.
Fine. If my body couldn't reach him, my marks would.
I hurled everything I had at him—both Marks surging, clawing, desperate to find purchase in his flesh. To burn him. To make him feel what he was doing to us.
For one moment, I felt them connect. Felt his mark flare in response, that familiar pull—
Then he tore a heavy iron disk from its latch on his hip—the King's Brand. It was etched deep with the Quell-Rune, that brutal mark suppressor every Shadowmarked child learned to fear.
The metal hissed, heating instantly to a furious red.
I understood a second too late.
"No—"
Eryndor moved. Fast. Clinical. He pressed the Brand to my chest, just below my collarbone.
The pain was beyond screaming. Beyond sound. White-hot iron searing through fabric, through flesh, burning the rune into me. I smelled my own skin cooking. Felt the Quell-Rune take root like a hook sinking into my bones.
My marks screamed—thrashing, clawing, trying to fight the invasion.
I felt my power drain out of me like blood from a wound, leaving nothing but emptiness and agony. I dropped to my knees. Everything blurred. My lungs refused to work. But when a soldier clamped a hand onto my collar to haul me up, I bit his hand hard enough to taste blood. He screamed.
The next one was smarter—kept his hands out of range of my teeth.
He grabbed a fistful of my hair instead, yanking my head back.
The smirk lasted until the razors opened his fingers.
He didn't let go though—just squeezed harder, blood running warm down my neck—and snarled down at me like I was already beaten.
I spat blood in his eye.
He backhanded me so hard my head snapped sideways, stars exploding across my eyes.
"Enough," he growled, dragging me up by the arm. "I’ll escort this one."
I laughed. The sound bubbled up from somewhere broken—high and jagged and descending into madness. I couldn't stop.
He definitely didn't like that.
They hauled us toward the eastern passage—the one that led up, out, toward the world we'd been hiding from.
I caught flashes through the bedlam—glimpses stolen between the ranks of Black Talons. They'd flooded the passage, three lines deep at least, a barricade of armor and blades cutting us off from the others.
Maxx, a frenzy of steel and fury, cutting through Black Talons like they were made of paper. His glamours flickered wild around him—phantom soldiers, false walls, anything to buy a few more seconds.
"SERENYA!"