CHAPTER NINE
Beneath the Throne
SERAPHINE
Every palace has a basement.
Only Lycan kings keep theirs behind a dead queen’s tomb.
“This is cheerful,” Darius whispered.
I held my lantern higher.
We stood beneath the western chapel in a crypt lined with black stone. Marble wolves slept at the feet of dead queens. Dust covered everything except the narrow strip of floor where Lucian had pushed aside a carved sarcophagus panel to reveal stairs.
“You said smuggler tunnels,” he told me.
“They begin beyond this wall.”
“You omitted the tomb.”
“I was saving the surprise.”
Darius muttered something about assassins and court manners.
We descended.
The air grew colder with every step. Lucian walked ahead of me, his shoulders barely clearing the narrow passage. He had recovered from the poisoning faster than any ordinary wolf could, but I still noticed the stiffness in his left side.
I noticed too much about him now.
The bond had become impossible to ignore.
When he was angry, I felt heat at the base of my throat. When he was amused, warmth curled beneath my ribs. When he looked at me too long, my skin knew before I did.
Fate was invasive.
The tunnel opened into a circular chamber beneath the tribunal hall.
Seven stone doors surrounded us.
In the center stood a moonstone pillar marked with the same broken crescent we had found at Blackwater.
Darius swore.
Lucian stepped closer.
“Don’t touch it,” I said.
He stopped.
“I was going to inspect it.”
“With your hands?”
“They’re traditional tools.”
I crouched near the base.
Blue residue glittered in the grooves.
“Myrrh,” I said.
“Fresh?”
“Within weeks.”
Someone had been down here.
We chose the northern door because the ancient court map showed the sealed archive beyond it.
The door had no lock.
Only a circular depression shaped like a palm.
Lucian stared at it.
“Royal blood,” he said.
“Convenient.”
“It often is.”
He pressed his hand to the stone.
Nothing happened.
Then a needle shot from the center and pierced his palm.
I grabbed his wrist.
“Are you incapable of learning?”
He looked at the blood welling around the stone. “Apparently.”
The door groaned open.
Inside, shelves rose from floor to ceiling.
Stone tablets. Scroll cases. boxes of sealed vellum.
The original Edict should have been impossible to miss.
The central pedestal was empty.
Darius cursed again.
“Seal’s intact,” Lucian said.
I examined the dust around the pedestal.
“No.”
A faint line crossed the floor.
I followed it to the wall.
A second entrance had been cut behind a shelf and disguised with stonework. From the other side, someone could enter without opening the blood door.
Lucian’s expression became lethal.
“Malrec.”
“Or someone with access to his tunnels.”
We searched for two hours.
Most records had been untouched for generations. The recent shelves were different. Entire years of clerical logs were missing.
Then Darius found a broken tablet shoved behind a box of coronation ledgers.
Only one fragment remained.
I wiped dust from the runes.
Lucian read the old language slowly.
“Crowned blood... moon-marked blood...”
“And?”
He frowned.
“The third word isn’t ruin.”
My pulse jumped.
“What is it?”
He looked at me.
“Release.”
The union of crowned blood and moon-marked blood shall call release upon throne...
Release.
Not ruin.
A sound moved in the passage behind us.
Lucian blew out the lantern.
Darkness swallowed the room.
His hand found mine.
I should have pulled away.
I did not.
Footsteps approached.
Darius moved to one side of the door. Lucian drew me behind the pedestal.
The footsteps stopped.
A whisper.
Then blue flame flooded the chamber.
Three masked figures rushed in.
Darius struck the first.
Lucian collided with the second.
The third came for me with a crescent blade.
I ducked and drove my shoulder into his chest. He slashed across my arm.
Pain burned.
I twisted his wrist until bone snapped.
He screamed.
Lucian’s attacker threw something at the floor.
A glass sphere shattered.
Smoke erupted.
“Back!” I shouted.
Too late.
The chamber shook.
The hidden passage collapsed with a roar.
Stone crashed down between us and Darius.
“Lucian!” his voice came muffled through rubble.
“I’m here.”
The blue flame died.
Silence returned.
The masked attackers were gone through a side shaft I had not seen.
The main door had sealed itself.
Lucian tried the blood lock again.
Nothing.
“We’re trapped,” I said.
“For the moment.”
My arm throbbed.
He smelled the blood before I could hide it.
“You’re hurt.”
“I’ve been worse.”
He turned me toward the lantern once I relit it.
The cut was shallow.
His fingers closed gently around my wrist while he wrapped it.
I watched his face.
“You believed me.”
“About what?”
“The rune.”
He tied the cloth. “I’ve spent years believing stone over people. It hasn’t gone well.”
The chamber had become very quiet.
His hand remained around mine.
Heat moved through the bond.
I should have stepped away.
Instead I said, “Why didn’t you tell anyone you saved survivors at Ashen Vale?”
“Because I failed the ones I didn’t save.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“It’s the only one I have.”
The honesty hurt more than the cut.
I looked at his mouth.
He noticed.
“Sera.”
“Don’t.”
“You keep saying that while standing closer.”
“Then stop me.”
His eyes darkened—not with magic, but decision.
He lifted one hand to my face slowly enough that I could turn away.
I did not.
His thumb brushed my cheek.
The bond opened like a flame catching dry wood.
I kissed him first.
I told myself that later.
It mattered.
His mouth was warm and careful for exactly one heartbeat. Then the restraint cracked. He kissed me with a hunger that matched my own, one hand at my waist, the other in my hair.
Nothing about it felt like surrender.
That frightened me more than hatred ever had.
I pulled back first.
We stood breathing the same air.
“That was a mistake,” I whispered.
“Probably.”
“We can’t do it again.”
“Almost certainly.”
Neither of us sounded convinced.
A hammering noise came from the rubble.
Darius shouted, “If you two are alive, say something!”
Lucian closed his eyes.
I laughed before I could stop myself.
It was the first time I had laughed in that palace without using it as a weapon.