Chapter 50
Waking is like surfacing from a deep, black ocean.
My first sensation is cold, a damp, chill air filling my lungs.
My head throbs in a low, miserable rhythm, and every muscle aches with a profound, bone-deep weariness.
I try to move, and a groan escapes my lips, the sound swallowed by a vast, echoing quiet.
I push myself onto my elbows. The surface beneath me is rough fabric, some kind of rug.
The air smells of wet earth, moss, and something ancient, like dust that hasn’t been disturbed in a thousand years.
There is no light. Not the eerie glow of the forest, not the flickering of a torch, not even a sliver of starlight.
The darkness is absolute, a physical presence that presses against my eyelids.
And I’m no longer holding the crystal shard… though my body still hums with a quiet energy that doesn’t feel like mine.
“Zeriel?” My voice is a dry rasp, small and fragile in the immense quiet.
No answer.
Panic, cold and sharp, begins to prickle at the edges of my numbness. I reach for the bond between us, the tether Selen forged. It’s there… close.
I crawl forward on hands and knees, the fabric beneath me unforgiving against my scraped palms. The darkness is a heavy blanket, muffling sound, stealing sight.
I reach out with my mind, following the faint, thrumming line of the bond.
It’s a frayed thread in the suffocating black, but it’s there.
And it’s the only thing that feels real.
My fingers brush against a limb. An elbow—I follow it up, tracing the hard line of his arm to the curve of a corded shoulder. His body feels strung tight, coiled with energy. When my hand settles on his chest, his heartbeat drums slow and steady.
You’re alive, I think.
A hand clamps around my wrist, the strength of his grip startling in the silent dark. His fingers slide quickly up my arm, over my shoulder, until his hand cups the back of my neck. The gesture isn’t gentle. It’s a claim. A question.
What did you do?
My breath hitches at the intensity of his focus on me. The frustration, the confusion, the anger, bubbling inside him. And I sense there’s still more to those emotions, held behind a wall, and this is only what he’s letting spill over.
He was going to destroy the shard, not take it as Selen wanted. And his fight with Blaise still hung open, waiting for the chance to end in the blood he’s so desperate for. By touching that… thing… I somehow… tore us out of there?
His breath ghosts my cheek, warm, furious.
I tore you from your vengeance, I think, the words a silent, defiant answer. From the emperor’s stage.
A thumb twitches against the soft skin below my ear. You tore us from a fight we were winning.
You were winning his game, I shoot back, my own anger rising to meet his. Not ours.
His grip tightens fractionally, and his voice drops, a low growl that vibrates through my skull. We are in the dark, unarmed, with no idea where we are, because you couldn’t follow a simple plan.
There was no plan, I snap, pushing back against his chest, pushing him away from me.
My shove is useless. It’s like pushing against a cliff face. He doesn’t give an inch, his body a stubborn wall in the suffocating dark.
My hands shake with a rage that’s half his, half mine. It’s always been you and Blaise—you and whatever lithborn wreckage you’ve cooked up in that head of yours. Let go.
His fingers thread into my hair and lift; the motion a sudden ownership, not tenderness. The dark presses in until all I can sense is him—the heat, the claustrophobic closeness. You think this is a game? he asks. You really think you can light a beacon for the whole empire and walk away?
Better than letting you smash a piece of our history to win a round in theirs, I manage, rallying, my voice shaking with a fury I didn’t know I had. Dancing for the man who murdered your wife.
The words are a lit fuse. You know nothing, he sends, the thought a razor against my consciousness.
I know what the temple showed me, I reply, my defiance a shield against him. I know what he took from you. And I know you were about to let your hatred for him burn down one of the last sacred places we have left.
He pauses, his emotions shifting—dense, layered, a tangle I can’t quite unravel.
It was never their game, he sends finally, the words edged. I don’t know how many times I have to tell you that... It was mine.
“Your self-destruction,” I whisper, aloud this time. “And you’re not taking me with you.”
His grip on me suddenly loosens, fingers falling away as though my words sparked him. His emotional walls slam up higher in the darkness, and he… feels once again as untouchable as an ice lord.
I exhale sharply. I don’t know what is going on with this storm-cursed fae, but he’s giving me whiplash I never gods-damned asked for.
I curse and shove him, pushing myself fully away—just as a grinding sound rips through the space.
A brilliant, blinding rectangle of light slices through the darkness, forcing my eyes shut with a pained gasp. I crack them open, squinting.
Silhouetted in the doorway stand two figures. One is lean and angular, radiating an unnerving stillness. The other is taller and broader, but with the contained grace of an athlete.
“On your feet,” Selen says, her voice cutting through the ringing in my ears.
Shock jolts through me. My eyes adjust, blinking.
The taller figure steps forward from the doorway, and the breath catches in my throat.
It’s Byron. His unruly blond hair is haloed by the light from the corridor behind him, his peculiar gray and amber-speckled eyes fixed on us with that quiet, unnerving intensity—taking in our disheveled state without comment.
My mouth opens, but no sound comes out. The questions are a frantic, silent scream in my head. How? Why? I look from him to Selen, then back again. The medallion. The one he wore, identical to the mark on her wrist. The word he traced in the dust. “Always.”
Selen’s teal gaze is sharp, analytical. “This way. Quickly,” she says before I can speak.
She turns and strides down a short, stone-hewn corridor.
I don’t even look at Zeriel. I can picture his chiseled face set back into that unreadable mask. He’s still keeping his emotions contained—thank the gods—though there’s an obvious tension thrumming through him. Like suspicion, aimed at our supposed saviors.
He doesn’t ask questions yet. Of course he knows as well as me by now that Selen only deigns to answer when she chooses.
I trail behind Byron, my mind reeling. We emerge into a larger cavern, illuminated by torchlight.
And it’s full of people.
My heart almost stops. Lira stands near a rough-hewn table, her arm in a sling but her gray eyes clear and alive.
Her lips curve into a relieved smile and she raises a hand to me.
I’m too shocked to wave back. Nyx is beside her, looking weary but whole.
Vex, Talyra, even Sariah—all of Selen’s women…
They’re all here. Breathing. Watching us.
Even Dren is somehow here too.
Beyond them, dozens more I don’t know: some resting, some sitting and talking, the room full of quiet life.
In one corner, five older fae with an air of authority stand with arms crossed, heads bowed in quiet conversation while still tracking us across the room.
Is this the only chamber like this, or are there more?
My head spins. “You… they…” I turn on Selen, the words tumbling out in a rush of disbelief. “You said there was nothing you could do. You said you don’t traffick people.”
Selen doesn’t even flinch. “Correct,” she says, her tone crisp. “I am a trainer.” She gestures with her chin toward the silent, hulking man beside me. “Byron, on the other hand… trafficking is his work.”
I stare at Byron, at his quiet, somber face.
The man who speaks in gestures and rides drakes in the dead of night.
A man who smuggles people from the jaws of the empire?
The disappearances in the arena, the impossible escape—it was him.
It was all him. The questions pile up so fast I feel like I’m choking on them. How? Why?
But Selen still gives me no time to ask. Her focus is already moving on.
I want to stay back—talk to Lira, to all the others, get answers—but Selen’s silent command has me following her onwards, through another narrow tunnel carved from living rock.
It’s something older than the harsh, chiseled stone of the empire, the walls smoothed by time and water, glowing faintly with veins of the same phosphorescent fungi that grow in the forest. It smells of damp earth and clean, cold stone.
We pass at least seven roughly shaped doorways and several more fae who seem to carry authority like a shadow. Finally we cut right through one of the archways and step into a smaller room… an office.
My steps falter as I take it in. The air here is warmer, drier, scented with burning herbs and old parchment, reminding me uncannily of Selen’s office back in the Ironhold.
Except here, the cavern is a hidden sanctuary…
a rebel’s sanctum? Maps are spread across a stone table in the center, held down by strange, carved stones.
Shelves carved into the walls are crammed with vials, ancient-looking fae texts, and bundles of dried herbs.
A fire pit in the center of the room glows with embers, casting a warm, flickering light across the space.
It’s a place of secrets. A place outside the empire’s reach. A place that shouldn’t exist.
Selen moves to the central table, her back to us. Byron takes up a position by the cavern’s entrance, a silent, immovable guard.
She shoves a plate of food and two cups of water toward Zeriel and me, the gesture practical, blunt.
“Welcome,” Selen says, her voice echoing slightly in the space, “to the heart of the matter.” She turns and her teal eyes pin us in place. “Eat. Then we’ll talk about the war you just declared.”