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The parlor was exactly as I remembered it. Small and windowless. A wall of books on one side with a giant black marble desk that my father never sat at. On the other side was a fireplace, currently cold and empty, in front of a comfortable set of chairs.
I heaved the princess back off my shoulder and plopped her in the chair. She swung at my face as I stood straight, but I caught her thin wrists.
Her pale skin was mottled pink, flushing her chest, neck, and cheeks. But she didn’t say anything now. There was no need.
She’d fallen out of my father’s captivity and into mine. I held her delicate wrists in my large grasp, realizing how utterly weak and helpless she actually was. I gave her a firm squeeze to remind her.
Then I leaned closer so that she could see it in my eyes. I owned her now. I shook my head and spoke one, weighty word.
“No.”
She flinched, blinking quickly, forcing whatever tears had sprung back to their well. She clenched her jaw and glared at me with all the hatred in her heart.
Good. That would help her.
Straightening, I released her and marched out of the room. When I shut the door behind me, I spun to Pullo.
“Guard this door with your life.No onegets in. Do you understand me?”
Pullo clamped his jaw tight. He wanted to join the fight. I knew that he did, but he was one of my best warriors and someone I trusted.
I clamped my clawed hand on his shoulder, giving him a shake. “Tell me you understand your command, Pullo. Do not leave this door.”
“We won’t,” said Tierzel, the only man closer to Pullo than me.
“With our lives,” added Pullo.
I gave them a nod of approval and stormed toward the stairwell leading into the dungeon. Another party of warriors waited for me then followed in step behind me.
As we descended deeper into the underground, the noise of fighting grew distant and muffled. The labyrinth of corridors and cells that made up the dungeon was rather vast. When we came out onto the main floor, there was no one there.
“Seems the bone-keepers are already on the run,” I said, unsheathing my black steel dagger at my waist. “Find and kill them all.”
My father’s dungeon guards were ensorcelled by a blood spell to obey only him. Now that he was dead, they’d fall into madness and become nothing more than mindless killing creatures. They had to be put down.
The warriors swept out in all directions in stealthy silence.
I descended another winding stone staircase into the part of the dungeon where I’d been held captive, where I hoped I might find an old friend still alive. It was a faint hope of mine since my own escape. I’d thought Keffa had been executed by my father, but Hava had been able to discover that as of a few months ago, he’d survived. It was another reason I had felt the urgency to act soon to take my father’s throne.
But now, fear dug deep. What if I’d waited too long? Or what if Hava’s source had been wrong and he’d been dead for years?
As I stepped out of the staircase into the lower dungeon, a blade swiped toward my head. I dodged and jabbed my dagger upward, embedding it through the bottom of the guard’s chin, straight up into his skull with a crunch. Withdrawing the dagger, the guard fell dead to the floor. I wiped the flat of my blade on my trousers and moved on.
I made my way quietly down a familiar corridor and came out where the pit of wights were held for my father, awaiting to be called upon if he needed them. He’d been winning the war against Lumeria and had only used them on occasion when going against larger armies of the light fae. It was probable he planned to use them when he invaded Issos, a target his army had close in their sights.
But when I invaded Issos, I wouldn’t use an army of wights. Nor would I use my power over flame. I had another plan altogether.
When I approached the deep pit where I’d listened to the wights groan and shriek and tap their skeletal fingers along the walls for years, all was silent. I hadn’t expected to be overwhelmed with such a deep satisfaction at seeing the pile of bones and skulls unmoving in the pit.
Complete silence. I stared across the pit at the cell where I’d been kept, where my father had put me and warded the bars to keep me in. Then I smiled at the bent bars that I’d forced openwhen my magick had returned to me in an avalanche when I’d seen a small moon fae girl being tossed into the pit.
She’d been the catalyst for my magick to surge and return to me. And her capture again had been the spark to set my plan in motion to finally kill my father. Refusing to contemplate that for long, I continued down another corridor leading off of the pit.
At the very end, I sensed life. A faint stirring like someone sliding a bare foot on the stone floor drew me deeper. No torches burned here. Holding my blade in one hand, I lifted a torch from its holder on the sconce on the wall and whispered, “Etheline.” A flame instantly ignited the blue coal set at the tip.
Nothing but stillness in the cell before me. I thought the sound must have been my imagination until I finally reached the barred doors and stirred my blue flame higher, burning brighter and casting flickering light into the dank chamber.
On the floor, there sat a skeleton on one side, the wrist still bound in chains to the wall, the two-horned skull of its unfortunate owner had rolled away from the body as the flesh rotted away. But on the other side of the cell, there was movement.
