Page 98 of Of Masks and Fury

Stomps came closer.

We froze.

A guard opened the door below and poked his head inside, peering around but not up, before backing out and slamming the door shut.

Trew’s hand found mine in the darkness, and he leaned in close to speak by my ear. “We have to move.”

“Up,” I whispered, and we started crawling.

Not long later, Eva’s hoarse cry rang out below. The silence after felt wrong, absolute, the kind that meant there was nothing left to stop.

“She’s dead. I know it in my bones.” I crumpled against the tunnel wall, my throat on fire with pain. Her gaunt face flashed in my mind, those sunken eyes like my mother’s had been when she lay broken on the foyer floor. The connection stabbed deeper, twisting the loss. Trew wrapped his arms around me, our breathing hoarse in the tight space.

“She chose this,” he said softly. “Don’t let it be for nothing.”

He was right. I knew he was right. But it didn’t stop the pain or the guilt. I should’ve come for her sooner.

When he pulled away to climb again, I resisted for a breath, my hand gripping his sleeve, unwilling to leave her behind even in memory.

Then I let go.

“Go ahead,” I told him softly. “I’m with you. I promise.”

We climbed through the tunnel until my arms and legs burned and my breathing came in gasps. The passage sloped up into darkness. Trew sent a thread of magic ahead to clear debris from the walls, easing our path. Pherin kept flying ahead before returning to land on my back.

Not far,she’d say.Keep going.

Every step up felt like betrayal. Eva died in that cell. Those prisoners were counting the days until their execution. But with my father's heightened scrutiny, we may never get another chance to investigate the west tower or save them.

The only way to help them was to survive long enough to destroy the man who’d put them there in the first place.

When we reached the fork, we paused, and distant shouts grew louder below us, echoing up the shaft.

“Left will take us to the closet in the kitchen,” I whispered.

“That will be full of people preparing food for breakfast.”

“Right—to the tower. We end this tonight.”

We started climbing again, a section of loose stone crumbling under my grip raining grit as guards’ voices echoed faintly from below. Would they follow us up through the grate?

Moving fast, we approached another grate, where we paused, listening, squinting through the rusty bars, though we couldn’t see much other than an open room and an eerie blue glow.

When we were sure there was no one nearby, Trew carefully pushed the grate up and slid it to the side.

After glancing down at me, he gave me a nod and slowly lifted his head up through the opening.

“Looks clear, but let me check,” he whispered, easing up through the opening.

I peered back down through the dark tunnel.

I’d meant what I said. I’d be back before the Day of Mercy.

Not as a powerless princess, though.

When I returned to those cells, I’d bring fire.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT