Page 20

I step up to one of the more intact walls, pushing aside a curtain of plants. Underneath them, I take in the marble, my eyes lingering on the gold inlay of a coiling flowering plant decorating the wall.

This definitely seems made by the fae. Maybe one of them even lived here.

Empress…

I step away from the wall, letting the foliage drop back in place, the haunting voice luring me to it once more.

All around me, I feel more of those wards. They’re everywhere, glittering in the air, wrapped around toppled columns, coating the few standing walls. Someone went to pains to cover every square inch of this place in spells. It would take me hours to figure out what each one’s purpose is and longer still to remove them all.

Ahead of me, the inky-blue magic slopes downward from the sky, the strip of it eventually sinking into the earth. I follow it all the way to where it meets the ground.

Reaching out, I run a hand through the indigo magic. My fingers tingle pleasantly as they pass through it, but nothing else happens.

I toe the damp earth right where the power meets it. All I see is mud, yet I sense wards deep below—wards and something else, something I am antsy to uncover.

I raise my palm to the mud, and I force my power through it.

“Unearth your secrets from below,” I incant.“Reveal to me what you know.”

My power hits the ground with so much force, it blows thick globs of mud far and wide. Under the direction of the spell, my magic peels away the soil layer by layer. It takes several seconds, but eventually, I uncover a section of marble flooring that looks identical to what I’ve seen in other parts of these ruins.

Well, identical save for the swath of magic slipping down along its seams.

Save me…

I swallow. The voice is coming frombeneaththe floor in question. I figured as much, but now…now I’m having to make sense of that.

The deep-blue magic gathers around me, coaxing me to uncover whatever lies beneath that slab. I open my mouth, scrambling to fit together another spell, when something else entirely pours from my lips.

“Buvakata sutavuva izakasava xu ivakamit sanasava,” I incant, my voice deepening with my power.Open and reveal that which is hidden.

The words raise the hairs on my arms, not only because they’re foreign and haunting but because they came as naturally to me as English.

Beneath the touch of my power, the stone slab vibrates as it begins to pry itself free. As I watch, tendrils of blue magic slip between my own, and on some level, I feel that contact. A heady shiver courses through me.

With a groan, the marble slab lifts from the ground and slides aside.

I exhale, my nerves on edge.

Now that the floor has been removed, I can make out an opening and steps leading down into it. The dark ribbon of magic descends into the darkness.

Do I dare go down there?

Come…to…me…beloved…

The voice whispers like a lover, brushing against my ear and raising the hairs at the nape of my neck. The words should be off-putting, but I’m too bewitched by the voice to turn back now.

Even if I were, it wouldn’t matter because my familiar slips past me before heading down the steps, like forgotten subterranean chambers are not at all scary or troubling. As he descends, mounted torches flare to life, revealing a long set of stairs and a hallway far below.

“Nero!” I call out. I’m supposed to be the one taking the risks here with the strange voice, not my familiar.

If he hears my voice, he doesn’t listen. My familiar disappears, and while I can still hear torches lighting somewhere beyond my line of sight, the sound grows more and more distant, presumably as the panther moves deeper into the chamber.

“Nero!” I call out again.

Nothing.

I slip into his mind just to make sure he’s okay. One second, I’m staring down at the dark opening, and in the next, I’m inside, prowling forward, claw tips clicking against the stone flooring. Through Nero’s eyes, I see massive walls and flickering shadows, and I can smell…something.