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They’d just cleared their own floor and started down into the lower passages when he sensed Sir Macoe’s presence at the edge of his mind.“Yes?”

“One of the guards found a woman, Your Majesty,”the captain of the guard sent.“But her identity is unclear. She fainted and has not awakened. He carried her to the Bronze Room.”

Toren’s heart leaped with nervous excitement, but he kept his emotions to himself.“Continue searching the passages. I’ll go.”

Grabbing Mehl’s arm, Toren drew them both to a halt. But for a moment, he couldn’t answer the questions gathering in his husband’s eyes. Too much feeling swelled within him. Earlier, he’d prevented Mehl from going into danger, but it had been the wrong choice. No matter how much he feared for his husband’s life, he had to make the logical decision.

“Toren?”

“Sir Macoe sent word that an injured woman was found,”he replied.“I need to go see if it’s Ria.”

Mehl nodded.“We can exit just ahead, then.”

“No.”Toren squeezed Mehl’s arm.“You continue searching for the spy. Or Ria, for that matter. We don’t know for sure that it’s her.”

“You want…”Surprise resounded in Mehl’s mental voice, and his brows rose.“You’re actually telling me to go alone this time?”

Toren’s nostrils flared.“I don’t like it, but it’s the best option. Be certain you return to me safely.”

After a quick grin, Mehl gave him a hard but brief kiss.“So I will. You’ll surely remember to have a bodyguard accompany you in my absence for the same reason?”

“Of course.”Toren released his arm as he calculated where they were and the best place to exit.“We’ll part after the next turn.”

He had to hope it wasn’t a mistake.

* * *

When Ria surfaced this time,it was with no greater clarity. Her head pounded, and the tang of sickness filled her mouth. Her arms ached. She attempted to lift them, only to feel the bite of rope around her wrists. Again? Fear burned a path up her throat, though she didn’t think she was in the same place. Her arms were in front of her this time, light glowed behind her eyelids, and the surface beneath her had more cushion.

Nevertheless, she was captured.

Ria didn’t want to look. She didn’t want to open her eyes to find Tes and her accomplice staring down at her. She might have idly thought she’d welcome this for a chance at rest, but she hadn’t meant it. No matter what the woman claimed, there was no reason to believe she had good intent. The blinding headache and sticky, matted hair at the back of her head were counter enough to Tes’s assertion.

Should she pretend to be unconscious? Last time, waking up had prompted her captor into leaving the castle. The longer she feigned sleep, the more time she had to be found. Hours had to have passed at this rate. Surely someone had checked on her by now. If nothing else, Toren was eager to produce a child, so he might have been less inclined to leave her alone than Mehl.

The click of a door caught her ear, and she couldn’t help but tense.Blast it, she cursed to herself. She was supposed to be unaware. Even so, it took all her self-control not to open her eyes to see who had entered.

“Where—” The low voice cut off abruptly, but not before she recognized the rough timbre of it.

Toren.

Her eyelids shot open in time to see Toren glare at a guard standing beside the door. “Were you not given a description of Lady Ria by Sir Macoe?”

The soldier paled. “This is Lady Ria? Forgive me, Your Majesty. With her plain clothes and dirtiness, I would not have thought it so.”

Without another word, Toren strode toward her, leaving the guard fretting in his wake. The High King’s expression was so cold and blank, his posture so rigid, that she suspected he held onto his rage—and his magic—by the thinnest thread. That wasn’t good. Thinking to reassure him, Ria shifted, only to groan as her vision blurred and her head throbbed.

Stark fear filled his eyes as he dropped to his knees beside her. “Where are you injured?”

“My head,” she whispered, then snapped her mouth closed against a wave of nausea.

Toren glanced over his shoulder at the guard. “You didn’t think to summon the healer?”

“If she were the criminal—”

“Then you would summon the healer,” Toren snapped. “Go. Do so now.”

No matter how right he was, the volume of his words pounded directly into her skull. Too much. She tried to reach for his arm to get his attention, only to remember rather painfully that her wrists were bound. As the guard hurried toward the door, Ria swallowed down bile and prayed she could speak without being sick.