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ARRAN

We did have to crawl.

I didn’t ask how they’d gotten Lyrena inside.

But there she was, along with all the others, sitting on benches that lined the inside of the circular chamber.

At least once we crawled through the passageway, the alcove was big enough for us to stand.

Barely.

I watched Veyka’s eyes dart around the space, noting the same things I did. A circular center room that opened back onto the tunnel. Not the one Isolde had originally led us through during our descent, but another one of the spokes branching off from the central atrium.

The walls were reinforced with carefully stacked rectangular stones, fitted together carefully. The best I could see, there was no mortar holding them in place. Magic, maybe. The powers the faeries possessed… Taliya had said they didn’t match the sort magic that ran in my own veins, in the veins of my companions.

But I wasn’t going to trust a single, very volatile faerie’s words.

Aside from the entrance back to the tunnel, there were four more openings. Presumably leading to additional rooms. None of them had doors—the only one I’d seen in the entire tunnel and cave system was the one leading to the chamber where we’d spoken alone with Taliya.

Apparently, the faeries didn’t have much use for privacy.

I wished we had a wind wielder with us.

They at least could carry away the sounds, create a whipping wind around us to prevent our voices from drifting away into waiting ears.

But Parys was back in Baylaur. Gwen with him.

I hadn’t thought of them much.

Hadn’t thought of Baylaur, or how Annwyn at large fared.

For three hundred years, duty to Annwyn had driven my every action.

Until Veyka.

What did that make me? A battle commander—but whose motivations were tainted. I wouldn’t have trusted myself on the battlefield, not with the shifting allegiance. Defending a kingdom meant letting everything else go.

Ancestors fucking hell. I don’t have time for this kind of musing.

Cyara and Maisri sat opposite the door, preparing breakfast and tea.

Osheen sat just inside the opening to the tunnel, his sword across his lap. He cleaned the dark succubus bile off of it, but slowly. A show. An excuse to have his weapon out.

Percival wasn’t in sight, but I knew Osheen would not have let him go far. Probably in one of the connecting rooms.

Near the hearth, and another stone chimney built into the wall, Lyrena’s mangled leg was bare. Isolde was bent over a pot beside her. Veyka went right to them.

“How bad is it?”

“I am fine,” Lyrena said, cracking a smile.

Veyka nudged her foot. Lyrena winced.

“Not fine.” Veyka turned her eyes to Isolde. “You are a healer.”

A slight smile on the white face. “Yes.”