Page 55 of A Tempest of Intrigue (Tempest of Shadows #4)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Ryker

I loathed few places in the world more than my father’s castle. However, it was the only place I forced myself to return to on a somewhat regular basis.

Usually, when I arrived, I did so in a way that would ensure my father knew I was there. It helped keep him off my back if he saw me occasionally.

Today, I stayed hidden as I entered the castle via a portal I opened onto the back stairwell. By opening one here, I took the risk of running into a servant, which would ruin my plan to search the lower levels of this atrocity. However, it was less risky than opening a portal in my apartment and traversing the castle, trying not to be seen.

Fortunately, no one was around when I emerged. I pressed myself against the cool stone wall; the rocks bit into my back, but I didn’t shift to ease the discomfort as I listened for signs of life.

Once convinced that no one was nearby, I descended the stairwell toward the castle’s bowels until I arrived at the lower floor. I remained in the shadows of the stairs as I once again listened for signs of life before emerging.

The damp, cool, underground air brushed against my skin as I strode down the dimly lit hallway. In the golden sconces hanging on the wall, a magical fire burned.

The flickering flames cast shadows across the wall and floor. They seemed to be reaching for me or trying to hold me back as they curled around me.

Unlike the dark fae, I couldn’t slip into these shadows, but they helped conceal me. No doors were carved into the stone walls until I reached the middle of the hall.

There, I stopped outside a set of closed double doors. The flames from the torches beside them glinted off their stainless steel facade, turning some parts from silver to gold.

Two windows, about a foot long and wide, were set in the middle of the entry. With the doors closed, they created one perfect window.

I glanced up and down the hallway as I strained to hear the approach of footsteps, but everything remained silent. From where I stood against the opposite wall of the entrance, I could see through the windows a little. No one moved beyond them, and I didn’t hear anything, but the thick steel would block sound, and there could be amsirah deeper inside the room.

Stepping away from the wall, I approached the door and stepped to the side of the windows to stay out of view. Resting my back against the steel, I leaned closer to the glass to peer inside.

On the other side was a gigantic room filled with weapons. Training mats, dummies, targets, and other assorted equipment for training filled the room.

The weapons room.

This was where my father’s guards trained on days when they decided not to use the fields or when they wanted to work alone. Thankfully, no one was within now.

I examined the assortment of weapons lining the walls and shelves in the room. There were so many weapons we could use to our advantage.

We were having some made with the money we’d stolen from Ivan, but we had to be careful not to order too many, which was time-consuming. If we could get our hands on some of these, it would make things a lot easier.

I grasped the knob to enter the room, only to discover it locked. This development didn’t surprise me after the rebellion at the earl’s party, but it was a bit of a disappointment.

Unlike the servants and guards who worked for my father, I could open a portal into the room but decided against it. I could only take a couple of things out of there now and couldn’t weaken my ability to open portals in case I required it to leave here fast.

Besides, I could see hundreds of swords, battle-axes, staffs, bows, arrows, crossbows, flails, and other weapons meant to destroy. If necessary, I could come back here, but my mission for today was to learn more about the castle.

Stepping away from the door, I slipped back into the shadows and walked to the other end of the hallway and a twisting staircase. I descended further into the castle’s bowels, where I encountered the dungeon.

Here, the air was cooler and danker as it created a sheen of moisture on my chilled skin. The air reeked of the earthen floor and the minerally tang of the rocks, but I didn’t scent any waste, rotten food, or the stench of the unwashed.

As I made my way down the hall, I discovered all the cells were empty and their doors open. I doubted my father kept anyone imprisoned for long here; he wouldn’t waste his carisle on feeding anyone he deemed worthy of locking away. He’d just kill them.

At the end of the dungeon, another set of stairs rose back toward the upper levels but didn’t descend any further. I was at the bottom of the castle and hadn’t uncovered the one room I was most interested in discovering… the treasury.

It wasn’t on the main floor or the top two, where my apartment and my father’s were. Or at least I didn’t think it was on my father’s level; I didn’t have much time to poke around up there before the servant discovered me, but it was a wide-open space.

That left the first, second, and third floors. I’d spent a fair amount of time on the first floor within my father’s private solar, dining room, solarium, kitchen, ballroom, and other assorted rooms, but I hadn’t searched everything.

I’d spent less time on the second floor with the library, game room, trophy room, and who knew what else. I’d spent no time on the third floor, which mostly housed all the guest rooms in the castle.

There could be something more there than those spare, almost always empty rooms, but I doubted my father would store his money where others stayed. However, I didn’t put anything past him.

I’d expected to encounter the treasury on the lower levels, as that’s where they were in most castles, but my father never liked to do things the same as everyone else. He’d also do everything in his power to keep his money safe from anyone trying to find it… which meant he would be particularly sneaky about where he’d lock it away.