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Chapter Nine

Kieran

“We’re getting close,” Desmond whispered quietly in that gravelly voice of his.

I’d been a little surprised when both of Roth’s brothers announced they’d be coming on this rescue mission.

It was dangerous and a little insane. Plus, neither of them were close to Samara.

Granted, we had explained the crown and our concern that it had fallen into the wrong hands, but still, part of me had expected them to lock Roth somewhere safe in their fortress and chuck the rest of us out.

When Roth’s parents had announced that they’d also be going on this mission, I’d said as much.

I might have phrased it in a poorly worded way that called into question their intentions.

Actually, there was no might about it. While I didn’t remember exactly what I’d said, Alaric and Roth had both winced at my choice of words, and if those two thought I’d been too blunt, then it must have been something really offensive.

The Devereux clan was an odd one though, and they’d just stared at me with a predatory focus.

“You might claim Roth now, but they were ours first.” Celestina, Roth’s mother, smiled at me in a way that had all my instincts on alert.

“Our youngest does not love easily. The fact that they have not only found it but that the person they love has chosen them with equal ferocity is something we will protect at all costs. You will not dissuade us from coming.”

At the end of the day, despite my scheming and Alaric’s near-constant research, it had been our antisocial and taciturn Roth who’d figured out a path forward to saving the woman we all loved. And hopefully Draven.

I was frustrated with myself over how quickly—and badly—I’d fallen apart. Samara and Draven were gone. Instead of keeping it together and doing everything I could to help them, I’d just . . . spiraled.

Sure, I’d done my best to gather gossip and call in favors, but at the end of the day, I’d had nothing to show for it.

I’d promised Samara I’d always be there for her, but when it’d counted, I hadn’t been.

She’d never been bothered by the fact that I was just a courtier.

Not when we’d been friends . . . nor when we’d become something more.

I heard the whispers though. People questioning her judgment or assuming I was just a passing fancy. When she was with me, it was easy to ignore them, but now all the doubts had crowded into my mind along with the frustration and terror that something really bad had happened to her.

And Draven. The prince I loved beyond reason. Who had used my lower status as a courtier to hurt and humiliate me. He’d done it to protect me from his mother’s machinations, but that didn’t make the wound any less raw. Nor did it help with all the insecurity I was feeling now.

I was so lost in my thoughts that I almost ran into Alaric when he suddenly stopped in front of me. Roth missed the message though.

“Oof!” They collided with me, causing me to bump into Alaric, who turned to glare at us both.

He peered around me. “Are you seriously reading a book right now, Roth?”

I turned, and sure enough, Roth had unwound the ropes on one of their forearms just enough to hold a small jar full of glowing stones. A little makeshift Fae lantern. How adorable. I filed it away to tease Roth about later. Ideally, when I wasn’t trapped in an enclosed space with them.

“We don’t know for sure how to open the door,” they said defensively. “My brothers might be confident they can muscle their way through it, but I’d prefer to have an actual plan besides smashy smashy .”

“It’s a perfectly good plan, Rothie Bear,” Desmond called from where he’d stopped at the front of the line. “And might, in fact, be necessary because there’s supposed to be a door here according to the map . . . but there isn’t.”

“Let me see.” Roth shoved past me and Alaric, grumbling something about being surrounded by idiots.

They studied the wall, and we all did the same.

The only sources of light were the few Fae lanterns we’d brought with us and Roth’s jar of glowing stones, but our eyesight was more than good enough to see our surroundings, which consisted of compact dirt.

Ceiling, floor, walls . . . all dirt. It was a little unnerving because there weren’t any support beams anywhere. Logic said that this tunnel should have caved in years ago—if not immediately—but we’d been walking underground for at least a mile, and there were no signs of any weakness anywhere.

It must have been made by the Seelie Fae and their earth magic. I was surprised that it had remained standing all this time though. Most of the Fae spells had burnt out and we’d had to replenish them with our own magic.

As spectacular as the construction of this tunnel was, our trip was pointless if we had no way of entering the Sovereign House from it.

“Are you sure we’re in the area?” I squeezed past Alaric to take the map from Taivan. “Or maybe it was marked incorrectly?”

I frowned at the fading lines and scribbles written in what I was guessing was Unseelie.

If not for those hastily written words, I wouldn’t even think this was the real thing.

House Devereux had managed to successfully keep their treasure trove of Fae artifacts and writings hidden from the rest of the Moroi.

While Roth might have been obsessed with Fae poetry, their family treasured something else—details about how all the Houses were constructed, including ways to break into and out of them.

I’d been impressed by it all, but Alaric had scowled so hard, I was surprised his face wasn’t permanently stuck like that. He hadn’t been pleased to learn that House Harker was included in their “information gathering” and that they knew all of our strengths and weaknesses.

It was thanks to their paranoia though that we had an undetected way into the Sovereign House, so he’d held his tongue. Mostly. Now we just needed to find the damn door.

Alaric reached for the map, but Roth was faster, snatching it from my hands.

“This is definitely the place,” they murmured, casting their eyes from the map to the wall and back again.

“Some type of illusion spell maybe?” Roth folded the map up and tucked it into the book before shoving both into a bag at their waist. “See if you can feel some type of release or glyph carved into the wall. Don’t trust your eyes. ”

We each took a section of the wall and started searching. I ran my fingers across the cool earth, but nothing stood out. My frustration grew over the next few minutes, and I wasn’t alone in that. It hadn’t been easy to avoid all the patrols and find the entrance to this tunnel.

If it had all been for nothing?—

I choked back the wounded sound that tried to escape, but there was nothing I could do against the anguish rising in my gut, filling my thoughts and my soul with a hopeless despair I didn’t know how to fight.

Losing either Samara or Draven was unimaginable.

Losing them both . . . I would never come back from that.

My search became more desperate. Nails shifted to claws as I tried to tear my way through the dirt. Blood scented the air, and then Alaric was cursing and pulling me away.

Just as I started to push past him and continue my frantic attempt at getting through, the wall trembled. Everyone froze. In an instant, all of Roth’s family had their swords out. Taivan grabbed Roth and shoved his younger sibling behind their parents.

The wall exploded, the clumps of dirt hanging in the air for a few seconds before falling to the ground. I had my own sword free, as did Alaric, as we waited for the attack to come.

It never did.

“Forgive me, but this is a rescue mission, is it not? Shouldn’t you all be moving a little quicker?” an amused voice asked. Dust still floated in the air, preventing me from seeing the person who spoke, but I recognized the voice.

In an instant, I was past the crumbled wall and in what appeared to be the dungeon—the map had been right after all, for the location at least. Whoever had said there’d been a door there had either been mistaken or had known some trick that we didn’t.

None of that mattered though as my fingers closed around the bars that separated a cell from the rest of the room. Vibrant blue eyes threaded with red met mine.

“Hello, lover,” Draven purred. “Out for a midnight stroll?”

“You know me,” I replied, my voice catching. “A bit of a restless sleeper.”

He chuckled and laid his hands over mine around the bars. “I promise to thoroughly tire you out after this.”

“I don’t need to hear this,” Roth growled as they came to a stop beside me. “Iron bars,” they mused.

“Can you feel it?” Draven asked, shooting Roth a curious look.

I wasn’t sure what he meant by feel it , but when I glanced down at his hands over mine, I noticed he was being careful not to touch the bars.

“No.” Roth’s hazel eyes studied the cell, their brows coming together the longer they looked. “But I’ve seen this design before. Though the color is different from the metal composition the humans used.” They frowned. “And anything the humans built had doors.”

“Do we have you to thank for opening that wall?” Celestina jutted a thumb over her shoulder at the wreckage in the tunnel.

“Yes. I did my best to quiet the sound. Given that there aren’t any guards flooding this room, I don’t believe they heard anything.

” Draven eyed Celestina before looking around at all those gathered in the room, his gaze finally falling back on Roth, no doubt seeing the familial connection.

He grinned when he noticed the new blood ropes around Roth’s forearms. “Upgraded your ribbons, eh?”

He winked at them, and to my utter shock, Roth winked back. “The better to strangle you with.”

“How’d you know we were there?” Celestina asked, her expression unreadable.