Page 51 of Direbound (The Wolves of Ruin #1)

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

I follow Venna without question, without hesitation. The urgency in her eyes is contagious. As we move quickly through the castle halls, nervous energy riots through me. “Venna, where?—”

She makes a short hissing sound and presses her pointer finger to her lips to silence me. I nod to tell her I’ve understood, then do my best to quiet my footsteps. It’s difficult, with the echoing hallways and vaulted stone ceilings. Venna moves almost entirely silently—like Kryptos are taught to do—only occasionally causing slight creaks as she pushes a door open or a brief rustle as her clothes shift.

Realizing that we’re doing something dangerous, I partially lower the barrier to me and Anassa again. If something goes wrong tonight… she needs to know.

I try to predict the route we’re taking through the castle, but it’s impossible. We move in random directions, turning right three times before doubling back in the other direction. After a while, I realize what this is. Her urgency. The need for silence. The indecipherable route.

These are the movements of a prey animal, deliberately complex to evade capture. She’s worried we might be followed. Seen. There’s danger here.

My suspicions are confirmed when the open hallways of the lower castle turn to servant passageways. I have to duck low under the door frames. The entrances and exits are much too small for the average Bonded’s height. My trembling nerves heighten further when we take a sudden left and slip into an even narrower tunnel.

These aren’t even servant passageways any longer. They look like they’re from another age entirely.

Spiderwebs cling to corners. The walls are exposed stone, unadorned and with a patina that speaks of centuries of no upkeep. There’s nothing down here but more tunnels, each just as dark and punishingly narrow as the last. It’s suffocating.

I start to sweat despite the rapidly cooling temperature.

Venna pauses at a fork and touches my arm briefly. Her eyes meet mine to ensure I’m watching, then she flickers her hands. I stare, trying to recall the signs I’ve managed to learn, but her meaning evades me. I huff in frustration and she presses her finger to her lips again.

I nod. I need to be quiet.

Venna’s lips turn upward, and she points at me, then two fingers at both her eyes, then at herself. Watch her. I nod, and she takes my wrist, pulling me along into the dark.

I watch her closely, as instructed. Soon, I realize that her movements are intentional. It’s her Kryptos training, I suspect, guiding her through the shadows like she was born of them.

Her feet test each step cautiously before she rests her weight. She walks on her toes, mostly, carefully sidestepping anything that could create even the slightest sound. When the ground beneath us starts to show its age further, smooth stone turning to uneven, cracked rock, she follows a very specific path like she can somehow anticipate which rocks are loose.

A few times, she touches my wrist and gestures. Two fingers from each hand, positioned in V, with wrists touching. Careful , that means.

I do my best to pay attention to her instructions, but my mind wanders. Maybe it’s the instincts Strategos training has taught me, but I can’t stop wanting to ask questions. What’s buried down here? Who or what is it that demands utter silence of us, for fear of discovery?

We descend past multiple levels of the castle this way, but the claustrophobic feeling never lets up. At one point, we hurry down a narrow hallway with windows cut from the stone. On the other side, I swear I catch a glimpse of the dungeon I saw with Killian when we tortured the Nabber. We’re deep, then. But we keep descending, creeping down stairs and hurrying down long, anxiety-inducing slopes of earth, or more loose rock.

Eventually, the walls change again. Everything changes.

The air turns freezing and heavy, the cold stinging my lungs and the lack of airflow starving me of oxygen. There’s an odd metallic taste on my tongue, growing stronger with every breath. The walls weep moisture through cracks caused by the immense weight of the earth bearing down on these passages.

My breath turns to vapor in front of my eyes, and goosebumps start to shiver over my skin.

All of this is unnerving, but it’s Anassa’s emotions that truly start to scare me. She’s uneasy. If I didn’t know her better, I’d think she was afraid.

The thought of Anassa afraid is like imagining a mountain trembling. It just isn’t right.

And it’s that sense of wrongness that lingers like a thick fog in these tunnels. There’s something wrong about the air here—not just the cold and the dark, but a tangible weight that presses in on me from every direction.

I try to convince myself that it’s just the claustrophobia of being so far underground, but logic doesn’t work. Anassa’s projected unease fuels mine, and I’m horribly on edge.

The descent is endless. Venna leads us through a labyrinth. That’s the only word for it, like someone’s carved a maze to deliberately confuse anyone trying to reach deeper. Venna takes three rights in a row, and my struggling logical mind tells me that should bring us back to the starting point. But instead, we end up even deeper, new twisting passageways revealing themselves.

We pass multiple doors and adjoining tunnels, which Venna ignores. I touch her arm and point to one of the doors, raising a brow. She shakes her head. Then she points down one of the adjoining tunnels and lifts one hand, guiding the other to her palm and stopping abruptly when her fingertips touch skin.

I have to assume she means it’s a dead end. It confirms my theory. This is a true maze with twists meant to disorient anyone who might accidentally find these passages.

Eventually, once I’m practically crawling out of my skin, we reach what looks like the bottom. At the end of the tunnel, there’s a single door with a faint light emanating from behind it. When Venna leads me to it, I can’t help it, I gasp. A slight breeze stirs my hair in front of my eyes.

There’s airflow on the other side.

She turns to me. “There are guards,” she says, so quietly it’s almost inaudible. “They’re on rotation right now, but we only have a few minutes.”

I nod to confirm that I understand, and Venna pushes the door open, revealing a narrow corridor.

The sight disarms me. It’s nothing like the rest of the tunnels we’ve traveled through. For one thing, it’s clean and well-kept, lit with steadily burning oil lamps.

But it’s also carved from smooth, white marble veined with gold . The air is fresh, hinting at some sort of ventilation system. There’s a lingering heat here, too, emanating from the stone to stave off the cold of the depths.

Venna and I walk quietly down the long hallway, towards another interior door. More light shines from beyond.

Then, the sound of children’s voices.

It stops me short. I freeze up, heart pounding. Venna looks back at me, wearing an expression of understanding. She nods, once. And I know.

Nothing could stop me in that moment. I rush forward, pushing the door open and stepping through.

It’s just as bright and warm as the tunnel we just walked through, carved of the same blinding marble. Oil lamps hang from the ceiling, casting warm and steady light. I blink in confusion. For all its elegance, I know what this is.

A prison.

Along both sides of the long room stretch mirrored rows of cells. They’re small alcoves in the marble, each containing proper furnishings: real beds with clean linens, shelves filled with books, even small desks. The luxuries might trick the eye into seeing an innocuous, restful space.

If you can overlook the gilded bars holding in children.

Dozens of kids linger behind the bars, all wearing identical gray clothing. They look haunted , hollowed out and gaunt, like they’ve been wasting away down here. I can tell that they’ve been fed, but they’re definitely not healthy. There’s a pallor to their sun-starved skin.

Each cell seems carefully controlled, with four to five children each. The kids grouped together look roughly the same age, too, with the youngest no older than five and the oldest maybe ten to twelve.

My eyes immediately snap to the cells towards the end, where the older kids are. I’m not mindful of my thudding footsteps as I rush forward, desperate, shaking.

And then I see her. Part of me can’t believe it’s real.

Saela.

For a single moment, my lingering fear tells me that this might be another hallucination. It’s almost preferable to the thought that Saela might have been trapped down here, right below my feet, the entire time I was fighting to reach her.

Then I realize what she’s doing. Saela’s curled up around a book.

Her dark hair is longer than I remember, falling past her shoulders, and her body is slightly thinner, but she’s still Saela. Always with her nose between the pages. The sight of it would have even been comforting, if it weren’t here , in this awful place.

The familiarity of it all snaps me out of my fears right as Saela seems to sense that she’s being watched. She looks up from her book, eyes finding me.

For several long seconds, all we can do is stare. Time stretches thin, the weeks and weeks of fear and pain and hope strangling the breath from my lungs. I cover my mouth with one hand, distantly aware that burning tears are falling.

Then the book drops from her hands with a loud smack. Her eyes flood with tears.

“Meryn?” she squeaks, voice cracking like heartbreak.

It snaps me into motion. I gasp raggedly for air and sprint toward her. The children around me gasp and rush to the bars to watch. Saela scrambles to her feet, sobbing, reaching shakily for the bars.

I slam into them, shoving my arms through because I need to feel her. She lets out a small, keening cry as I pull her as close as I can.

“Sae,” I choke out, cradling her head. She’s warm beneath my hands, unlike in my nightmares.

“M-Meryn,” she whimpers. Her hands cling to my jacket like she’s afraid I’m going to disappear, her knuckles whiting. “Y-Your hair!”

I choke out a wet laugh and nod. “ Your hair.”

She sobs and clings to me. The desperate, searching nature of her touch wounds me. I can’t let her go. I won’t.

“I’ve got you,” I breathe, stroking her hair. She leans close, crowding the bars to reach me. “I’ve got you, Saela. You’re okay.”

Her breaths slow somewhat, but she won’t let go of me. I wish I could tear these fucking bars down. Rip them right out of the floor and hold her properly, pull her all the way into my arms and make her feel safe again.

Dry her tears. Read to her. Tuck her in to sleep.

I shake my head and bend to kiss her hair, tearing my eyes from her briefly. The other children in her cell and those gathered at the other cell doors are watching with something hungry in their eyes.

Aching jealousy, I realize. Loneliness.

I don’t know how long they’ve been down here, but no one’s been caring for them the way a child needs care. No one’s been here to love them. They must have gone to sleep each night longing for their homes, their families, for the sun.

A deep sadness settles over my heart like glinting frost blanketing the earth.

Anassa’s, I realize. I can sense my wolf’s gaze moving over these lost children. Seeing these children disturbs Anassa deeply, like the ache of long-lost memory, but the feeling remains immaterial and vague.

Saela pulls back in my arms, just enough to look up at me with teary hazel eyes. “It’s not what you think, Meryn. It’s so much worse than anyone knows,” she whispers. Her eyes dart around like she’s afraid there are eyes on her. Her grip on me tightens.

I reach up to sweep her hair from her eyes. “Right now, I only care that you’re alright,” I breathe.

Saela shakes her head. “Listen. Please.”

Jerkily, I nod.

Her voice drops further, like she’s hissing secrets, as the other children drift tentatively closer to listen to us. “The Nabbers were just like people said. They came through the window. I tried to fight but there were two of them. A-And?—”

“You did well, Sae,” I reassure her shakily.

Her smile trembles, then it falls. “They didn’t take me away from the city. The buildings got taller instead of smaller. They took me here . They gave us to the king’s guard. I recognized their armor.”

My mouth drops open. I know we’re under the castle, I know this explanation makes sense, but a desperate part of me still hoped that there could be some sort of explanation that didn’t mean I’d have to fucking kill a king for what he’s done to my sister.

Wrath flares through me, glowing like a weapon in the forge.

“Did they hurt you?” I growl. To my surprise, Anassa’s growl follows mine.

Saela shakes her head. “They tied my hands, but I’m okay.”

“You are,” I nod. “You’re stronger than anyone I know.”

Her fingers tangle with mine. “I was brought here quickly. I’ve been counting the days i-in one of the books. It’s been four months here. I think. It’s hard to tell, without the sun, but the guards come in a pattern.”

Four months . She’s been here the entire time. The entire time.

“The guards aren’t cruel. They bring regular meals, clean clothing, books to read. But they don’t speak to us directly, never answer questions. They act like we’re not here. Or like we’re…”

Like they’re animals to be tended to and ignored. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper, tears threatening to fall again. “I’ve been looking for you from the start. From the start, Sae.”

She smiles. “I’ve known that. From the start,” she whispers back to me. I exhale shakily and nod, leaning forward to kiss her forehead.

“It’s why I kept track. To tell you everything, so that you can fight back,” she says, a hint of pride in her eyes. “I knew you’d find us here.”

“Fight who? The guards?”

Her expression darkens. Fear flashes in her eyes. Fear I wish I could take into my hands and crush for her, like grinding bones to dust. But all I can do is hold her and promise her everything I am, everything I’ve become.

“Not the guards. The king,” she whispers, voice breaking.

That motherfucker. I’m going to end him, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.

Anassa growls with approval in my mind; she wants to taste his blood.

Saela must see a flash of the promised violence in my gaze because her eyes widen.

“It’s okay,” I say, wiping her cheek with my thumb. “You know I’ll take on anyone. Even a king.”

“H-He comes every few weeks. He walks between the cells, studying us. He has the guard take down notes. Then he’ll… choose one of us. Sometimes two.”

“For what?” I ask shakily.

She shakes her head, eyes welling. “We never see them again, but sometimes I think I can hear them screaming somewhere far away. And I’ve b-been passed over six times. I’ve been here the longest. He’s going to choose me next. I know he is. Meryn!”

She lets out a horrible, pained sob, shaking her head. But when there’s a sound from above—maybe a door opening or a piece of furniture moving—her voice silences instantly. She sucks in a breath, muffling her tears and wiping her cheeks.

The children grow quiet, huddling back against the walls. Fear spills sickly into the air, bitter and cold.

Saela grips my hands urgently. “He’s going to choose again soon. I can feel it. Please don’t let him take me,” she whimpers.

I won’t. I won’t . Strategies race through my head. How to break her out of here. How to dismantle the bars. How to avoid the guards. How to get her out of the castle.

But every turn my plans take, I meet impossible odds. We’re hundreds of feet below ground. How long do I realistically have before her absence is noticed? And could I really leave all these other kids behind?

I don’t… I’m not…

A hand touches my shoulder, and I flinch.

But it’s Venna, eyes flashing with warning. “We’re almost out of time,” she says, then backs away to give me this moment with my sister.

I turn to Saela, cradling her sweet face in my hands. The horrible truth spreads like poison in my veins, weakening me, rotting my heart. I can’t break her out now.

There are too many kids, too many guards throughout the castle, and too high a risk of everyone getting caught.

But leaving Saela here, knowing she might be taken? Might be hurt? It’s that night all over again, taking my eyes off of her for a second and losing her in the space of a single breath.

It’s the smart move. The strategic move. But it hurts. So I do what I always do. I turn the pain into strength.

“I’ll come back, Saela,” I tell her firmly.

Her face crumples. “Meryn,” she begs.

“I will get you out of here,” I insist.

“I’m scared,” she whispers.

I crush her to me so that I can hide my tears from her. I need her to know I’ll be strong for her. “You trusted me until now, right? Can you keep that going just a little longer?”

She pulls me close but nods silently in my arms.

“I’ll return with help, okay?” I suck in a breath and compose myself, pulling away to look down into her eyes. “We’re Mother’s daughters, right? We’re strong. Always.”

She clenches her jaw tightly and nods, curling her hands into fists. “Yeah.”

“Keep your head down, alright? Don’t do anything to draw the king’s attention.”

“Okay.”

Venna taps my shoulder gently again and glances towards the door. I nod to her and then look back at Saela. “I love you,” I tell her, backing away. “With everything, Sae.”

Her hands fall from mine, but she nods, putting on a brave face. “I love you, too. And I’ll… I’ll see you soon.”

When I turn away from her, I plunge into a blizzard of pain and rage. The door shutting between us is excruciating. I clutch my chest, half-expecting to feel a torrent of steaming hot blood pouring down my front.

Venna touches my wrist gently, tears in her eyes, but I can’t find the space to thank her.

I can’t free Saela on my own. Not as I am.

Thankfully, I know someone who can. Someone with real authority. Someone who can officially order these dungeons opened, and the children released.

Someone who loves me, who would do anything to help Saela. Who always has.

Over our bond, Anassa’s mind spikes with an immediate, sharp warning, like a needle jabbing into my brain. “ You cannot get anyone else involved, ” she urges, voice strained.

I push her back, straining against her panicky strength and throwing up the wall between us again, reinforcing it. She’s kept so much from me. From the moment we bonded, she’s never told me the truth.

She hid her voice from me, shoved me away, concealed her mate’s identity. She knows more about that book than she will tell me, and she knows how my visions are connected, but she’s decided to hide the truth instead of helping me.

I’ve never been able to shake the acute feeling that she possesses every answer I could ever need but refuses to give me the knowledge. Why, when she forced this bond on me to begin with? I really don’t know.

But I’m done pretending I trust her.

There’s someone else that I do trust, who has always prioritized me. Who looks out for me. Who understands my pain and tends to my wounds. Who tells me everything he knows. Killian was horrified by the Nabbers. He brought one of them to me and helped me torture the man for information. He’s voiced his suspicion of his father and his desire to change the kingdom so many times.

I’ve seen the spark in his eyes when he talks about the future, about the world he dreams of building. Together.

He’ll be even more furious to learn of his father’s actions than I am. Betrayed by his own blood.

Killian will help. He always has and always will.

As I follow Venna back through the passages, I rub my thumb over my bracelet and make a silent vow. The king will pay for this.