Page 90 of Shadow Throne King
Out of the water, he seemed even younger. He could be no more than three or four, and already, he suffered a curse, seen his father killed, been used by a foreign king, and taken over by a monster from the tales of the animalia. The line of blackened skin marked his spine, a scar that proved his survival.
Koque wrapped herself around him, soaking her own clothes in the thick liquid from the pools.
Tallu stood, taking off his cloak and dropping it over my shoulders. He crouched in front of me, hands on my face.
“You’re pale,” he said.
“Someone should tell the Shadow King he needs to heat his healing pools,” I joked. “I’ve had warmer baths jumping into the northern ocean.”
“We need to go,” Vostop said. His head was cocked, listening. “There are others who follow King Inor, and they are coming.”
Koque stood, holding her son in her arms. I tried to stand but stumbled, the exhaustion of all the ice magic I had worked catching up with me. Iradîo held Naî in her arms, the dragon resting her head on my cousin’s shoulder.
None of us asked where we were going, all too aware of how easily King Inor would be able to hear us if we got near any of hisshadow stone. Still, we were not nearly as silent as we had been on the way up as we followed Vostop further down into the dark.
Pito and Topi still clung to each other, one or the other murmuring encouragement when they stumbled. Iradîo brought up the rear; even though her arms were taken up with Naî, she was the most capable fighter at the moment. Koque and Hallu walked directly behind Vostop, the empress pressing occasional kisses to the crown of her son’s head. Tallu had my arm over his shoulders, his hand around my waist as he forced me to put most of my weight on him.
My muscles trembled, as though I had gone through one of Yorîmu’s horrible training exercises that left me laid up for days. The cost of magic was physical, I reminded myself, and yet I hadn’t even hesitated in rescuing Prince Hallu. My mind kept slipping to the threads of fate, the curse that wrapped around the prince. If I had tried to heal Tallu, would I see the same? A cocoon of blood-red thread that was the only thing keeping him together?
Ahead, Vostop held up a hand, looking between two passageways before gesturing us down one. We followed him, and it ended in a large cavern, dimly lit by the glowing rocks common along the pathway. It smelled stale inside, and some furniture covered by tarps was scattered throughout. When all of us were inside, he put his hand to the wall, and the rocks pulled themselves together, closing the doorway we had stumbled through.
“Why have we stopped?” Tallu demanded. “We must get to the Lakeshore Palace as quickly as possible. It is the only place we might be safe.”
“My cousin will have sent men to the tunnel that connects the Lakeshore Palace and the mountains.” Vostop put his hand on the newly sealed wall. “I just need to think of another way out of the mountains.”
“We do not have any time—” Tallu started.
“We will not stay here long,” Koque assured him. She glanced at me. “Vostop needs time to think, and the rest of us need time to rest.”
Tallu’s arm tensed around my waist, and I could feel his fingertips digging into my stomach, as though he could bring me back to health with just the strength of his hand.
We collapsed around the room, finding pillows and seats. Vostop stepped forward, using flint to light a lantern. He sat next to Koque, who cradled her son in her lap. The blood mages circled around the boy, but his eyes were closed in sleep, his breathing even.
Tallu lowered me onto a couch and took the seat beside me, his worried eyes still searching over my face. Iradîo took a seat across, and Naî curled in her lap, letting Iradîo stroke her scales. Iradîo stared at me. There was a family resemblance in her face, but her unreadable eyes were a shade too dark, too green.
She wasn’t Eonaî, but seeing her was too much like home, too much all over.
“What are you doing here?” I asked in Northern, unable to look away from her face. I shifted my bad arm, unsurprised to find that it ached but no longer hurt with the intensity of injury. The water had worked and was likely the only reason Hallu lived.
“Well, your sister had barely arrived back in the Silver City when”—she glanced around, seemingly aware that there were plenty of ears she didn’t want to hear what she had to say—“we received thegiftyou and yourhusbandsent. Queen Opûla sent me here to try to get a sensible story. By the time I’d infiltrated the palace, you’d already left, so I spent the past two weeks tracking you. I only just got into the Lakeshore Palace because they were desperate for servants since you’d imprisoned most of them?” Iradîo’s voice rose in annoyance. “After almost getting killed? And the ravens told me that it wasn’t even the first time?”
“Youwere the one talking to the ravens,” I said, finally understanding Terror’s murmurs of “her.”
“How else was I supposed to track you?” Iradîo asked. “And they said you were ignoring them.”
“Not ignoring them.” I looked down, and Tallu put his hand on mine, his fingers wrapping around my hand. “I lost my magic.”
“You can’t lose your magic,” Iradîo said. “Not without losing your head.”
“It’s a long story,” I said, debating where to even begin.
“I know a way out,” Vostop said, before I’d done more than taken a deep breath. “We need to go deeper in order to get out.”
Twenty-One
Vostop described an old mining tunnel from two kings before Inor took the throne. It headed north, rather than southwest toward the Lakeshore Palace, but it should still let us leave the mountains close enough to the border that we would be able to find our way into the Imperium.
“It never quite reached the edge of the range,” Vostop admitted. “I will have to dig my way out the last mile or so. As long as it still has air, we should be fine.”