44. Aiden

Chapter 44

Aiden

Boom!

The lock on the door exploded into a smoking black hole, and the door shivered and rocked on its hinges.

One door down. One to go.

I slung the bow around my shoulders and slid an arrow into my pocket.

Carrying a torch, I stepped into Renwell’s office, tracking blood and mud on his dark rug. All it held was a desk, a chair, and a candelabra with blackened stubs. No paintings, no ornaments. I stuck the torch in a bracket.

Nikella appeared in the doorway. “The rest of the Wolves are dead. No sign of more from beyond the gate yet.” She eyed the fractured door. “I see the sap worked.”

“Very well,” I said, striding to the door laid into the opposite wall. Renwell hadn’t even bothered to hide it. Probably assumed no one would ever make it this far. “You could search his desk.” I gestured behind me.

She shook her head. “He wouldn’t keep anything useful there. Especially if he knew we might be infiltrating. I’ll stand guard outside the door.” She laid her hand across her heart. “May the gods go with you, Aiden.”

“And may they bring me back,” I said with a grim smile.

She turned and closed the battered door as far as it would go.

I tried the other door’s handle, but it was locked. I filled the keyhole with sap once more and lit another arrow. I backed away as far as I could, making sure Nikella kept the other door shut. Then I fired again and faced the wall as a second explosion shook the room. Bits of dust and rock rained over my head.

Gods damn it, Librius, I hope your last bomb doesn’t bring down the whole Den.

I hurried over to the door, which swung open to reveal a crumbling set of stairs that twisted up and out of sight.

Yes! Just like she said it would be.

I tossed the bow aside and ensured I still had my remaining sword, daggers, and two pouches. No going back now. I grabbed the torch and started climbing the steps.

The tunnel was narrow, barely wide enough for one person. Cobwebs littered the walls, and the air smelled like it hadn’t stirred since the Age of Gods.

A faint rumble hummed through the tunnel as I climbed. The waterfall? The tunnel supposedly cut through the cliffside from the Den to the palace.

Perhaps Renwell was waiting at the end. Or did he think we’d perished in his ambush?

Either way, I had to hurry.

Thoughts of Kiera invaded my mind as I climbed faster. Had she woken? What did she think of me now? And why, why , did she betray us?

My jaw hardened. First, I needed to steal back the crown. Then I would find Kiera and demand answers. In exchange for a few of my own.

At long last, I reached a wooden door with rusted hinges. Carefully setting the torch down, I slowly unspooled Librius’s latest creation—a string painstakingly dipped and dried in spattersap. I lined the doorway with it, sticking the string to the frame with chunks of clay infused with the mico powder from the powder bombs. I left the clean end of the string dangling near the doorknob, just as Librius instructed me.

Abandoning the torch, I pressed my lips to my father’s ring, then unsheathed my sword. I twisted the doorknob. It stuck a bit, but gave way.

The door creaked open, pushing a tapestry out with it. Dozens of lit candles made the wide, circular room glow. The royal bedchamber.

But the bed was empty.

A man wearing the gold-and-sunstone crown and royal colors of Rellmira paced the marble floor. Weylin.

I stepped into the light just as Weylin noticed me. He whipped out the sword at his side.

“Gods damn Renwell,” he breathed, a smile curling through his dark gray beard. “He’s always right.”

I didn’t speak. I couldn’t. Finally coming face to face with the man responsible for so much death and suffering stole the warmth from my blood. Was this how Kiera felt when she realized what I’d done?

“Before I have you slaughtered where you stand, boy, tell me where my gold is,” Weylin commanded.

I threw my head back and laughed. “What gold? There is no gold.” I stepped closer, my fingers tightening around my sword hilt, vengeance pumping through my veins. “Is that why you killed my father? For his gold?”

Weylin spat on the floor, his face turning purple with fury. “I don’t know who your gods-damned father is, boy. But I’m going to smear your blood all over this city for stealing my gold.”

I edged closer and closer to him. “Oh, but you did know my father, Weylin. You knew him well enough to understand the only way to kill him was to stab him in the back like the coward you still are. Then you ordered your dog to kill my mother. She died because of you. But not before she gave birth to your downfall.” I halted a sword-length away from him, my fists trembling with rage. “Me.”

All the blood drained from Weylin’s face, turning it ashen. “Falcryn. It can’t be.” He stumbled back a step, and I followed.

I held up my hand bearing my father’s ring, the light glinting off the gold. “I am Aiden Falcryn, and I will make you pay for your crimes, usurper .”

Weylin bellowed and slashed at me. I smoothly evaded and drove my heel into his ribs. He staggered back but kept his footing.

“You have no rights here,” he seethed. “You have no right to assassinate your king! I am your king! ”

Red clouded my vision. “I have every right!” I roared, raising my sword and slicing downward to that gods-damned crown, but he dodged and scrambled away.

I stalked after him. “What right did you have to murder my family and steal their throne? What right did you have to butcher innocent Pravarans who dared to raise their voices under your oppression? What right did you have to torture and starve your own people to service your greed in that gods-damned prison mine?” I swung again, my sword whistling through the air an inch from his nose.

He snarled and stabbed at me. But I knocked his sword away. Then I attacked him with a flurry of blows that drove him against the wall. With one final swing, I hit the sword out of his hand, and it clattered to the marble floor, out of reach.

I dug the tip of my sword into the base of his sweaty throat. Blood welled. I stared at it, the first drops of my victory.

This was it. The moment I could finally end it all. Save Rellmira the pain of having this murderer as a king.

My breath seared my throat, and I nearly shook with the fire in my blood.

But then I looked into his eyes. Kiera’s eyes. My heart twitched.

You’ll be killing her father. Right after she found out you killed her mother.

My sword point wavered.

“Don’t, Aiden!”

Both our heads jerked up to see Kiera dashing through the room. Pain slammed into my side, and I grunted, looking down. Weylin had stuck a small knife beneath my ribs. Blood oozed through my shirt. I staggered back.

Kiera leapt in front of her father, her wide eyes bouncing from the knife in my side to my face. I grunted and jerked it out, then tossed it onto Weylin’s bed. Gods-damned coward. The knife was too small to do much damage, but it stung like a dozen nettles.

“What are you doing here, Kiera?” I rasped, pressing my free hand over the wound.

She seemed to gather her fury once more, those treacherously beautiful lips twisting in anguish. “Keeping you from killing the rest of my family,” she spat.

Weylin straightened behind her, his smug smile slipping back onto his face. “You’re finally proving your loyalty, daughter.”

I ignored him, as did Kiera. I slowly started to circle around her, but she turned as well, blocking me from Weylin. “You don’t know the whole story.”

“What’s there to know? You killed my mother with this very knife,” she snarled, waving the hated black blade at me.

“ I killed her because she asked me to! ” I roared, the truth finally clawing out of my chest like a savage beast that had been kept too long in captivity.

Kiera’s face whitened. “Enough, Aiden! No lie can save you now.”

“Lies have saved you plenty,” I growled, nodding to where her father was creeping toward his bedroom door. “After all, you learned from the best.”

Kiera’s eyes filled with angry tears. “Nothing you say can justify her murder. Nothing.”

“Want to bet, princess?” I hissed. “I killed Brielle to save her from being executed by him !” I jabbed my sword in Weylin’s direction, and they both froze.

Weylin recovered first. “Lies! Don’t listen to?—”

“How do you think I knew about this secret passage between the Den and the royal bedchamber?” I demanded. “A passage only the king and queen and their High Enforcer know about. She told me about it!”

Kiera shook her head, stepping back to look between me and Weylin. “That—that can’t be true.”

Weylin said nothing, but his fingers curled into white-knuckled fists.

I sneered at him. “Brielle was trying to smuggle me into the palace any way she could because she didn’t want to have to kill you herself. Because she knew exactly what kind of monster you are. And she had decided to take that crown from you for herself.”

The veins in Weylin’s face and neck thickened, and he bared his teeth. “That bitch should’ve died on the executioner stand like the gods-damned traitor she was!”

Kiera gasped. “You . . . you . . .”

“Shut up!” Weylin snarled at her. Then he glared at me. “I discovered your little plan with my stupid wife. I stopped it then, and I’ll stop it now. Renwell!” he shouted.

Renwell sauntered into the room with a dozen Shadow-Wolves who lined the walls opposite me and Kiera.

I gripped my sword and kept my back to the tunnel door. I couldn’t kill my way to Weylin. I’d lost my vengeance the moment I’d seen her eyes in his. My hand was slick with blood from my knife wound, but I wasn’t going to die in this gods-damned room.

“Renwell,” Kiera breathed, not seeming to care where I was. “Did you know? About my mother?”

Weylin released a cruel laugh. “Idiot girl. He’s the one who told me Brielle had been sneaking off to meet someone. We don’t suffer traitors, do we, Renwell?”

But Renwell didn’t answer. He merely looked at Kiera with something almost like regret. Or anger. The knife slipped from Kiera’s hand to clang against the floor.

“Speaking of which,” Weylin continued, smirking at her, “do your duty and kill the traitor behind you. Even though you didn’t find my gold, you can at least kill the man who stole it.”

“She won’t kill him,” Renwell said, his voice slithering through the room. “She’s had days to do so under my orders.” His dark eyes found me, hatred pouring from his gaze. “I fear she’s come to care for the rebel assassin.”

Gods, if he were just a little closer, I’d rush forward and slit his throat like one of his sadistic Wolves.

Weylin’s face hardened. “Then she has failed me for the last time.” He nodded to Renwell. “Kill the traitorous whore.”

Renwell unsheathed a long sunstone sword. Kiera stumbled back, and I leapt for her.

But then Renwell whipped his sword through Weylin’s neck, severing his head from his shoulders.