55. Gwyneira

55

GWYNEIRA

I raced through the corridor, monsters on my trail. I’d lost them briefly when I slipped into one of the servants’ access halls, but the reprieve hadn’t lasted long. Their running footsteps shook the ground. Their growls spurred me onward. All around, branches reached from the walls like skeletal hands. Rotting leaves fell in my wake, the growths upon them sending plumes of black spores into the air when they hit the ground.

And then more vines would begin up the walls.

Gods, if I survived, this absolutely would haunt my nightmares.

New growls came from up ahead. Three green-skinned monsters charged around the corner, cutting off my escape path. I skidded to a stop and tried to retreat, but there was nowhere to go.

Panic gripped me. I could shift, but if these possessed creatures touched me, would it have the same effect as the Voidborn?

I couldn’t lose my humanity here .

The monsters stalked closer, grinning. I backed away, my mind racing. I couldn’t?—

The wall at my side rippled like water. Where a moment before there’d been nothing but stone and tree branches, suddenly a door appeared.

What the…

Shoving aside my shock, I took the opening. The monsters roared as I yanked the door aside and then slammed it at my back.

The surface rippled again. Now only unbroken stone remained.

My heart pounding, I stared at the blank wall of stone. There were no branches. No rot. Everything was so dark only my vampire night vision stood a chance of piercing the gloom. But as I turned around, slowly scanning the corridor in which I found myself, I couldn’t recognize where I was at all.

To say nothing of the fact a magical door had led to this place.

Warily, I started forward. If this was a trick of my stepmother’s, it seemed a strange one. She wouldn’t save me from the Voidborn.

So who did?

Cautiously, I stretched my hand out, letting my fingertips trail along the wall. Beneath my touch, the stones warmed, a faint thrum carrying through them.

I stopped. I… I remembered this. I thought it’d only been a dream. When I lay unconscious on the edge of a cliff outside the Jeweled Coven’s sanctuary in the mountains, I’d dreamt of walking the halls of my castle. Of the stones vibrating ever-so-slightly beneath my fingertips.

Welcoming me home.

I pressed my hand to the wall. Beneath my palm, the stones quivered.

Ignatius spoke of the magic in Lumilia being tied to my bloodline. But what about the castle built atop the nexus of that magic, standing strong for hundreds of years while generations of my ancestors lived and died in its walls?

“You know me,” I whispered.

The thrumming grew stronger. Around me, the stones moved almost imperceptibly, and suddenly sounds echoed through the dark corridor.

“ —take the lead. Ozias, you’re the second line of defense behind him. We’ll find the princess?—”

My lips parted in surprise. That was Dex, but I could feel he wasn’t near me. The stones moved again, the change so slight that if I hadn’t been staring right at them, I would have surely missed it entirely. Growls carried down the hall, turning into hissing-clicks.

“—she won’t be able to get far?—”

My stepmother.

I stared at the walls as the stones shifted again, returning the corridor to silence. All those times I’d heard people’s voices carry through the halls… all those times I’d joked with my father of a “little bird” whispering secrets to me, giving a name to what I thought were mere oddities of the castle’s acoustics…

And no matter how often the servants hung tapestries to deaden those places at my father’s orders, others would only appear later on, carrying more secrets to my ears.

Like the castle was trying to tell me something.

I splayed my fingers on the wall, my heart hurting. “But you didn’t warn me about her .”

The thrumming changed, slowing and becoming… sad, somehow.

“You couldn’t, could you?” I wasn’t sure how I knew, except that it made sense in a way. “You wanted to, but you couldn’t?”

The vibrations sped up a tiny amount. It felt like confirmation.

A breath escaped me. Gods only knew what kind of suppressive spells my stepmother put around her quarters for all those years. Melisandre had done everything she could to keep us from learning the truth about her magic. She’d pretended even coming near her power would make our minds lose their grip on reality.

The irony was painful.

“But you saved me back there,” I continued. “Thank you.”

The thrumming became pulses like infinitesimal waves in the stone.

“This way?” I asked.

The pulses came faster.

“Okay.”

I hurried down the corridor, my senses stretching out around me. Ozias was somewhere to my right. Most of the others too. Clay and Lars were somewhere ahead and moving fast, maybe running from something I couldn’t perceive.

I sped up. “Can you help us with my stepmother?”

A shudder went through the stone floor, and my heart sank. Somehow, I suspected that was a no.

At least, not more than it already had. Given the way the other halls had looked, overgrown and pierced through with gnarled branches bearing toxic leaves, the castle was likely fighting a battle of its own.

The corridor came to an end in a closed door ahead. Slowing down, I put a hand to the wall again.

“Thank you.”

The stone shivered. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

“Holy—” Clay exclaimed.

I hurried through the doorway.

“How the fuck did you just—” Clay stared as the wall shifted back into blank stone again.

“Are you okay, princess?” Lars asked.

I nodded. “The castle helped me.”

“The castle ,” Clay repeated. “Okay.” He eyed the hallway warily. There were fewer branches here, but thin vines of rot were making their way along the cracks between the stones. “Thank you?” he called skeptically, like he was addressing the walls.

The ground thrummed beneath my feet.

I grinned. “It heard you. I think you’re welcome.”

He scoffed as if amazed.

“We need to get to the others,” Lars said. “Do you think the castle could… I don’t know, get us to them faster? We’ve already run into monsters that don’t look too happy to see us.”

“Or their puppet masters don’t,” Clay amended.

“Maybe.” I glanced around. “Could you?”

A pulsing quiver carried through the floor.

I nodded. “This way.”

We started running. Corridors split off ahead of us, each one veering from a path I knew into a narrow hall I’d never seen.

“How is it doing this?” Lars asked as we ran.

“Uh, magic?” Clay answered like it was obvious.

“Yes, but”—he ducked under a branch as we emerged back into a main hallway—“the actual physical space shouldn’t?—”

I held up a hand, coming to a stop at the sound of running footsteps from beyond the turn. It wasn’t my men. They were hurrying this direction, but still too far away.

Clay and Lars took up positions ahead of me quickly, swords drawn.

Valeria rushed around the corner, her braid disheveled and dirt smudged on her face. Behind her ran a curly-haired young woman wearing a stained and torn dress—and at the sight of her, my world reeled.

“Fironia?” I gasped.

My maid choked on a sob when she saw me. “Oh, thank the gods, you’re alive!”

“How…” I shook myself, trying to regroup. “Harran told me you were dead! That you killed yourself after my father died.”

Fironia cast a quick glance at Valeria. “That’s only what the queen told everyone, my lady. I’ve been locked away this entire time. If not for Valeria finding me, I’d be there still.”

“Please, princess,” Valeria said, starting toward us, only to stop when Lars and Clay leveled their swords at her chest.

“How are you here?” Lars asked coldly. “Last time we saw you, we’d left you in charge of watching our backs in the mines. That didn’t exactly go well.”

Valeria grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry. We were captured.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need more of an explanation than that,” Clay snapped when she didn’t say anything else.

Her mouth tightened. “The queen had us brought here, and she tried to make us eat those apples. But when we wouldn’t, she killed the others. Me, she locked me up. Said she had plans for me.” Resolve flashed over her face. “It took me a while to pick the lock, but I got away.”

Clay watched her for a moment, and then scoffed. “Never can keep a good general down, eh?”

Warily, Lars lowered his sword.

Her lip twitched gratefully. “We need your help, though. I could get her out“—she nodded toward Fironia—”but there are others. Wounded. Weak. We were scouting a way for them to escape safely when we found you.”

Lars looked torn, while Clay seemed on the verge of tucking his sword away. “We’ll be quick,” Clay assured his brother, starting forward. “We can’t?—”

“Wait.” I didn’t take my eyes from the two women as I walked a little closer. I wanted to believe them. Gods, I was relieved to see them alive.

Something just seemed… off.

“Please, my lady,” Fironia begged. “The people down there need your help.”

I nodded, but I didn’t move to follow her.

And suddenly, it hit me what was wrong.

I couldn’t hear their heartbeats.

“Stay away from them!” I grabbed the twins’ arms, yanking the men backward and then putting myself between them and the two women.

Valeria stared at me. “Princess?”

“Drop the act. I know what you are.”

“What?” Fironia looked baffled.

Confused, Valeria started toward me. “I don’t understand what you’re?—”

“I said drop the act!”

Valeria stopped moving. Lost and clearly baffled, she looked between me and the twins like she was seeking something to make my words make sense.

And then she scoffed, the expression falling away like it’d never been. Sharing a wry look with Fironia, she shrugged, her fangs appearing. “Oh, well. Can’t blame us for trying.”

Fironia grinned, fangs suddenly peeking out from between her lips too. “The mistress told us to have fun with you before draining you. I was so looking forward to leading you down to the pit where the mistress’s servants live, princess .” She twisted the word into an insult. “Seeing the shock on your face when you realized there wasn’t anyone to save. Savoring your cries of horror when we pushed these oafs over the edge.”

Valeria gave a dramatic sigh. “Guess we’ll just have to skip ahead to the feast.”

They lunged.

A door beside us suddenly swung open. A bucketful of water erupted from within, splashing Valeria and Fironia. It turned to steam when it hit them, reeking of garlic and making the women shriek in pain. Turning instantly to smoke, they writhed in the air for a moment and then fled down the hall out of sight.

“Oh. Goodness, that was dramatic.” Clutching the bucket to his chest, Harran emerged from the doorway. “The books were quite right about garlic.”

“B-books?” I repeated, staring at the thin, gray-haired man. Despite our surroundings, his livery was as spotless as ever. When he turned to me, he quickly smoothed a hand over his balding head as if surreptitiously attempting to straighten his few silver hairs back into place.

“In the royal library,” he confirmed. “Accessing it without permission was inappropriate, I am aware. Once matters return to normal, I shall chastise myself quite thoroughly and accept whatever punishment you decree. But since your stepmother returned, I felt it necessary to educate myself on the… the situation .”

He huffed out a ragged breath and then drew himself further upright. “My apologies, Princess Gwyneira. I find myself rather overcome. It…” A quiver of restrained emotion ran through him. ”It is quite good to see you again.”

“Do you know this guy?” Clay asked me as Harran executed a tight bow.

I nodded, dumbstruck. “He’s the castle steward.”

“You sure he’s not a vampire too?” Lars asked.

“I most certainly am not.” Harran sounded affronted. “But to prove it to you…” He dripped the remaining garlic water from the bucket onto the back of his hand.

Nothing happened.

Clay’s brow rose and fell. “Okay, well, how the fuck are you still alive, man?”

Lars winced at his brother’s words. “No offense,” he added on Clay’s behalf.

“My family has served the throne for seven generations.” Harran tucked the bucket down by his side, the same rigid propriety in his bearing that I’d seen every day of my childhood. “We have survived worse than this.”

Rot began climbing the walls behind him, while tree branches pushed through the cracks between the stones.

The steward blanched, retreating from it. “Perhaps not much worse.”

I shook my head, trying to dispel my shock. “Okay, um…”

Gods, how would he react to the fact I was in league with honest-to-the-gods giants storming the castle?

Ironic futility rose in me. Like it mattered?

“We need to find something,” I continued. “It—” I glanced to the side. Footsteps carried down the hall, but thank the gods, this time it wasn’t vampires or monsters. The others were here at last.

My relief faltered when it was the demon, not Roan, who rounded the corner first, my other men on his heels.

Harran gasped at the sight. “Get behind me, princess!” He flung himself between me and the demon.

“It’s okay!” I grabbed his arm before he could hurl the empty bucket at the demon. “He’s on our side.”

Eyes wide, the steward turned to gape at me.

“Harran, this is Demon.” I nodded at him. “And that’s Ozias, Dex, Niko, Casimir, and Byron. Guys, meet Harran, the castle steward.”

The demon’s eyes narrowed at him. “You are small and bear a foolish weapon, but you still defend my princess.” He nodded to himself. “You should stay behind me too.”

Harran blinked in shock.

I gave the steward a wincing smile. “It’s a compliment. Sort of.” Turning to the others, my relief returned. I longed to reach out to them, but I restrained myself to saying only, “It’s good to see you.”

They nodded, echoing the sentiment.

“Any sign of the others?” Niko asked.

I shook my head, worry bubbling up at the thought of having lost Ignatius and our new allies among the giants.

And Ruhl.

With effort, I pushed down the fear trying to overwhelm me. We’d find the shadow wolf or he’d find us. But either way, I had to focus.

“We need your help,” I said to Harran. “We need to find the place where my stepmother did the magic that caused”—I gestured around me tightly—“this.”

“Ah. That.” Harran nodded. “At first, they used the tunnels. But lately, the queen seems to have concluded the royal tree is a greater source of power.”

I cursed under my breath.

Harran’s eyes went wide with affront. “Princess!”

My men ignored him. ”What is it?” Lars asked.

I shook my head, trying to find a way to explain. But it made sense. Of course she’d used the royal tree. I’d thought the apples were a cruel joke, a twisting of the symbol that had defined the Aneiran queen for generations.

But what if it’d been more than that?

My eyes skipped to the walls. The ceiling. The floor. Rotting filaments of fungus were climbing across them all, like a miniature version of the destruction her magic was wreaking on the ley lines and the world.

The castle was steeped in the magic of the nexus. It was saturated with it to the point the building itself was very nearly alive. But with its roots twisting down into the earth itself, how much more saturated by the nexus was the tree?

“She’s using the royal tree as a channel to the nexus, using it to create all of this,” I said. “The apple trees we saw in the countryside. The fruits that steal people’s wills. Even the rot growing in the castle. It’s all connected. But if we…” Gods, it hurt to say. “If we kill the tree, maybe that’s how we can break her hold on the nexus.”

The twins and Niko shared a wary look, while Ozias glared at the walls as if blaming them for this personally. Dex frowned, looking away as if seeking a strategy, and Byron watched him as if hoping to spot when he came up with one.

“If she’s tied her corruption of the tree into the nexus,” Casimir said carefully. “Killing it might damage the nexus too. Perhaps irreparably.”

I hated that he had a point. “Or it hurts her enough that we have a chance to kill her .”

“With her gone,” Byron said, nodding, “the Voidborn might lose the hold they’ve gained on this world. Or at least on her magic. We could stabilize the nexus then. Use it to drive them out.”

Ozias gave a low sound of displeasure. “Assuming it doesn’t devour us first.”

“I will not let it,” the demon countered dismissively.

He sounded so confident, it pulled a smile from me in spite of everything.

“You’re risking her on that,” Ozias snapped back.

The demon hesitated, a hint of anxiety flashing over his face.

“With our powers as they are now,” Dex spoke up. “This might be the best chance we’ll ever get, so we need to take it. Agreed?”

Nods passed among the others, but Ozias just scowled.

The demon reached over, putting a massive clawed hand to his shoulder. “You and I will guard our mate, friend Ozias. We will make sure she is not devoured by this contemptible magic.”

My heart melted a little.

Gods, please let us all survive. I wanted a life with these monsters and men.

Closing his eyes briefly, Ozias nodded. “We will.”

“Okay,” Dex said. “Then there’s only one other problem.”

“The tree is in the courtyard,” I filled in.

Clay made a noise of understanding. “Where I’m guessing all the monsters will be waiting for us?” He nodded to himself. “Great.”

Ozias hefted his ax, grim resolve coming from him. “Then we kill them too.”

A breath left me, and I nodded. “Yeah.”

Harran stared around at us. I braced myself for him to protest. Surrounded by my giants, he looked like a frail old man desperately out of his depth.

But after a moment, the steward only exhaled sharply. “I will come with you.” Lifting his chin, he hefted his bucket like he bore the weapon of a king.

Dex nodded. “All right. We move fast and we protect the princess. No matter what.”

I frowned, but the others only voiced their agreement. Even the thin steward.

“Good.” Dex jerked his chin at the demon to lead the way. “Let’s go.”