20. Saoirse

Saoirse

A s Xanthi bid us goodnight and retreated to her chambers, the weight of my circumstance bared down on me. The urgency of finding the shard, mixed with the impending sentence of my doom and destruction, gnawed at me, making it near impossible to fully relax. I had no urge to go back to the bakery, to sleep and then have to do it all over again tomorrow. The quicker I went to sleep, the sooner I had to be at that dinner table.

Vane must have sensed my restlessness because he approached me, determination glinting in his shadow-covered eyes.

"We could go back to the bakery…or we could start exploring right now," he said, his voice low. "I say let's start tonight and see what we can find."

I nodded, my heart pounding with its usual stress, but an added layer of excitement at the thought of doing something that I most definitely should not have been doing. "The longer we wait, the more the rot grows. I know this castle well. Let me take the lead. "

We waited a little while longer, until the castle fell completely silent, only the sounds of the evening breeze from the sometimes-open windows. The corridors were dimly lit, casting eerie shadows that mixed with the dim sunlight, dancing along the stone walls as we passed. Vane and I moved cautiously, our footsteps barely making a sound on the cold floor.

I led the way, relying on my memories of the castle's layout to guide us. Six years was a long time to be gone, but it wasn't as long as the entire childhood I had spent behind these walls. The castle was riddled with secret passages and hidden rooms built by my family's past, places where my father could have easily stored something as valuable as the shard.

We reached a narrow corridor that I vaguely remembered, leading to a series of storage rooms and old chambers that only got used when the castle was fully at capacity, which was almost never. Even now, with the additions of the Mirens, they were not in use. I doubted the shard would be here, but I'd never managed to find all the hidden passageways, and we needed to leave no stone unturned.

I hesitated, memories of sneaking around these halls as a child flooding back. It hadn't been all bad, growing up here. Being the child nobody cared about came with its advantages, and I'd had plenty of time to spend by myself, where no one paid me any mind. Even the staff had left me alone.

Vane noticed my pause and turned to me, one brow quirked in question. The hint of a shadow teased from the collar of his shirt, more relaxed knowing we were all alone.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice softer than usual.

"I'm fine," I replied curtly, stuffing down my fears. "Let's keep moving. Patrols usually don't run this part of the castle, but I don't want to get caught here, regardless."

Vane gave me a skeptical look, but didn't press further. We continued down the corridor until we reached a heavy wooden door. Vane leaned in, listening for any signs of movement before pushing the door open. The room was all clutter, dusty furniture and abandoned trinkets littering the space.

"Passageways in this castle are tricky," I told him, as I began patting down the walls, searching for anything that might mark a hidden opening in the space. "Try anything and everything."

"Searching this way is going to take us forever," he sighed, a hint of an edge in his tone.

"Do you have a better alternative?"

The dark look he cast at me said everything I needed to know.

We searched the entire wing this way, finding only one hidden door behind a suspiciously placed wall built into the back of a closet, but it only led to a small crawl space, completely devoid of goddess powered shards.

As we neared the final room we'd decided to search for the night, Vane cast me a look. "You know, I never got the chance to tell you. You really impressed me the night that we met. For someone with no magic, you fought hard." His tone was uncharacteristically gentle, vastly different from his often arrogant tone.

I glanced at him, a flush creeping up my neck. Despite his demeanor, there was a sincerity in his eyes that caught me off guard.

"Thank you," I said softly, turning back to the chest I was searching through to hide my flustered expression. "But I would have died there if not for you. So, thank you . I never got to do that, either."

He paused, his hand lingering over an old, dusty book on an abandoned bookshelf. "You don't have to thank me," he replied, his voice low, thick with an emotion I couldn't identify. "I did what anyone would have done."

I scoffed, shaking my head with a small laugh as I turned to him. "Trust me, most people would have let Jephyr do whatever he wanted with me. You don't know what it's like to be cast out by your kind. Forced to live forever looking in. "

"Don't I?" The shadows faded from his eyes, crimson irises peering back out to me, the intensity of them stealing the breath from my lungs.

"You're right," I whispered. He knew exactly what that was like. I viewed him with appraising eyes, a new light cast upon the shadow that hadn't been there before. "Thank you for being there."

"Anytime," he said softly, his eyes never leaving mine, and butterflies erupted in my stomach under the attention.

"We should get going. At this rate, it'll take us two weeks to even search every section of the castle." I ignored the skip in my heart rate.

We headed back toward the hallway, making our way through the twists and turns to the door we had first come through. When we were only a few feet away, a sudden sound of footsteps approaching cut through our moment, and we looked at each other wide eyed. My heart leapt into my throat, panic surging through me. The footsteps were much too loud—no time to run, no time to hide.

We were going to get caught.

I gripped Vane's hand, trying to tug him in the other direction. Maybe if we were fast enough, we could find a place to hide. "We need to get out of here," I said in a rush. The footsteps grew even louder, and I tugged against him harder.

"Trust me," Vane whispered.

Without warning, he grabbed me with his free hand and pushed me against the wall, his body pressing against mine. I opened my mouth, whether to scream or speak, I didn't know, but Vane's lips crashed onto mine, silencing me. The shock of the kiss sent a white-hot jolt through me, and for a moment, the world fell away and I forgot where I was entirely. Normally my skin crawled when someone touched me, but this time, in this millisecond of sensation, I didn't care.

Time seemed to narrow down to only the feel of his lips on mine, firm yet surprisingly soft. His hand came up to slowly, gently cup my face, giving me every opportunity to push him away if I wanted. When I didn't, he titled my head just right to deepen the kiss, an electric shiver racing down my spine.

My heart pounded in my chest, each beat echoing the intensity of the kiss. I responded, my hands instinctively gripping his shirt, pulling him closer. His taste was intoxicating, velvety as sin. Fire ignited within me, burning a wildfire of heat.

Fingers threaded through my hair, pulling me even closer, and I gasped against his lips, the sound swallowed up by his mouth as a tiny groan escaped him. The footsteps drew nearer as we got lost in our own world. My back pressed against the chilly stone wall, a stark contrast that I barely felt through the heat building between us.

Vane's kiss grew more insistent, his teeth grazing my lower lip before soothing it with a gentle suckle that nearly buckled my knees. I knew this was absolutely crazy, that we had no business doing this and should stop immediately, but I was lost to the sensation. I could feel the rapid rise and fall of his chest, keeping pace with the erratic rhythm of my own. Fear and tension of potentially getting caught faded away to a burning desire that consumed all in its path.

The footsteps clamored loudly, coming to a halt outside the door. A voice rang out, and only then did Vane pull back. It was a reluctant slowness, his breath mingling with mine in the small space between us. I opened my eyes just in time to see the shadows take back over his heavy-lidded eyes.

"Who's there?" A voice rang out from the now open doorway. A stocky man in a Lightlace guard uniform stepped through. I couldn't make out his expression, and Vane's head turned over his shoulder to look at the man, effectively blocking my view. His hands had somehow slipped to my waist; when they got there, I had no idea. Embarrassment burned through me at my lack of awareness. "What are you two doing here?"

Vane's voice was steady when he said, "We were just... taking a break. "

"A break?" The guard's skeptical tone was clear, an edge of amusement to his words. Amusement was good. Amusement meant he didn't think we were really snooping around for a long-lost, all-powerful artifact.

Great.

"Yes," Vane said smoothly, his hands still on my waist, a fact I was currently hyper aware of. I was barely listening to the two men as they talked, my brain a steaming puddle of mush after my lips had been thoroughly ravaged. Of course, he'd only done it so that we wouldn't be caught. We barely knew each other; he couldn't possibly have been affected by that kiss as much as I had. And he didn't seem bothered by it in the slightest. "We work in the kitchens. We thought we'd sneak away for a moment. Didn't mean to cause any trouble."

The guard was silent for a moment, and I was almost certain he was scrutinizing Vane, and I hoped to all Daer had to offer that his shadows were securely hidden under his clothes. Finally, he heaved a sigh. "Get back to work. And don't let me catch you here again or I'll have to report you."

"Of course," he nodded, with the most respectful tone he could muster. "Thank you, sir."

Gripping my hand tightly in his, he pulled me through the open door, past the guard, with only the memory of his lips lingering on mine to show for the night.