Chapter 46

The second we crossed the castle"s threshold, the weight of despair and abandonment hit me full in the face.

"Those Howlers were guarding something," Raz mused, squeezing my hand as we both gazed up at the rotted-through ceiling. "But this feels like it's been empty for centuries."

I strained my memories, trying to recall everything I knew about the lord who called Harehollow home. "Lord Zareth visited Ravenswood one time, but I never saw the male himself. I saw the carriage, though, an ancient coach painted black, pulled by two midnight steeds. But I can't remember any more than that."

We slipped down the hallway behind a curl of my starry magic, our shadows dancing along the ancient stone walls, eerie silhouettes that took on a life of their own. My grip tightened on Raz. My other hand gripped the keystone, which remained cold to the touch as if the magic had gone inert.

"Something's wrong," I murmured. "The stone's magic has disappeared. Like it's…hiding."

"Perhaps the stone senses what I do," Raz murmured, his dark eyes reflecting the same dread rising inside me. "Death. This place is the personification of death."

We stopped at a crossroads where two corridors intersected, and I turned the stone in my hand, hoping for a clue of which way to go. "I can't sense a damn thing," I murmured, eyeing the gash on his cheek, the drying smear of blood. "We should leave, Raz. Cut our losses."

"We're already here." He studied the intersection with uncharacteristic intensity before he tugged me to the left. "This way. It's this way."

"Wait, you can feel the stone?"

"I feel something and it's pulling me this way."

"That's not necessarily a good thing." I rubbed the keystone harder, but when I pulled it out, the stone had gone dark.

Every step reverberated through the cavernous halls, mingling with the silence that grew deeper the further we delved into the castle. I didn't believe, as a rule, in ghosts, but if they existed, I imagined Harehollow would be where they dwelled.

We passed darkened rooms where I swore eyes watched us pass, whispers following in our wake. A chill, blood-icing terror began to take root.

There were no windows here, no light beyond my starry magic, and this deep in the heart of the castle, the air was ice-cold, darkness pressing in on us like a suffocating cloak.

"You're still feeling something?" I asked again, hating how loud my whisper echoed here. "Are you sure, Raz?"

"I'm sure. More than ever."

We kept going. Panic thrashed inside me. I wanted out of this place. I wanted to see the sky, to breathe fresh air.

Not be trapped down here in the dark like a worm. My darklings wrapped around my arms, writhing, as if they, too, wanted to be free of this terrible place. Finally, after a bewildering number of twists and turns, we found the end—a carved doorway flanked by two stone Howlers, their dull eyes staring down at us. Beyond them was a black stone pedestal in the center of an antechamber, crowned by a carved box illuminated by a single shaft of pale light.

Even from here I made out the symbol on the top.

A circle with an arrow.

The symbol of death.

Raz lurched forward, fingers outstretched before I dragged him back with both hands wrapped around his arm. "No, Raz. This could be a trap." He strained against my hold, my darklings wrapping around his waist. "This is a trap. I don't know how, but you can't go in there."

This whole room felt wrong. Like the house had read our minds and placed what we—what Raziel—most wanted right in front of us, ripe for the taking.

"What have you been thinking about today?" I asked, not letting him go, keeping our fingers wound tightly together. "What were you thinking when we entered this place?"

"How I wanted to burn this entire realm to the ground for what they've done to you. For hurting you." His throat bobbed. "For putting those shadows in your eyes."

I blew out a shaky breath. "What else?"

"I would hunt this Berenger and Estienne down and kill them all over again for laying their hands on you. Gods, Anaria, if you had only told me…"

"What else?" I asked urgently as he looked away, his jaw working.

"I wanted to find a stone. I wanted a box with my own mark on it." He rubbed his chest, his eyes flicking to that beam of light.

"I wanted proof. To know beyond a shadow of a doubt I was part of this. That you and I were tied together by something solid and irrefutable and real. Then I could lay my doubts to rest for good."

"Our love isn't real enough for you?" I asked gently. "I don't need anything in this world but you, Raz. Our love is enough for me."

"I'm a slave, Anaria." He sounded so bitter. "A nobody. There is nothing I can offer you beyond this body, nothing I can promise you beyond words. I have no home, no money, not even a name to give you. Even with the collar gone, even though I'm free, nothing has changed." He swallowed again. "I know this sounds foolish."

"It doesn't. Wanting proof of something isn't foolish at all." I gripped his chin with my other hand. "But know this. I am yours and you are enough, Raziel. You are enough for me and there is nothing in this world or the next that will prove that truth more than this."

I cupped that beautiful face in my hands and kissed him, my tongue sweeping across his, tangling, devouring.

Like I was starving for him.

Like I could never, would never, get enough of this consuming want that always existed between us, where every taste made me hungrier, every touch made me burn.

Our magic flooded the room, bathing the silt-gray walls in a galaxy of starry power, whirling and terrible and beautiful. My darklings snaked across the floor, driving back the shadows and the slithering voices, erasing the darkness completely.

The entire blighted, chaotic world narrowed down to Raziel. His taste. His scent. His warmth, sinking into me like an August sun. His calloused palm, cupping the back of my head with such tender gentleness tears pricked my eyes. His mouth dominant and demanding and fierce.

There was no question in his kiss.

No doubt.

I broke away, holding him still before me, searching his brown eyes.

"I don't need that box or any symbol to tell me you are the strongest, most honorable male I've ever known. And I would choose you again, Raz, every single time."

With a loud click, the temperature of the room dropped as the interlocked stones of the floor resorted themselves. The entire floor moved, then locked back together, forming a recognizable pattern.

A circle with a line running straight through it.

The magic that had previously felt threatening now felt like a warm caress.

The shaft of light turned to an ethereal glow, and this time I let Raz go, let him claim the box and flip open the lid, and when I reached into my pocket, my stone was warm against my palm.

Whether Harehollow Manor was a trap or some sort of illusion no longer mattered, because Raz had gotten what he'd come here for.

And so had I.

My darklings guided us back through the labyrinth of hallways and passages then out the front doors where we were greeted by a rising crescent moon. Raz swept his hand around my back and yanked me against him with a fierce grin.

"Since you lost the horse, I suppose I'll just have to carry you home, princess, not that I'm complaining." Our lips brushed and we were tangled together again, surrounded by the hulking Howler corpses, the malevolent misty air snaking around our ankles.

But neither of us cared.

Not with our souls tangled together, Raz's doubts finally put to rest.

We arrived back at Ravenshade, skirting the decaying bodies on our way upstairs, and found Bex still huddled over the duke's desk. The mage looked up from the stack of papers. "Success?"

"I suppose you could say that." In this light, Raz's gash looked bad, but he waved me off and set the box down with a grin. "We found another one."

Bexley inspected the box, then the keystone, carefully comparing them. "What I wouldn't give for a real library right now," he muttered. "I've never wasted much of my time researching keystones since they were so rare, but now you have…three of them?"

"So far." I couldn't stop grinning. "And Tristan and Tavion aren't even back yet."

All in all, today had been a banner day. We'd kicked some Descendant arse, freed two houses of slaves, and found four keystones. And the day wasn't, technically, even over yet.

"There's a library downstairs. Better, even, than the one at the Keep," I told Bexley. "If you can stand the smell, that is."

"The smell doesn't bother me. I lived my entire life in Tempeste, remember?" He lit the candles on the candelabra. "If I'm not back by dawn, come find me. I don't want to miss you dropping the wall."

We discussed creepy Harehollow while I cleaned Raz's wound, and I skirted his sneakily phrased questions about my past. I didn't want to talk about any of that. Somehow, I felt like all that ugliness would taint today's success.

I finally brushed his hair back from his face. "Someday, when all of this is over and we're sitting on that beach, I'll tell you everything. Until then…I'd rather let those memories lie."

He hadn't argued, just curled up around me and rubbed my back, both of us watching the fire burn lower until, finally, Tavion and Tristan returned just before midnight.

Tristan was grinning and covered in blood. Tavion loped into the room as his wolf, tongue lolling from his mouth. He transformed as Tristan dropped a heavy bag onto the bed then removed two engraved boxes, lining them up beside Raz and Tristan's before he dropped a loose stone beside them.

"Here is Tavion's, and this one's marked with Zor's symbol, plus that loose stone from Whitehall, but today was productive to say the least."

That meant we each had a keystone.

Well, they had theirs and I had…someone's.

The boxes—in various states of wear—were identical. Made by the same person, the artistry was exact, right down to the carved details on the sides. Tavion's was already open, lined with pale-blue velvet, and I used my magic to unlock Zor's box, his stone pulsing gently against a faded red velvet.

I blew out a long breath.

Five keystones plus the one in my pocket.

One for each of us plus a spare.

Who said we couldn't get lucky?

But what did they do? Better yet, what could we do with them?

The stone in my pocket hummed, and when I touched it, I yelped. "Gods, that's really hot."

Tristan reached into his pocket. His keystone glowed in his hand like a golden fire burned at its core before he cleared off a spot on the desk and set it down.

"Isn't that hot?" I tried touching mine again and yes, it practically burned my fingers.

"I have a high tolerance to heat." He grinned, hooking a thumb at his chest. "Wyvern, remember?" He dug into my pocket and removed mine, then set all the stones in a row. Together, they glowed like miniature stars, though mine seemed to have a whiter color and Zor's was more red. Raziel's gave off a dark, shadowy aura, and Tavion's…his glowed blue.

All well and good until smoke curled up around them from the coverlet.

"Am I the only one thinking we should split them up?" My husband hopped up and down, pulling on a pair of trousers, eyes bouncing between the stones. "Before we burn this place down?"

Maybe there was a reason these stones were kept in safes and magically warded rooms and boot closets.

Well-hidden and…miles apart.

In the end, we put them back in their metal boxes and stowed them in the furthest corners of the palace, then piled into bed to catch a few hours of sleep before the sun rose.