Page 66 of Savage Crown
I winked at her, touched Val’s blade to the brass knob, and relished the satisfying unclicking of the lock.
It was time to pay Harrow back for all the pain he’d caused these people, the pain he’d caused Elia and Kaelric.
‘He murdered my children,’Valkaryn reminded me, her voice steel and sorrow mixed with unbridled rage.
‘He will die tonight,’I assured her as I crept down the hall and made it to the main door.
As I thought, there was no one there, and when I slipped outside, the streets were dead. Silent. Harrow had acted rashly, waking the whole city to look for me for twenty-four straight hours. Now I was going to walk into the lion’s den while he slept, and sever his head from his neck.
‘Godric first,’Val reminded me.‘If he has major wounds, I can partially heal him until his body can take over.’
I nodded, gripping her tighter. The weight of what lay ahead settled on my chest, but did not crush me. It only shaped me sharper.
I knew the castle courtyard and lower floor like I’d been there a thousand times. Val had only been talking about it all day. The cellar window was right where she said it would be, andlike she said, it was cracked open to keep the room cool for the vegetables.
It was partially buried, but I was small enough to slip inside, and past the patrolling handful of guards Harrow had outside.
Cold stone pressed my palms as I lowered myself. My back scraped the window ledge, and I stepped onto shelves covered in potatoes and carrots, dropping my weight to the floor. Each movement felt loud in the quiet, so I froze, letting the darkness settle around me.
Breath slow.
Heartbeat steady.
No footsteps.
No voices.
I stayed still, letting my eyes adjust. The earthy smell of root vegetables mingled with the damp air. I knew I was in the basement where Godric would be, but that was all the way at the other end and down another half-flight of stairs.
A windowless crypt, as Valkaryn described.
A prison beneath a prison.
And I was coming for him.
Padding out into the hallway, I peered left just as a wolf turned the corner, and I slunk back into the cellar, scrambling to hide behind the door. The clicking of nails on the stone floor caused my heart to pick up speed.
Did he see me? Did he recognize me? I was frozen behind the door, barely breathing as the wolf stepped into the open room.
‘Step out from behind the door. He smells you,’Val ordered quickly.
Damn. I did as she said, pointing the tip of my blade at the wolf. A burst of light shot from the blade, right between the wolf’s eyes, and it crumpled into a ball.
‘Not dead,’she confirmed.‘But if Mind Render finds something amiss, this entire castle will become our enemy.’
Then it was time to get Godric. I leaped over the wolf and burst down the hall.
The corridor bent left, then sloped downward. The air cooled with each step until my breath fogged. A smell of damp stone and old iron lay heavy, like the cellar in Hildreth after a rain. My boots were loud on the slick steps, so I slowed my pace. Valkaryn warmed against my palm as if urging me to move faster.
‘Right at the next junction. The crypt stairs will be narrow and steep,’Val murmured.
A pair of armored wolfkin rounded the corner above me in their human form, helmets tucked under their arms. I slid flat to the wall and pressed into a niche where the mortar had crumbled. One of the men paused, nostrils flaring.
I lifted the point of Valkaryn and let a trickle of light gather at the tip, a pinprick star. If he called out, I would strike, but the other man clapped him on the shoulder and muttered about the stew going cold. Their footsteps faded.
I exhaled slowly and kept moving.
At the bottom of the slope, a door of thick wood sat half ajar. Cold air leaked from the crack. I slipped through and found a second set of steps cut directly into bedrock. The walls sweated. A lantern sputtered on the lowest landing, wick turned low. Someone had been here not long ago.
