Page 103 of Prince of the Sun

She points toward the boxes with her stick, like a professor lecturing to her class. “The vaaska can only move one box at a time, which means that, each day, it will alternate odd and even. So, either it must be in 2 or 4 on the first morning, or in 2 or 4on the fourth morning. We use this logic twice, which gives us six steps.” She looks up at us then, grinning. “QED.”

“I,” Berendir says, “have no fucking idea what you just said.”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s simple, you troll. If it’s odd first, then the first 3 moves aren’t useful. But since evens and odds alternate, the fourth one will always be even. So, essentially, once we know it’s on an even, we can get the vaaska in three steps.” She points back at the boxes with the stick. “We don’t know if it will be on even on the first or fourth, so we’ll try both and one must be right.”

Berendir narrows his eyes, clearly just as lost as before.

Cara sighs, pushing herself up off the ground. She looks up at the Trial Gate and says, “432432.”

The Trial Gate lets out a loud exhale as the light splits open, as if sighing in relief at someone finally getting the answer right. Same as before, the text vanishes as the Gate opens, revealing nothing but trees in the distance. Trees and something else, too. Not another Trial Gate. No. There are shapes amongst the black trees, towers and arches, a cornice, a colonnade, a shadowy stream with a stone bridge connecting one side to the other—

“Árrion,” says Daerios, his voice thick with emotion.

Berendir claps a hand to his shoulder. When he speaks, he sounds just as choked up as Daerios. “We made it, brother. We’re home.”

They’re on us in seconds.

They come from the trees, from the bushes and branches—long, pale figures cloaked in dark robes, spears held at the ready. They look exactly as I remember them. Exactly like the elves who murdered my father. In an instant, fury funnels into my body, starting with my chest and spilling outward, filling every limb. The edges of my vision go red as I watch them close in on us. Moonlight reflects off their grey-green skin. I want to steady my bow and start firing, take them down one by one until no Shadow Elves are left before us. But that isn’t why we’re here. We have a plan, and I promised I’d stick to it.

So we keep perfectly still as the guards approach us. Daerios and Berendir do their best to look harmless, but I can see the muscles tensing in their arms and legs, defensive instincts kicking in to protect us should anything go wrong.

“What business?” calls a guard in Lukkarin. He’s perched in a tree several yards away.

“We came to see the Shadow King,” Daerios calls back. “We have something that he wants.”

“Oh?” The guard who spoke leaps from the branches, landing lightly upon the black grass and starting toward us. “And what might that be?”

Daerios places a hand on my shoulder. My muscles clench, because I know what comes next. I’ve been waiting for it since the moment we left Lûth’s apartment in New York. But that doesn’t make it any less terrifying.

He gives my shoulder a gentle squeeze, then pushes me toward the guards. As he does, he says, loud enough for every guard to hear, “We found the true Lightbearer.”

On the inside, Árrion is so dark I can hardly see my own feet. There are no windows and hardly any walls, but only so much moonlight can seep in through the trees that grow in abundance around the open-air corridors.

Every dozen feet, there’s a lamp lit by blue fire, and I say a small prayer of thanks each time we walk past them. It gives me enough time to glance over my shoulder at Cara, or Berendir, or Daerios, and receive a small smile or a wink of encouragement. Those gestures are all that keeps my feet moving forward, my shoulders from shaking, my body from crumpling into a pile of terror.

That, and the idea of seeing Michael again.

Because I’m so close, now. This is where they’re keeping him. Itmustbe. If they thought he was the Lightbearer, they would keep him in the most secure location in Elaërion—and, according to the boys, that is and always will be Árrion.

Unless, of course, they’ve already killed him.

But I can’t let that possibility grab hold. I need a clear mind right now. Sharp eyes and a sharper heart. Michael will be here. He will. And we’re going to get him back.

The guards lead us through the corridor, which curves in one long, seemingly endless left turn. Árrion is carved into the rocky hillside, a maze of rooms and corridors and stairwells without roofs. I can imagine how stunning it looks when the sun shines upon the valley in full force, but right now? It feels like the inside of Dracula’s castle.

At the end of the corridor is a tall arch filled with wooden double doors. The guards come to a halt before the doors, spreading out to flank either side. I do my best not to flinch as I walk through the alley of tall, pasty bodies, straight toward the double doors. Just before I reach them, the guard from the treetops—their leader, I’m assuming—sticks out a pale green arm to stop me.

“Halt,” he commands in Lukkarin. “We will await the signal to enter.”

I wish I could reach back for Daerios’s hand. I wish I could back up into his arms, feel the weight of his muscles holding me close. Squeeze my eyes shut and pretend I was anywhere else.

Instead, I nod at the leader and say, in Lukkarin, “Understood.”

He raises his eyebrows, as if impressed that a human has mastered one of the elvish tongues. If only he knew. I probably speak more dialects of elvish than he does.

Three short raps sound on the other side of the door. The head guard steps in front of me and pushes open both doors at once.

We step inside to find a round, high-ceilinged chamber with stone arches running up one half of the space. The other half is open to the night, looking out over the valley below. A wide hole is cut into the top of the ceiling, through which moonlight filtersinside and pools at the center of the floor. Pale light illuminates a pattern of tiles on the floor, all of which contain various painted versions of the sun. Of course. This was once the chamber of Varith Ariar, leader of the Sun Elves. I’m surprised the Shadow Elves haven’t pried the tiles up from the floor yet; they’ve only had a century to do so.