Page 130 of Wings of Betrayal

The sound of running water echoes around us from a large fountain near the side of the room. Why is this place so quiet? We haven’t seen any watchers since we arrived here, aside from Grazen.

Shaking it off, I lead Kyle, Nilo, and Em through the foyer and into a wide corridor to the left.

We follow it for a bit, and I’m starting to worry we’ve gone the wrong way when I see it. The stone staircase Grazen mentioned that leads deep under the castle. And if I were to hide a powerful weapon of the gods, it would be down there.

I glance around, curious where all the watchers are. Was Grazen’s distraction really that good? I try to shake the unnerving feeling gnawing away inside me, instead focusing on the task at hand. But I can’t seem to shake it. It’s just too convenient, and I’m half expecting watchers to leap out and attack us at any given moment.

“Everyone ready?” Kyle asks, pulling me back to the present.

I swallow down my uncertainty as best I can and nod. “Let’s go.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

This part of the castle is so dimly lit, I can barely see anything before me.

I create a ball of power between my hands to help light the way, and the others do the same. The farther we descend these stairs, the cooler it gets. There’s a thick scent of dirt and death down here, which only tells me we’re going the right way. Those lost ones carry a stench worse than death, and it makes me shudder at the thought of it.

We finally reach the bottom of the stairs, and I let out a sigh of relief at being on flat ground again.

“You sure about this?” Em hesitantly asks.

I turn to face her, holding my ball of light out so I can better see her face. “Can you smell that?”

She scrunches her nose. “Of course I can.”

“Well, that’s the stench of the lost ones. So yes, we are going the right way. If they are down here, then so is the weapon.”

Surprisingly, she doesn’t argue or throw back some snide remark. Maybe she really does want to clear the air with me. But there’s little chance of that happening anytime soon, especially down here. We need to focus on the task at hand, nothing more, nothing less.

“Which way should we go?” Nilo asks as he wanders around with his ball of light.

There appears to be four tunnels we could take. The wrong one could send us on a spiral beneath this castle, and the thought of getting lost down here freaks me out a little. I wander over to one of them and take a few steps down it, but it just doesn’t feel right. I try the next one, but still, something inside me says it’s the wrong way.

“What, you got some sort of lost-one sixth sense or something?” Em jokes.

I try the third tunnel, and when I take a few steps down it, a strange tingly sensation crosses over my back, right down my scar. Leaping back, I reach my arm around beneath my cloak and rub the skin there. What in the gods?

“What’s wrong?” Kyle asks, taking hold of my arm.

I draw my brows together, confused at what the heck just happened. “I don’t know. My scar did something strange.”

“Your scar? From the lost one?” Nilo questions.

Em scoffs then walks over to the tunnel where it happened. “That’s weird.”

Kyle cups my cheek. “You okay?”

I nod. “Yeah, I think so. Was just a strange feeling. Come on. Let’s keep going.”

I move ahead of the others, choosing the tunnel that gave me the strange feeling.

Kyle gently takes hold of my wrist. “I’ll go first.”

I don’t argue with him. We follow the tunnel for some time, and all the while, my scar tingles. Without a clue as to why in the gods it’s doing that, I try my best to ignore it. I don’t dare tell the others it’s still happening, either. The last thing I want to do is freak them out in any way. It’s probably nothing.

“These damn tunnels seem to go on forever,” Em complains, and she’s not wrong.

We’ve been walking for, if I had to take a guess, a good thirty minutes now. Surely there will be an end in sight or even a change in direction.Something.

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