Page 34 of What Lies Within Blood & Heirs

“You don’t want to know,” Thalon and Garrik said at once, looking at one another and shaking their heads.

Garrik turned to Aiden and crossed his arms. “Do not touchanything.”

“Fff-fine,” Aiden mumbled under his breath, “You lot are no fun whatsoever,” and spun around to his door. The wind caught his long black coat before he twisted the handle and strolled inside.

“This place is an entire mansion. How am I supposed to search a hundred doors?” Aiden whined down a hallway that led to a sitting room decked with finery and furniture fit for a king.

“You’re the one who chose Moon,” Jade drawled from an amethyst chaise, lounging, feet propped on the armrest, while faelight flickered off her starfire ring and she scraped dirtunderneath her nail with a dagger. Apparently, her door offered a room filled with clouds and windows. And a staircase that led to … nothing.

Thalon too had no such luck. The Sun door wouldn’t open, so he had moved to one of the remaining doors and disappeared inside.

Down a long winding staircase below the star-emblemed door, Alora hesitated through another threshold. Going down was easy. Returning up the steps was the difficult part.

But she would face that when she had to. Right now, Blood was her only focus, so she stepped into the room.

Fit for a queen, the bedchamber’s colors burst like stars. Alora found herself surrounded by golds, pearls, and shimmering silvers, deep inside her door’s room now.

A fireplace of marble, etched with fine details of silver and gold, stood as tall as the ceiling. Elaborate furniture such as dressers, vanities, and more couches than a single faerie would need. And the rugs—they looked as if they came from the Stars Eternal. Like clouds billowing over every surface. Desks adorned with golden handles and legs, chandeliers of ten thousand crystals, and a bathroom of equal magnificence waited outside double doors laden with gemstones.

The air, though—it felt strange. Like some warning whispered in it, but shecouldn’trun away. Her legs only allowed her to amble around the room covered in a thick layer of dust as if no one had been there for thousands of years …

And it wasn’t the honey-stitched white sheets or the gold-framed four-post bed teeming with fine curtains of lace and silks that stole her breath. Not even the fact that it appeared slept in—recently.

No, it wasn’t that at all that forced her feet to retreat toward the threshold.

She didn’t realize she had inhaled in a panic until Garrik called from the door at the bottom of the staircase,“Did you find it?”

Alora swallowed, eyes locked on an iron shackle and chains attached to the bed frame. “No,” she answered quietly as if the act of speaking too loudly would summon whatever monster had used those chains. So, Alora gave Garrik an expression that conveyed her feeling of terror and pointed. “Look.”

Garrik’s face paled when he followed.When he saw that shackle and chain, long enough to wander around the entire room and those attached to it.

“What happened here?” Alora breathed, glancing sidelong at him. At his rage—worry.

“I … do not know,” Garrik thickly admitted and took a step to cross the— “Fuck.”

Alora whirled to find Garrik standing in the doorway.

His fist slammed into … nothingness.

“I cannot cross,” he growled and scanned the wooden frame. Lifting his palm, Garrik attempted to punch through, but again, he met nothing but an invisible wall. “Get out of there,” he snarled, eyes fading to night.

Maybe she imagined it, but the mountain, it seemed to tremble.

Alora frowned and retorted, “I haven’t searched in here yet.”

That didn’t seem to please him. “I promised no harm would come to you, and I cannot keep that promise if I cannot get to you.” There was a cold bite there. One that should have her yielding, but …

“I’m perfectly fine.” She was. And they hadn’t found Blood yet.

Embers lit in her hands, dancing between her fingers until a flame ignited, proving to him her magic was still surging through her veins.

But even so, her eyes watched his. How they darkened despite her magic, frantically scanning the threshold and darting inside the room. How his posture shifted uncomfortably, every vein in his arms bulging, every hardened muscle taut when his back straightened.

The nervousness was unlike him. An odd emotion he rarely showed.

Garrik pushed both his hands into the invisible wall, sinking his weight into it. If it were glass, it would have shattered. “Your courage is astounding.” It sounded more like sarcasm than a compliment. “Can you at least step outside so I know you are able to leave?”

“So you can grab me and whisk me away to another room?” Alora raised her eyebrow and crossed her arms.

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