Page 85 of A Haven of Brimstone and Darkness

“What’s going on?” Maeryn’s voice pierces my panic.

Children. Parents. Why do I keep coming back to that?

“Kiera?” Soft footsteps draw nearer as Maeryn says my name.

I don’t know if I can win against Tryphone. I don’t know if I can save Ruen, but Idoknow one thing—and that’s if I try andfail … we’re all going to die. We can’t face them with any chance of failure. I won’t risk the Darkhavens—Ruen—like that.

A noise erupts from between my lips, something between a laugh and a sob. I clamp a hand over my mouth and look up into the surprised eyes of the four people staring at me. Maeryn. Niall. Kalix. Theos. All of them seem startled by the hysterical sound I just made. They’re not the only ones.

He would do anything, hurt and kill anyone, to keep you alive.

Kalix’s words come back to me, surfacing in my mind and circling it like a trio of vultures over a corpse in the road. Something in them makes me realize how alike we all are. Ruen and Kalix would kill for me and I have no doubt that if I posed the question to Theos, he would say the same. For them, I would do anything … kill anyone.

I turn and start running, ignoring the calls behind me in both masculine and feminine voices. “Kiera!”

Down the corridor and around the corner. Stairs. The grand hall. The closer I get to the assembly space, the thicker the crowd of people grows. I dive past them all. Hurried footsteps follow me. I don’t stop to see if it's Kalix or Theos or both following me.

We’re all out of time.

Chapter 40

Kiera

The secret passageway is as unguarded as it was the first time I found it. The only difference now is that I’m not seeing it with Ruen at my side. Pushing into the correct brick that’ll release the hidden lever and wincing as it scrapes my skin, drawing the blood needed for it to unlock. I pry open the door and fly down the stairs, sensing the others close on my tail.

I descend swiftly, followed by Kalix and Theos, not stopping until I get to the bottom. Unlike before when I’d had to use Ruen’s illusion ability to see through the gloom, the corridor of the underground prison is now well-illuminated. Someone has come through and cleaned off all of the web-coated torches and lit them.

“Kiera, what are you—” Theos’ question is ignored as I march down the corridor, straight for the end.

I hear the soft murmuring of voices between Caedmon and the woman in the cell next to his before I see them, but when they come into view, I halt in front of the space that separates their matching prisons.

“Kiera?” Caedmon stands from one of the rocks embedded into the dank floor of his cell and comes closer. “What’s going on?”

Caedmon looks better than the last time I saw him. His face isn’t nearly as sunken and his eyes have a bit more life to them. Ruen’s efforts seem to have paid off. I don’t answer him, however. Instead, I turn toher.

“Can you kill Tryphone?”

Her only response is silence.

I step forward and slam a fist into one of the teeth-like bars of her cell. “He helped you!” I yell before nodding down to newer and far less ragged clothes that don her still slender frame. “He fucking fed you and clothed you. The least you can do is answer me.” My voice is a low growl. “Can. You. Kill. Him.”

“Kalix? Theos?” Caedmon’s voice is the only audible sound as the final two Darkhavens arrive quickly behind me. “What’s happened?”

“Ruen was taken,” Theos says. Though neither I nor Kalix had told him as much, he’s smart enough to have deduced that fact. Right now, it’s the only explanation I’m sure he can think of for my willingness to come down here, to face this woman.

Ariadne stands up and shuffles closer to the opening of the cell. Steel gray eyes meet my own. Like Caedmon, her body reflects the effects of Ruen’s care. She’s by no means healthy or well, but she’s far more filled out and less skeletal than she had been days prior. Perhaps it’s the healing of the Gods, but I know there’s no possibility that I would have recovered as fast as she has even if she’s not quite yet there.

“Answer me,” I demand.

“After all the torment he has put me through, after his treatment of my daughter, I would kill my own father without hesitation,” she says, her voice subdued but her eyes cold and hard.

I inhale sharply and start to look around the edges of the cell’s bars for a way in—or rather her way out. “Then I need you to?—”

“I’m afraid, though, that since your question is not ‘would I’ but ‘could I,’ then my answer is no. Even I don’t have that ability.” My hands go still as a burning sensation sparks a fire behind my eyes.

Pressing my palms into the rough stone of the bars, I curl my fingers around their surface. Heat pours through me.Can’t. Can’t. Can’t.I close my eyes as tears threaten to leak down my cheeks.

Distantly, I hear Caedmon’s deep baritone as he speaks to Theos and Kalix.Taptaptap.I grind my teeth at Ara’s insistent plea to get my attention.

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