Page 47 of Claws of Death

With a last, hateful glance at the room, he crosses the threshold, Herinor and me following suit. I don’t dare look back over my shoulder for fear of what the ghosts of my past will show me if I allow my thoughts to wander there.

My tattoo is heating anyway, claiming my focus as we wander down a familiar set of stairs—the one the Flame guards dragged me down to visit Herinor’s torture chamber.

The tension is palpable, rolling off both males the closer we get to the fateful door behind which Herinor first alerted Myron to my location by hurting me. I try not to think about it, but the pain has permanently settled into my memory, and I suck air through my teeth not to drift back into those moments of agony altogether.

One slow exhale. One inhale. Another steady exhale.

I can see the ostentatious entrance hall again, the set of stairs turning away from the main corridor to our right. Herinor leads us straight there, and my heart pounds like a traitorous drum.

I’m not afraid of you.

I haven’t thought that sentence in a long time. But now, I need it, or I’ll crack apart.

The corridor is lit by eternal torches left and right when Herinor guides us past the door to his torture chamber into a dark tunnel which I can’t remember from last time. What I know immediately is that we’re on our way to the dungeon. Within a few paces, iron bars come into view. I instinctively keep away from them, remembering the magic-draining substance painted on the bars at the palace in Meer.

Myron hasn’t left my side since we exited my old bedroom, his muscles taut, features grim, and cold rage simmering beneath the surface that I wouldn’t wish upon anyone—except for Ephegos and Erina, perhaps. They deserve it.

It’s become unnerving that no one has come to investigate what caused the noise on the second floor, but who am I to complain? If we get in and out of this house without being detected or confronted, I’ll be a happy person. If we get to bring a bunch of missing fairies along, I’ll be ecstatic. It will ensure us the alliance with the Fairy King and potentially help us win a war.

I keep my mind away from the fact that Recienne will have to fight this war whether or not he works with us. Erina is determined, and Ephegos won’t be satisfied without his share in the whole plan.

A shiver runs down my spine at the mere thought of fairies at the Tavrasian king’s feet, their strength and powers gone.

We’re halfway down the line of empty cells when I see them in them.

Tall, beautiful shapes, hanging from the ceiling like slaughtered deer. My breath catches as I smell the tang of iron and decay.

“They killed them all—” I can’t help the words from slipping out while Myron and Herinor seem to have lost their voices.

Detaching from Myron’s side, I rush ahead, sheathing one of my daggers so I’d have a hand free in case there is a way to unlock the cell. At first, it’s mere outlines, long and heavy bodies, tied by their wrists to steel rings screwed into the stone ceiling, their bodies sagged and motionless. Blood covers their bare arms and faces—such beautiful faces distorted with grimaces of pain. Puddles of urine are drying up under their feet where their bladders loosened the moment life left them. The stench hits me as if the wind just turned to shove it in my face. But there’s no wind down here. Only stale air carrying proof of the fairies’ suffering.

“Guardians—” Covering my mouth and nose with my free hand, I catch my breath, trying to count the number of corpses.

“What the fuck happened here?” Herinor’s tone could cut through solid rock, and he looks nothing like the seasoned, ruthless warrior I know him to be as he takes in the cruelty inflicted on the fairy captives.

Ayna

“This is madness.”

Myron rushes past me, silver power cracking at his fingertips as he inspects the heavy cell door for weakness, then makes quick work of the hinges with a few powerful strikes of his blade. The steel sways on the threshold, moving painstakingly slowly as it collapses into the corridor. Myron steps out of the way just in time not to get hit on the shoulder by the tumbling obstacle, apparently too eager to free the fairies from their bindings. To give them dignity, even in death. That’s the kind of male Myron of Winghaven is. He’s inside the cell a heartbeatlater, getting to work cutting down one limp fairy after the other and laying them down on the ground.

Herinor is right beside him, searching their bare and relatively clean arms for something I can’t see from this angle, so I join them inside the cell, heart ricocheting as I cross the ancient threshold.

Trap, something inside of me warns.

“We need to get out of here.” My words get lost in the shaking of my voice as I realize what Herinor has been inspecting.

Little puncture holes dot the fairies’ arms, their size a perfect fit for the needles Ephegos used to inject his victims with the magic-nullifying drug. At least, all the parts of their skin that are whole. The rest of their bodies are charred and singed, blistered and bleeding. All, except for their features, as if the Flames want us to recognize whom they mangled.

“Something feels off,” I try again, the sense of foreboding in my chest becoming an unforgiving pressure.

“Somethingismassively off,” Herinor agrees, but he’s gesturing at the corpses now littering the ground. There have to be at least twenty of them. “Someone used these poor bastards to experiment on them while they were tortured.”

My stomach turns, and I vomit right in front of my feet. I’ve seen Ephegos and Erina do some sick torture, have experienced some of it myself, but this level of cruelty… How long did these fairies suffer before Eroth showed them mercy and took them behind his veil?

The nausea won’t fade, but Myron and Herinor are doing the only thing we can: Showing the deceased this last kindness. So, instead of following the impulse to bolt, I jointhe two males’ efforts and cut down the female closest to me. She sags into my arm, not stiff like the dead the others have laid down on the packed earth floor but like someone who passed out. Her dark, dirt-smeared skin is warm enough to suggest she might still be alive.

Hammering a melody of hope, my heart speeds inside my tight chest. If we can save one—justone—of these fairies, it will be a victory in itself.

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