Page 215 of Of Nine So Bold

Welcoming me home.

I pressed my hand to the wall. Beneath my palm, the stones quivered.

Ignatius spoke of the magic in Lumilia being tied to my bloodline. But what about the castle built atop the nexus of thatmagic, standing strong for hundreds of years while generations of my ancestors lived and died in its walls?

“You know me,” I whispered.

The thrumming grew stronger. Around me, the stones moved almost imperceptibly, and suddenly sounds echoed through the dark corridor.

“—take the lead. Ozias, you’re the second line of defense behind him. We’ll find the princess?—”

My lips parted in surprise. That was Dex, but I could feel he wasn’t near me. The stones moved again, the change so slight that if I hadn’t been staring right at them, I would have surely missed it entirely. Growls carried down the hall, turning into hissing-clicks.

“—she won’t be able to get far?—”

My stepmother.

I stared at the walls as the stones shifted again, returning the corridor to silence. All those times I’d heard people’s voices carry through the halls… all those times I’d joked with my father of a “little bird” whispering secrets to me, giving a name to what I thought were mere oddities of the castle’s acoustics…

And no matter how often the servants hung tapestries to deaden those places at my father’s orders, others would only appear later on, carrying more secrets to my ears.

Like the castle was trying to tell me something.

I splayed my fingers on the wall, my heart hurting. “But you didn’t warn me abouther.”

The thrumming changed, slowing and becoming… sad, somehow.

“You couldn’t, could you?” I wasn’t sure how I knew, except that it made sense in a way. “You wanted to, but you couldn’t?”

The vibrations sped up a tiny amount. It felt like confirmation.

A breath escaped me. Gods only knew what kind of suppressive spells my stepmother put around her quarters for all those years. Melisandre had done everything she could to keep us from learning the truth about her magic. She’d pretended even coming near her power would make our minds lose their grip on reality.

The irony was painful.

“But you saved me back there,” I continued. “Thank you.”

The thrumming became pulses like infinitesimal waves in the stone.

“This way?” I asked.

The pulses came faster.

“Okay.”

I hurried down the corridor, my senses stretching out around me. Ozias was somewhere to my right. Most of the others too. Clay and Lars were somewhere ahead and moving fast, maybe running from something I couldn’t perceive.

I sped up. “Can you help us with my stepmother?”

A shudder went through the stone floor, and my heart sank. Somehow, I suspected that was a no.

At least, not more than it already had. Given the way the other halls had looked, overgrown and pierced through with gnarled branches bearing toxic leaves, the castle was likely fighting a battle of its own.

The corridor came to an end in a closed door ahead. Slowing down, I put a hand to the wall again.

“Thank you.”

The stone shivered. The lock clicked and the door swung open.

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