Page 216 of Of Nine So Bold

“Holy—” Clay exclaimed.

I hurried through the doorway.

“How the fuck did you just—” Clay stared as the wall shifted back into blank stone again.

“Are you okay, princess?” Lars asked.

I nodded. “The castle helped me.”

“Thecastle,” Clay repeated. “Okay.” He eyed the hallway warily. There were fewer branches here, but thin vines of rot were making their way along the cracks between the stones. “Thank you?” he called skeptically, like he was addressing the walls.

The ground thrummed beneath my feet.

I grinned. “It heard you. I think you’re welcome.”

He scoffed as if amazed.

“We need to get to the others,” Lars said. “Do you think the castle could… I don’t know, get us to them faster? We’ve already run into monsters that don’t look too happy to see us.”

“Or their puppet masters don’t,” Clay amended.

“Maybe.” I glanced around. “Could you?”

A pulsing quiver carried through the floor.

I nodded. “This way.”

We started running. Corridors split off ahead of us, each one veering from a path I knew into a narrow hall I’d never seen.

“How is it doing this?” Lars asked as we ran.

“Uh, magic?” Clay answered like it was obvious.

“Yes, but”—he ducked under a branch as we emerged back into a main hallway—“the actual physicalspaceshouldn’t?—”

I held up a hand, coming to a stop at the sound of running footsteps from beyond the turn. It wasn’t my men. They were hurrying this direction, but still too far away.

Clay and Lars took up positions ahead of me quickly, swords drawn.

Valeria rushed around the corner, her braid disheveled and dirt smudged on her face. Behind her ran a curly-haired young woman wearing a stained and torn dress—and at the sight of her, my world reeled.

“Fironia?” I gasped.

My maid choked on a sob when she saw me. “Oh, thank the gods, you’re alive!”

“How…” I shook myself, trying to regroup. “Harran told me you were dead! That you killed yourself after my father died.”

Fironia cast a quick glance at Valeria. “That’s only what the queen told everyone, my lady. I’ve been locked away this entire time. If not for Valeria finding me, I’d be there still.”

“Please, princess,” Valeria said, starting toward us, only to stop when Lars and Clay leveled their swords at her chest.

“How are you here?” Lars asked coldly. “Last time we saw you, we’d left you in charge of watching our backs in the mines. That didn’t exactly go well.”

Valeria grimaced. “I know. I’m sorry. We were captured.”

“Yeah, we’re going to need more of an explanation than that,” Clay snapped when she didn’t say anything else.

Her mouth tightened. “The queen had us brought here, and she tried to make us eat those apples. But when we wouldn’t, she killed the others. Me, she locked me up. Said she had plans for me.” Resolve flashed over her face. “It took me a while to pick the lock, but I got away.”

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