Page 96 of Lore of the Wilds

They left the abandoned wing after passing countless other rooms, some with furniture covered by old sheets, others still filled with lavish decorations on display. Paintings, hand-painted end tables with delicate brush strokes, golden candlesticks, and even a tall instrument with fifty strings. All of them had been left behind and forgotten. Long ago, they had probably been cherished by an ancient royal.

It wasn’t long before they began to see signs of life.

As they kept walking, the disrepair began to disappear. The floors were recently swept and the doorknobs and sconces gleamed, freshly polished by maids. The wallpaper was vivid and bright,not faded as it had been in the abandoned wing. They heard voices behind closed doors and passed servants carrying trays of food.

They were in the royal quarters; a place Lore hadn’t seen before. Somewhere in these grounds, the King and Queen of Alytheria lived. They were ancient and childless, and when they finally succumbed to old age, they would leave no traditional heirs to the throne. The servants had talked during meals and expected mayhem from those distant relatives who would be in line to succeed. Alytheria’s stability would be threatened for the first time in hundreds of years due to the monarchs’ lack of a natural heir.

All of them exhaled a collective sigh of relief when they passed by guards standing at attention and exited the royal quarters. Apparently, the guards weren’t looking too closely at anyone leaving the quarters, being more concerned with those entering them. They would have to make it back to the tunnel and the passage to the sea using a different route; hopefully they’d be able to wind through the crowd of people still there for market day.

When they reached the dungeons, they found that the entrance was only manned by two guards. Asher walked up to them, making some joke Lore could not overhear. Both guards snickered, glancing toward the dungeons. Asher took the opportunity to knock them out with two quick jabs.

Grey and Finndryl dragged the guards to a nearby storage closet, and the team descended the stairs to the dank dungeons, weapons at the ready.

Lore held her breath, the anticipation of seeing her people again thrumming through her.

At last, they reached the bottom of the stairs.

But her people weren’t here. All Lore saw was a male, asleep on a mat in one of the cells. His membranous wings twitched in his sleep.

“I thought your source said they would be in the dungeons,” Isla whispered, her voice strained with fear.

“He did,” Asher replied, teeth gritted.

“It doesn’t matter. They aren’t here! Where else could they be? Think.”

And then suddenly, Lore knew. She remembered once seeing a giant room in the servants’ quarters, near where her own closet of a room had been. She’d seen the room for only a moment when a junior laundress had entered it, carrying bundles of sheets. The room was huge and filled with beds. At the time, she thought it was some type of infirmary room.

But it was big enough to house her people.

“I think I know where they are.”

Stashing their weapons away, they raced back up the stairs to the hallway. The servants’ quarters weren’t far from the dungeons, but they would have to pass the servants’ dining hall—the place where the guards ate as well.

Lore had a lot of hopes: hope that they wouldn’t recognize and arrest Asher on sight. Hope that they wouldn’t smell that Lore and Grey were humans or question why two light fae were roaming around the castle when things were so tense between the two territories.

All her hopes and dreams were riding on people not caring enough to take notice of them. The chance of that happening—of them being lucky enough to fly under the radar—made her want to laugh maniacally until tears streamed down her face.

But she stuffed that urge down and continued farther into the corridor, hoping.

They walked past the dining hall with purpose, and no one took note of them. They had two more turns before they arrived at the room she’d seen before. She was shocked when they arrived without being stopped. There wasn’t a guard outside the door, but she didn’t think too hard about it. She needed to know if her loved ones were in there, so she thrust the door open.

It was empty.

They all rushed into the room and Lore cursed, tears stinging her eyes as she looked around at the vacant beds.

Only, they were no beds lined against the walls. There were cribs. Each one had freshly laundered sheets, bordered by gleaming metal bars and shiny padlocks.

Chills rose up Lore’s back and goosebumps erupted on her arms. Why would anyone put padlocks on cribs?

Lore glanced outside a small window with iron bars screwed into the stone of the castle wall. Lead filled her belly.

Asher spoke up. “There’s one more place they could be, but if they’re there, then there is no way we can break them out. It’s heavily guarded by the Royal Guard. Those soldiers are the best trained, strongest magic wielders, and almost all of them winged. They’re such an exclusive group. I don’t even have any connections.”

“What do you mean ‘winged’?” Grey asked.

“I mean that they’ve got wings. Most fae with wings are high ranking and extremely loyal to the royal family. They’re their own kind of royalty among dark fae, so to speak. The families are almost always wealthy and one hundredpercent always in the royal family’s pockets. They’re mostly assholes, to be honest.” Isla rolled her eyes. “They tend to look down on us ‘grounders.’”

“Goddess. How are we going to find out if that’s where they’re imprisoning our people?”

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