Page 16 of Knight's End
Isla tilted her head. The smile she gave to Kylee was bone-chilling. “The soldiers I have coming here are pure giant.”
Kylee’s face paled. “There are horses as well.”
“Oh, no. That won’t do at all,” Isla shook her head. “That won’t be nearly enough. I did hear you have ten guests?”
Kylee swallowed hard and straightened. His eyes glittered with rage. He opened his mouth—
My hand clamped down on Cerena’s shoulder. It was an unbidden response to the anxiety in my stomach. But I distracted her. We lost the image in the stone. It rippled and went dark. The water-like surface disappeared, and the stone became nothing more than a flat black slab once more.
Blue shook his head. “That doesn’t give us much to go on. Could be nearly anywhere—”
“I know where it is,” Cerena and I spoke at the same time.
We glanced at each other, tension radiating from each of our bodies until it felt like we were tangled in strands of it—awful, choking ropes of anxiety.
Declan was the first to break away toward the door. “We’d best get going. How far is this place?”
“The Cerulean Forest,” my voice was breathier than I liked. But Kylee had been the closest thing I’d had to family back then. I knew exactly what his response to Isla’s request would be. And I knew his fate. I blew out a breath.
Connor squeezed my hand and pulled me toward the door as Blue helped Cerena up from her chair.
I glanced back at my castle mage and tripped, falling over a chair leg.
Connor caught me just before I hit the floor. I smacked into him and he tumbled onto his ass, yelping. “Ow!”
I pushed myself off him and stood quickly. “I’m sorry!” I hadn’t meant for him to catch me.
“No, it’s not you. I fell on something,” Connor pulled himself up and dusted off the rushes. He rubbed at his hip and studied the floor. He kicked aside a broken chair seat and a pile of rotted straw. "Umm… I think I might've found something."
I peered around him as he kicked aside more rushes, revealing a trapdoor with a rusted metallic ring for a handle.
“I fell on that,” he pointed at the ring.
Something about the trapdoor and the ring made me think of dungeons. Why would hedgewitches have dungeons? Who would they keep down there? What would they do? I’d worked with many hedgewitches while I’d been on my own. But always individually. Never in a group. They’d always been sweet, helpful. I’d always thought of them more as healers than anything else. But dungeons … A shiver crept up my spine. I glanced up at Cerena, who still held Blue’s elbow. "Is it common to have trapdoors in hedgewitch lodges?"
Her eyes grew narrow. Backlit by a ray of sun, with her face in shadow, the whites of her eyes seemed to gleam in an ominous manner as she said, "Only if this place was active after the last Fire War. As a place to hide, perhaps. Or if …" she trailed off and then glanced around the room. She walked toward one of the bookshelves and traced her fingers over it. Beneath the dust, there were a few magical runes. She traced a few of the symbols. "Or if this place was used for death magic."
I sucked in a breath. Death magic was possibly rarer than wizards. It was as dark and dangerous as the name implied. Death magic’s goal was to weave a spell and imbue power into an amulet that could reduce anything to dust, or so the old castle mage, Wyle, had told me. The danger was that the legendary amulets most often reduced their makers to dust upon creation. Like alchemy, death magic had always been more of a fairy tale than a reality.
I asked Cerena. “People actually …”
“There’s always someone willing to try.” Cerena’s response was brusque as she eyed the group. “If we go down there, don’t touch anything.” She wagged her finger at Quinn. “I know you're the most ornery. Maybe you should stay up here."
Quinn crossed his arms and shook his head.
“Promise me,” Cerena said.
Quinn made an X over his heart.
My castle mage sighed. “Let me go first. You all only follow if need be.”
Cerena nodded. And she jerked her head at Connor and gestured for him to pull open the door.
He yanked it open and revealed a ladder descending into the earth. The musty scent of dirt drifted up toward us from the black maw of the secret room.
I held up a hand and pushed out, using a bit of peace magic to light the space in a dull, peridot green light.
Declan immediately started to protest. “Peace, don’t hurt yourself.”
