Page 91 of Forged By Heart and Claws
The lock clicked, and I jammed the key back in and twisted it hard.Click.The door was locked again. I kept my hand there twisted in place, not wanting to chance them unlocking it and coming through the door. “My key overrides the mechanism. I can do this all day.”
“As can I,” Colm sang back, amusement dripping from his voice. “It’s not as if you can go anywhere. Might as well surrender now and save yourself from a slow death.”
Four rubber tubes wriggled under the bottom of the door. My stomach dropped, knowing that they were the ones for poisonous gas. I stepped on them to block anything from getting in, but I knew it wouldn’t stop everything if he released the gas.
“I’ve heard being unable to breathe is a big problem.” Calla Lilly snorted.
Veralt slammed his shoulder into the stone wall at the far end of the tunnel. A frustrated roar tore from him. “Trapped like rats,” he growled, breath labored. “I can’t punch through this.”
He backed up and rammed his shoulder into the stone again, but the wall didn’t even flinch. Dust fell in a lazy waterfall.
Thalen held the lamp higher, his sharp eyes scanning the walls. “There’s got to be a seam or… something. Come on, these places were built withfail-safes.” He paused, then dug into his pack and pulled out a knife with a thick, reinforced spine. “I’ll try wedging it under the edge. If I can loosen the seam, maybe Veralt can lift it.”
The metal scraped stone as he worked. Veralt stepped in beside him, gripping the edge with both hands and straining. His arms bulged, veins standing out beneath sweat-slick skin, but the door didn’t move.
“This place was built to survive a siege,” I muttered.
Briar’s cinnamon-and-smoke scent cut through the choking tension and anchored me. She stood at the center of the tunnel, palm pressed flat against the sealed door. Her knuckles were white, her whole body trembling just slightly, like a wire stretched too tight. Her eyes locked on mine.What are we going to do?
Her voice was so distant in my thoughts now that she might as well have been on the other side of the door and on the far side of the room.We’ll figure something out.I told her, forcing confidence I didn’t feel.
I kept the key in the lock to keep Colm from deploying the locking mechanism again, but my thoughts were in turmoil.
Behind the wall, Colm’s voice rang out again. “Oh, this is going to be so incredibly satisfying.” His tone was soft, almost reverent. “To know that I’ll have the privilege of slaying the father, the mother, the son, and the mate. Maybe even your sister, too, if we find her before the shadow beasts do.”
A stillness fell over me. It wasn’t calm or fear. It was something colder. “What did you just say?” My wings flared wide, slamming the stone walls on either side of the narrow corridor. Heat exploded down my spine like a lightning strike, and every muscle in my body went taut.
“You were involved in my father’s death,” I said through clenched teeth. “But mymother’stoo?”
A strangled breath escaped Briar. “He’s trying to torment you. Don’t believe anything he says.”
On the other side of the wall, Calla Lily giggled. Colm’s voice sounded elated as he said, “I’m fairly certain your ears still work, Vad. Yes, I killed your mother and father. Now I’m going to kill you, Briar, and Elara too.”
“You bastard!” Briar lunged toward the wall, striking it with her palm.
“What did my mother have to do with this?” The rage inside me had turnedglacial.“You were planning this for that long? Since before my father’s death?”
“Of course we were planning before your father's death.” Colm scoffed. “You think revolutions happen overnight? It takes years. Decades. Your mother got in the way and influenced your father to do the same. Idealists are always the first to bleed.”
Briar’s eyes were wide with shock. “Vad, think about it. Why would he be telling you this now?”
She was right. It had to be a stall tactic…which meant he probably had guards coming to the other side of the stone door.“Fecking void! We have to find a way out of here,” I whispered, hoping that Colm couldn't hear.
“We’re working as hard as we can,” Thalen murmured as he chipped away at the stone next to Veralt.
If Colm was willing to talk, I would let him. Mother’s death had never made sense to me. “My father never employed you. You were never a part of this court.”
A thin, delighted laugh rasped through the wood. “I trained interrogators and performeddemonstrationsto remind rulers what happens when they grow soft. Your mother called my methods ‘barbaric’ and said they produced false confessions.” He scoffed, a brittle sound crackling with hatred.
“Iswear,” I snarled, voice low and shaking, “when we get out of this, I will tear him apart with my bare hands, with or without magic.” And I would enjoy every second. The metal of the key warmed under my touch as I kept it turned.
Colm continued, not seeming to have heard me. “One opinion from a beloved queen, and suddenly other kingdoms found itfashionableto agree. Rulers who once welcomed me began shutting their doors. The Aureline saw me as a liability, and I had to claw my way back to relevance.”
He struck his fist against the stone. “So I adapted. Because, unlike your mother, I understood the truth. Fear is the strongest weapon a crown can wield, but she made them believe they didn’t need weapons. That they could begoodand still be obeyed. Self-righteous little saint. Thanks to her, I nearly lost everything.”
My head jerked back. He was worse than I’d ever expected. He truly had planned this for decades.
Briar scurried to the other door and began hacking at it with her sword.
