Page 158 of A Crown of Lies

Vinolia watched them go, her face sour. “Only good for one thing, dogs, and that’s chasing away cats.”

“What can I do for you, Matriarch?” Ruith forced himself to be polite. They were in public, after all.

She smoothed her wrinkly hands over the front of her bright yellow dress. “I came to see what you were doing about my missing granddaughter.”

It only took you an entire day to give a damn, Ruith thought.Except you don’t, do you? You’re only here because she’s a Runecleaver and you need to be seen acting as if you’re doing something.

“We’re doing everything we can.” He repeated the carefully crafted sentence. It was the same one he’d been using with everyone else.

But Vinolia Runecleaver was not everyone else.

“Don’t insult me, Crow,” she spat with vitriol. “Don’t feed me shit with icing and call it a cake. I want to know what’s beingdone.”

“Because you can’t allow a Runecleaver to be held,” he ground out before he could stop himself. “It might make you look weak.”

“Damn right it will. If they are allowed to attack us with impunity, then we will no longer be a clan to be feared. A clan is only as strong as its weakest members. Clan Deepfrost would do well to remember that.”

Ruith lifted his chin. “And just who are you insinuating our weakest member is?”

Vinolia’s lip twitched. “Your son is rather close to that little human brat, isn’t he? Are the humans here under your clan’s protection? It would be a terrible shame if something were to happen to the woman and the boy. A damn terrible shame.”

Ruith took a step forward, towering over the diminutive matriarch. Her guards tensed, taps flaring until she lifted an unbothered hand.

She glared up at Ruith, unmoved by his unspoken threat. “I’ve been given demands to deliver to my granddaughter’s husband.”

“You were?” Ruith’s eyebrows shot up in disbelief.

“Of course the demands came to me. She’s a Runecleaver, after all. Even assassins know where the true power in D’thallanar resides.” Vinolia folded her hands in front of her. “The Shikami have demanded we withdraw our support from Niro’s campaign immediately. Failure to do so will result in my granddaughter being sent back to me one little box at a time. I have until dusk to make the official announcement. You have until one hour before to have my granddaughter back to me.” She took a step forward. The little elf might have been almost a foot shorter than Ruith, but she didn’t seem to notice as she glared up at him. “For every ounce of flesh my Saya loses over this ordeal, I shall extract the same from your son’s playmate.”

Ruith ground his teeth. “Will is achild!”

“Age is an opportunity, Crow. Not an excuse. Bring me my granddaughter or our alliance is dead.” She snapped her fingers and her guards rushed forward. They scooped her up, hoisting her onto their shoulders to carry back to her litter.

Ruith watched her go and squinted at the sun above.Hurry up, Aryn.

Theelvesbelievedtheirancestors had descended from the Sacred Spine mountains to make their home in the valley where D’thallanar sat, but it was not so. Originally, elves were subterranean. They built their cities underground. Long before the first squat hut took form in the valley above, there had been a thriving city beneath.

The entrance to the Forgotten City sat hidden in the market district behind an unassuming little door, on the single street shared by the Craiggybottom Clan and the Northfire Clan. It looked like all the other doors that led to service tunnels beneath the city, places where maintenance workers could enter to repair the sewers. Behind that door, there was even a heavy metal covering in the floor to mimic such an entrance, but it was all a ruse.

Aryn slipped through the door, into the little shack, and pulled up the real hatch next to the false one. A single rope ladder dangled into darkness. Aryn ignored the ladder and leapt into the black feet first, landing gracefully on the platform about ten feet down, and avoiding the early detection sensors on the ladder.

The room below was pitch black, and large enough that he had never seen all of it. Damp, stale air filled his nostrils, along with the faint hint of the nearby sewer. It ran parallel to that tunnel. Aryn turned, searching the shadowy depths. Not with his eyes, but with all the other senses he had honed over the years. He scraped a shoe along the smooth metal platform, listening to how the sound bounced, and then carefully moved to the right two paces. A newer, hollower sound sang beneath his feet, and he knew he had found the right walkway. Crouched low, he followed it as it sloped gently deeper into the dark.

Once, Omashii-Kuno had brought him up into the city that way and lit a lantern just so he could see. About a foot to Aryn’s right was an immense drop off, the chasm reaching so deep he didn’t think anyone had explored it all. The image of the strange jade city stretched out far below had burned itself into his memory. In the dark, the glistening green buildings had all seemed like headstones.

“Your ancestors lived here,” Omashii-Kuno had declared. “Like rats in caves. They feared the sun and falling into the sky. You will fear nothing.”

Aryn had never been into the Jade City, though he’d dreamt of it for weeks after that. One night, when he’d had a bit too much to drink, he’d even talked to Katyr about it. Kat had told him the stones likely weren’t jade at all but rare chromatiatite, the stone used to make a mage’s taps. The color they took on depended largely upon the mage that wielded the power. The chromatiatite below D’thallanar was jade green because it was in its natural state. The moment a chunk broke off, it would turn pitch black until it interacted with magic.

Chhromatiatite was highly sought after, worth a small fortune in its raw form. Yet Aryn would not have chanced entering the terrifying city that haunted his dreams for all the coin in the world. When Omashii-Kuno had made him look at it, he swore something had been looking back at him.

He shuddered at the thought of it and hurried down the ramp.

The walkway curved under a stone archway and spilled into a more recent undercity, this one built in a large circular cavern. High above, the cavern was open to the sky in a large circle to let in sunlight. The opening was remote, somewhere deep in the sacred mountains, and spelled to keep people away. Anyone who got too close would immediately trigger the Shikami defense spells and die.

A massive stone fortress sat tucked against the far wall of the cavern. Aryn froze at the sight of it, all the memories rushing back to him.Home. The word woke a pang of longing in his chest. For so many years, that was what this place was.

But his home was no longer this empty stone palace. His home was a country estate outside Brucia with many rooms and a workshop full of broken clocks. The air there smelled of wood polish and tea, not incense and belladonna. The laughter of children filled the halls of his home now instead of the whispering of silk and secrets.

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