Page 27 of A Court of Bones & Sorrow

Something told me she wouldn’t like that though, or more accurately, she wouldn’t be willing to admit how much she would like that. I hadn’t missed all the conflicting expressions on her face over the past hour. Samara wanted me, and she hated herself for it.

Couldn’t exactly fault her for that. I hated myself a little too.

Samara stalked over to me and held her hand out demandingly as black threads wound through her purple eyes. Okay, she was a little more than pissed.

She grabbed the dagger from me and thrust it back into a sheath that was hidden up her sleeve. “Next time you disobey me,” she growled, “it’ll be the dagger end that goes through your thick fucking skull!”

Guess that answered the question of if she’d intended to hit me with the handle. Apparently, she hadn’t been bragging at the dinner table when she’d spoken about how good she was with projectile weapons.

Fuck, Samara got hotter by the minute.

Before I could stop myself, I reached out and ran my fingers down the thick braid that snaked over her shoulder, then trailed my fingers along the top of her chest.

“I can think of some better ways for you to punish me for my disobedience.” For a split second, desire lit up Samara’s eyes before she ruthlessly stamped it out. It was reckless of me to tease her like this, but I couldn’t help it. I’d felt the same about Kieran, and he’d almost died because of it. Not that he had the faintest idea. His hatred of me hurt, but all I cared about was that he was alive.

Samara and her friends had only scratched the surface of how completely fucked Lunaria was. My mother had always been a power-hungry bitch, but now she had strong allies who could make all her dark and twisted dreams come true. Sooner or later, she’d decide I wasn’t worth keeping around, and my life would be over. So I might as well flirt with Samara while I could. Thanks to her status as the Harker Heir, even my mother would hesitate to go after her. Kieran hadn’t been so lucky.

“What is this place?” Samara stepped away from me as she peered around the dimly lit room. A few Fae lanterns had lit up, but they must have been running out of magic because their blue flames were nothing more than small flickers. I strode over to one of them and sliced the back of my hand, dipped my fingertips into the blood, and then brushed them against the flame symbol at the base of the silver lantern. The flames immediately burned brighter and chased more of the darkness away.

I went to the next lantern and repeated the process, the glyph greedily absorbing the magic in my blood. Samara strode to the wall opposite me and did the same on the lanterns on that side. It didn’t take long to light up the enormous room.

“These walls are made out of the same stone as the rest ofHouse Harker,” Samara mused as she ran her hand along the dark grey stonework. Then she slowly walked back to the center of the room, her steps echoing across the empty space. “What the fuck is this?”

“There’s a door.” I pointed to what was likely the one and only exit. So far, the layout of the place was the same as the one I’d explored before. “Maybe we’ll find some answers through there.”

Samara pursed her lips as she glared at the door like it had personally offended her. I bit back my laugh, not wanting to have another dagger thrown in my direction. On one hand, she was still pissed off over how all of this had played out—Samara liked to be in control and do things in a logical manner—but I also knew she had a bit of a wild streak and was obsessed with learning more about the Fae.

Despite her rant a few minutes ago about the Fae and their shady history, Samara would latch onto any opportunity to figure out more of the history of Lunaria, which meant diving into all the strange things the Fae had left behind, and this whole situation definitely qualified as weird, shady Fae shit.

I was a little disappointed this room was empty just like the one beneath the Sovereign House. Not because I’d expected to find anything that could help me, since my fate was already sealed, but because it would have made Samara happy to find some new piece of history.

“Let’s go look,” she said with a sigh, but she walked quickly, excitement practically dripping off her. I let myself smile now that her back was to me and I wasn’t at risk of sharp, flying objects. She swung the door open and stopped with a sharp intake of breath.

I quickly closed the distance between us, my arm slinking around her waist, ready to pull her back from any potential threat. Another room stretched out before us, significantly larger than the one we’d just been in. The Fae lanterns in thisone hadn’t weakened, the entire area brightly lit, and neat rows of beds took up most of the space. Unlike the more elaborate beds that had been left behind in the fortresses, these ones were of a simple but functional make. Each one had a bottom and top mattress and blankets and pillows still tucked into place.

I released her so she could explore. This was indeed exactly like the room under the Sovereign House. And just like that one, this one only provided more questions instead of answers, it seemed.

“It’s a shelter . . .” Samara walked slowly between the rows, eyes skimming over the room. “Did they never use it? Or did they retreat here and then leave?” I kept my mouth shut since I didn’t have an answer and it was clear she was mostly talking to herself at this point.

She stopped by one of the beds and plucked at a blanket, raising it a few inches before letting it drop, a frown stretching across her beautiful face. “Something frightened the Fae enough that they built secret passages leading to a room that held some type of magical doorway to a bunker.” Her eyes raised to the ceiling. “I think we’re underground, directly below the fortress. If they planned for all this, they must have assumed that the fortress, despite all its wards, could be compromised. They wouldn’t trap themselves down here.” She looked away from the ceiling and started scanning the rest of the room. “There must be an exit somewhere that leads off the grounds.”

“What do you think happened to the Fae?” I asked as we resumed our walk around the unused beds. The stillness of the room bothered me. It was like we were walking through a graveyard that had never actually been used.

Samara glanced over her shoulder at me. “I think the theory about the Unseelie losing control of their shadow magic is the most likely. It would explain the wraiths. From the books we’ve managed to find, everything indicates the arrival of thewraiths coincided with the disappearance of the Fae. It seems highly unlikely that there isn’t a connection between the shadow monsters and the Unseelie. We know they hated the Seelie. We just don’t know why.”

She turned away and hurried down the row, something drawing her attention. I clenched my hands at my sides as I watched her go, a dull ache forming at the base of my skull. The promise of pain was a reminder of the geas. My mother had a lot of control over me, but even she couldn’t compel me not to speak of her secrets.

Erendriel could.

Which meant I couldn’t scream at Samara that she was wrong. Even just thinking about doing so was ratcheting up the pain. I paused by one of the beds and pretended to look at something as I leaned against it and pulled in several deep breaths. It’d taken me a while to figure out how to calm my thoughts and empty my mind, but it was the only way I managed to hold onto my sanity. Something that greatly disappointed my mother when she’d tried so hard to break me.

I didn’t know why she hated me so much, but there were many things I’d never understood about her. In the end, it didn’t matter. I was a weapon for her to wield until she no longer deemed me useful, and that day was coming soon.

All I cared about now was figuring out a way to keep Samara and Kieran safe. There was no saving Lunaria, but perhaps they could be protected. Not if they kept going down this path though. I knew Samara had been at that temple. When I’d returned with Erendriel and smelled her blood at the entrance, I’d felt the same terror I had the night my mother had looked at Kieran and smiled.

Erendriel had raged as we scoured the area, but there had been no sign of the wraiths we’d left behind. To my relief, Samara had already been gone, but it’d been difficult to maintain a steady heartbeat as the scent of her blood had hit me. I’dsmelled the blood of at least three others as well, but I hadn’t recognized who it belonged to. Erendriel had stared at the bloodsoaked ground, but the Fae didn’t have a particularly sensitive sense of smell. He couldn’t even tell it was Moroi blood, let alone who it belonged to.

Lying to Erendriel was tricky. I wasn’t sure if all Fae could detect a lie or if he could only tell when I lied because of the geas he’d placed on me. Fortunately for me, I’d grown up in the Moroi courts and was quite skilled in misleading words and partial truths. When he’d demanded to know who the blood belonged to, I’d purposely knelt by a puddle of blood that did not belong to Samara. So I had been truthful when I’d claimed not to know who had been there.

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