Page 103 of Synodic

Taking me with him, he slowly opened the heavy plated door and peeked his head into the hallway. Verifying no one was roaming the narrow passageways, Rowen pulled me through the threshold and guided me over the bodies of three dead sentinels.

I hadn’t heard so much as a scuffle, and apparently neither had they as Rowen crept up on them like a silent demon. Only the rows of silent skulls bore witness to the guards’ impending doom, their empty eye sockets watching and their mute mouths smiling.

There was so much racing through my mind as we fled through the tunnels. How had Rowen found the Crystal Crypts? How had he known I would be here?

I needed so many answers, but it would have to wait. Right now I needed to help guide us from this labyrinth of death. However, after a few minutes of creeping along tight passageways, it appeared Rowen knew exactly where he was headed. He must have memorized the paths on his way in.

Always uphill, Rowen led me through corridor after corridor. Some tunnels looked to have been dug then never visited again, while others were adorned with carved white doorways, long runners, massive hanging portraits, and flamed wall sconces. The more decorated hallways seemed to be the residential area of the crypts, and if it weren’t for the occasional blood-curdling scream or trickles of falling earth, you could almost imagine you were in an opulent resort.

One of the doors opened unexpectedly, and Rowen slammed me against the nearest wall, shielding my pale glowing skin from the spotlight of darkness. His hastened breath and rough stubble stroked across my temple as two people hesitated mere feet from where we stood. “It is said the queen has already performed the daily offering hour,” an unfamiliar voice whispered to his companion. “We live to see another day.”

“Thank the Spirits,” the other replied as their footsteps echoed away.

“We can’t leave them here,” I whispered to Rowen.

“I know. And wewillcome back for them. When we are stronger. Right now my only goal is to get you out of here safely.”

I nodded. He was right. Now that we knew where Aliphoura’s lair was, we could devise a proper plan for freeing the people held captive here.

Rowen’s fingers loosened around my forearms, and we continued our silent underground journey until we came to a dead end. My heart plummeted. After all this, we were still trapped.

Rowen indicated for me to look closer, and I saw the near-invisible slits of a hidden door. He pressed his broad fingertips against the wall, prompting no sound whatsoever as the door gently pivoted open.

I couldn’t see beyond the doorway. It was pitch black, but the fresh waft of air was a drug calling to me, and my skin craved the taste of the sun.

Rowen and I took each other’s hands and walked towards freedom.

But where I had expected there to be solid ground, there was nothing. I grappled for purchase, but there was none, only a bottomless pit through which we fell as we were dragged back down to the belly of the crypts and swallowed whole.

37

Rowen and I landed in a hard heap, bones smarting from the impact of a stone-cold floor.

“No,” I heard Rowen growl before I could make out where we’d fallen.

A delighted chuckle echoed around me like an intimate whisper upon my skin. The sound, as lovely as it was terrifying, skirted up my spine and locked each of my vertebrae in place.

Realization sank in that I was back in the queen’s throne room, back where each and every one of my horrible tortures had been doled out. Only this time, there was no roaring audience, just her legion of red-dressed soldiers standing in militant watch.

“You’re looking well, little star. And I see you have a visitor, but it appeared you two were on your way out without a proper farewell. I know you would never intentionally be so ill-mannered, so I took the liberty of guiding you back with a dark doorway of my own. Now, I’d love for us all to get to know one another a little better, but should you decline, I’ll regrettably be forced to subdue you,” Aliphoura cooed, threatening us with the charm of a hostess, all while poised upon her towering throne of bone-white bark.

Unsheathing an arsenal of weapons from his body, Rowen glared with such raging violence that his eyes almost appeared calm. He placed my crystal blade in my hand with a centering squeeze. How he found it, I had no idea.

His trusted ax in one hand, Rowen finished arming himself with a long curved blade that arced back over his forearm like an assault shield. He moved in front of me, planting his feet as he settled into a defensive position. “Touch her again, and it will be the last thing you ever do,” he growled.

“Very well. Restrain them!” Aliphoura commanded her small army. “I want them alive and uninjured. For now.”

Blood screaming, I mirrored Rowen’s stance. We were trapped with our backs against the wall, vastly outnumbered by the guards closing in around us.

Aliphoura had led us to believe we were on the brink of escape, only to drag us back down using the same dark portal as Caeryn, her entire armed guard lying in wait. I wondered whose life had been taken to create it.

Rowen lunged, slicing the first soldier within arm’s reach. Then he moved on to the next, and the next…

Swinging his dual blades in a deadly dance of hit, shield, and slash, he left each opponent dead or howling on the ground. Trails of blood shot past my line of sight as he took down Aliphoura’s sentinels one at a time.

So far, he’d kept the brainwashed guards from getting too close to me, but it was impossible for him to hold them all back.

Eventually, a guard drew up and reached for me. I twisted away to the right and drove my blade down, slashing open his femoral artery. His flesh cut like butter, but before I could watch him go down, another sentry was on me.

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