“Turns out,” Hasar mused, as if it were a passing thought, “there are quite a few people who think highly of her. And who believe in what she’s selling.”
“Which is what?” Yrene whispered.
Hasar shrugged. “I assume it’s what she tried to sell to me, when she wrote me a message weeks ago, asking for my aid. From one princess to another.”
Chaol took a shuddering breath. “What did Aelin promise you?”
Hasar smiled to herself. “A better world.”
CHAPTER
60
Chaol was bristling beside Yrene as they hurried through Antica’s narrow streets, crammed with people going home for the night. Not with rage, she realized, but purpose.
Aelin had mustered an army, and if they could join with them, bring some force from the khaganate … Yrene beheld the hope in his eyes. The focus.
A fool’s shot at this war. But only if they could convince the royals.
One last push, he declared to her as they entered the cool interior of the Torre and hurried up the stairs. He didn’t care if he had to crawl in front of the khagan. He would make one last attempt at convincing him.
But first: Hafiza. And the books that might contain a far more valuable weapon than swords or arrows: knowledge.
His steps did not falter as they wound up the endless interior of the Torre. Even with all that weighed on them, Chaol still murmured in her ear, “No wonder those legs of yours are so pretty.”
Yrene batted him off, her face heating. “Cad.”
At this hour, most of the acolytes were already heading down to dinner. Several beamed at Chaol as they passed him on the stairs, some younger ones giggling. He gave them all warm, indulgent smiles that sent them into further fits.
Hers. He was hers, Yrene wanted to crow at them. This beautiful, brave, selfless man—he was hers.
And she was going home with him.
It was that thought that sobered her slightly. The sense that these endless hikes up the interior of the Torre might now be limited. That she might not smell the lavender and baked bread for a long time. Not hear those giggles.
Chaol’s hand brushed hers as if to say he understood. Yrene only gripped his fingers tightly. Yes, she would leave a part of herself here. But what she took with her upon leaving … Yrene was smiling when they at last reached the top of the Torre.
Chaol panted, bracing a hand on the wall of the landing. Hafiza’s office door was cracked open, letting in the last of the sunset. “Whoever built this thing was a sadist.”
Yrene laughed, knocking on Hafiza’s office door and pushing it open. “That would be Kamala. And rumor says she—” Yrene halted, finding the Healer on High’s office empty.
She edged around him on the landing, striding for the workroom—the door ajar. “Hafiza?”
No answer, but she pushed open the door anyway.
Empty. That bookcase, mercifully, still locked.
Likely making rounds, or at dinner, then. Though they’d seen everyone coming down after the dinner bell’s summons, and Hafiza hadn’t been among them.
“Wait here,” Yrene said, and bounded down the stairs to the next landing, a level above Yrene’s own room.
“Eretia,” she said, stepping into the small room.
The healer grunted in answer. “Saw a nice backside walk past here a moment ago.”
Chaol’s cough sounded from above.
Yrene snorted, but said, “Do you know where Hafiza is?”
“In her workroom.” The woman didn’t so much as turn. “She’s been in there all day.”
“You’re … certain?”
“Yes. Saw her go in, shut the door, and she hasn’t come out.”
“The door was open just now.”
“Then she likely slipped past me.”
Without saying a word? That wasn’t Hafiza’s nature.
Yrene scratched her head, scanning the landing behind her. The few doors on it. She didn’t bother saying good-bye to Eretia before knocking on them. One was empty; the other healer told her the same: Hafiza was in her workroom.
Chaol was waiting atop the stairs when Yrene climbed back up. “No luck?”
Yrene tapped her foot on the ground. Perhaps she was paranoid, but …
“Let’s check the mess hall,” was all she said.
She caught the gleam in Chaol’s eyes. The worry—and warning.
They went down two levels until Yrene halted on her own landing.
Her door was shut—but there was something wedged beneath it. As if a passing foot had kicked it under. “What is that?”
Chaol drew his sword so fast she didn’t even see him move, every movement of his body, his blade, a dance. She bent and pulled the object out. Metal scraped on stone.
And there, dangling from its chain … Hafiza’s iron key.
Chaol studied the door, the stairs, as Yrene pulled the necklace over her head with shaking fingers. “She didn’t slide it there by accident,” he said.
And if she had thought to hide the key here … “She knew something was coming for her.”
“There was no sign of forced entry or attack upstairs,” he countered.
“She could have just been spooked, but … Hafiza does nothing without thought.”
Chaol put a hand on the small of her back, ushering her toward the stairs. “We need to notify the guard—start a search party.”
She was going to be ill. She was going to vomit right down the steps.
If she had brought this upon Hafiza—
Panic helped no one. Nothing.
She forced herself to take a breath. Another one. “We need to be quick. Can your back—”
“I can manage. It feels fine.”
Yrene assessed his stance, his balance. “Then hurry.”
Around and around, they flew down the steps of the Torre. Asking anyone who passed if they’d seen Hafiza. In her workroom, they all said.
As if she had simply vanished into nothing. Into shadow.
Chaol had seen enough, endured enough, to listen to his gut.
And his gut told him that something either had happened or was unfurling.
Yrene’s face was bone white with dread, that iron key bouncing against her chest with each of their steps. They reached the bottom of the Torre, and Yrene had the guard on alert in a matter of words, calmly explaining that the Healer on High was missing.
But search parties took too long to organize. Anything could happen in the span of minutes. Seconds.
In the busy hallway of the Torre’s main level, Yrene called out to a few healers about Hafiza’s location. No, she was not in the mess hall. No, she was not in the herb gardens. They had just been that way and had not seen her.
It was an enormous complex. “We’d cover more ground if we split up,” Yrene panted, scanning the hall.
“No. They might be expecting that. We stick together.”
Yrene scrubbed her hands over her face. “Widespread hysteria might make the—person act quicker. Rasher. We keep it quiet.” She lowered her hands. “Where do we start? She could be in the city, she could be d—”
“How many exits lead from the Torre into the streets?”
“Just the main gate, and a small side one for the deliveries. Both heavily guarded.”
They visited both within a span of minutes. Nothing. The guards were well trained and had kept a record of everyone who went in and out. Hafiza had not been seen. And no wagons had come in or left since early morning. Before Eretia had last seen her.
“She has to be somewhere on the premises,” Chaol said, surveying the tower looming above, the physicians’ complex. “Unless you can think of another way in or out. Perhaps something that might have been forgotten.”
Yrene went wholly still, her eyes bright as flame in the sinking twilight.
“The library,” she breathed, and launched into a sprint.
Swift—she was swift, and it was all he could do to keep up with her. To run. Holy gods, h
e was running, and—
“There are rumors of tunnels in the library,” Yrene panted, leading him down a familiar hallway. “Deep below. That connect outside. To where, we don’t know. Rumor claims they were sealed up, but—”
His heart thundered. “It would explain how they were able to come and go unnoticed.”
And if the old woman had been brought down there …
“How did they even get her to go? Without anyone noticing?”
He didn’t want to answer. The Valg could summon shadows if they wished. And hide within them. And those shadows could turn deadly in an instant.
Yrene slid to a stop in front of the main library desk, Nousha’s head snapping up. The marble was so smooth Yrene had to grapple at the edges of the desk to keep from falling.
“Have you seen Hafiza?” she blurted.
Nousha looked between them. Noted the sword he still had out.
“What is wrong.”
“Where are the tunnels?” Yrene demanded. “The ones they boarded up—where are they?”
Behind her, a storm-gray Baast Cat leaped up from its vigil by the hearth and sprinted into the library proper.
Nousha gazed at an ancient bell the size of a melon atop the desk. A hammer lay beside it.
Yrene slapped her hand on the hammer. “Don’t. It will alert them that—that we know.”
The woman’s brown skin seemed to go wan. “Head down to the bottom level. Walk straight to the wall. Cut left. Take that to the farthest wall—the very end. Where the stone is rough and unpolished. Cut right. You’ll see them.”
Yrene’s chest heaved, but she nodded, muttering the directions to herself. Chaol memorized them, planted them in his mind.
Nousha rose to her feet. “Shall I summon the guard?”
“Yes,” Chaol said. “But quietly. Send them after us. As fast as you can.”
Nousha’s hands shook as she folded them in front of her middle. “Those tunnels have been left untouched for a very long time. Be on your guard. Even we do not know what lies down there.”
Chaol debated mentioning the usefulness of cryptic warnings before plunging into battle, but simply entwined his fingers through Yrene’s and launched them down the hall.
CHAPTER
61
Yrene counted every step. Not that it helped, but her brain just produced the numbers in an endless tally.
One, two, three … Forty.
Three hundred.
Four twenty-four.
Seven hundred twenty-one.
Down and down they went, scanning every shadow and aisle, every alcove and reading room and nook. Nothing.
Only acolytes quietly working, many packing up for the night. No Baast Cats—not one.
Eight hundred thirty.
One thousand three.
They hit the bottom of the library, the lights dimmer. Sleepier.
The shadows more alert. Yrene saw faces in all of them.
Chaol plunged ahead, sword like quicksilver as they followed Nousha’s directions.
The temperature dropped. The lights became fewer and farther between.
Leather books were replaced with crumbling scrolls. Scrolls replaced by carved tablets. Wooden shelves gave way to stone alcoves. The marble floor turned uncut. So did the walls.
“Here,” Chaol breathed, and drew her into a stop, his sword lifting.
The hall before them was lit by a sole candle. Left to burn on the ground.
And down it: four doors.
Three sealed with heavy stone, but the fourth … Open. The stone rolled aside. Another lone candle before it, illumining the darkness beyond.
A tunnel. Deeper than the Womb—deeper than any level of the Torre.
Chaol pointed to the rough dirt of the passage ahead. “Tracks. Two sets, side by side.”
Sure enough, the ground had been disturbed.
He whirled to her. “You stay here, I’ll—”
“No.” He weighed the word, her stance, as she added, “Together. We do this together.”
Chaol took another moment to consider, then nodded. Carefully, he led her along, showing her where to step to avoid any loud noises on loose bits of stone.
The candle beckoned by the open tunnel doorway. A beacon. An invitation.
The light danced along his blade as he angled it before the tunnel entrance.
Nothing but fallen blocks of stone and an endless dark passage greeted them.
Yrene breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Hafiza. Hafiza was in there. Either hurt or worse, and—
Chaol linked his hand with hers and led her into the dark.
They inched along in silence for untold minutes. Until the light from the sole candle faded behind them—and another appeared. Faintly, far off. As if around a distant corner.
As if someone was waiting.
Chaol knew it was a trap.
Knew the Healer on High had not been the target, but the bait. But if they arrived too late …
He would not let that happen.
They inched toward that second candle, the light as good as ringing the dinner bell.
But he moved forward nonetheless, Yrene keeping pace beside him.
The sole candle grew brighter.
Not a candle. A golden light from the passage beyond. Gilding the stone wall behind it.
Yrene tried to hurry, but he kept their pace slow. Quiet as death.
Though he had no doubt whoever it was already knew they were coming.
They reached the turn in the tunnel, and he studied the light on the far wall, trying to read for any shadows or disruptions. Only light.
He peered around the corner. Yrene did so, too.
Her breath snagged. He had seen some sights in the past year, but this …
It was a chamber, as enormous as the entire throne room in Rifthold’s palace, perhaps larger. The ceiling held aloft on carved pillars receding into the gloom, a set of stairs leading down from the tunnel onto the main floor. He knew why the light had been golden upon the walls.
For illuminated by the torches that burned throughout … Gold.
The wealth of an ancient empire filled the chamber. Chests and statues and trinkets of pure gold. Suits of armor. Swords.
And scattered amongst it all were sarcophagi. Built not from gold, but impenetrable stone.
A tomb—and a trove. And at the very back, rising up on a towering dais …
Yrene let out a small sound at the sight of the gagged and bound Healer on High seated on a golden throne. But it was the woman standing beside the healer, a knife resting on her round belly, that made Chaol’s blood go cold.
Duva. The khagan’s now-youngest daughter.
She smiled at them as they approached—and the expression was not human.
It was Valg.
CHAPTER
62
“Well,” said the thing inside the princess, “it certainly took you long enough.”
The words echoed down the massive chamber, bouncing off stone and gold.
Chaol assessed every shadow, every object they passed. All possible weapons. All possible escape routes.
Hafiza did not move as they neared, walking down the broad avenue between the endless, glittering gold and sarcophagi. A necropolis.
Perhaps one enormous, subterranean city, stretching from the desert to here.
When they’d visited Aksara, Duva had remained behind. Claiming that her pregnancy—
Yrene’s hiss told him she realized the same.
Duva was pregnant—and the Valg had a hold on her.
Chaol sized up the odds. A Valg-infested princess, armed with a knife and whatever dark magic, the Healer on High tied to the throne …
And Yrene.
“Because I see you calculating, Lord Westfall, I’ll spare you the trouble and lay out your options for you.” Duva traced gentle, idle lines over her full womb with that knife, barely disturbing the fabric of her gown. “See, you’ll have to pick. Me, the Healer o
n High, or Yrene Towers.” The princess smiled and whispered again, “Yrene.”
And that voice …
Yrene shook beside him. The voice from that night.
But Yrene lifted her chin as they halted at the base of those steep dais steps, and said to the princess, unfaltering as any queen, “What is it that you want?”
Duva angled her head, her eyes wholly black. The ebony of the Valg. “Don’t you want to know how?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell us, anyway,” Chaol said.
Duva’s eyes narrowed with annoyance, but she let out a small laugh. “These tunnels run right between the palace and the Torre. Those immortal Fae brats buried their royals here. Renegades of Mora’s noble line.” She swept an arm to encompass the room. “I’m sure the khagan would be beside himself to learn of how much gold sits beneath his feet. Another hand to play when the time calls for it.”
Yrene stared and stared at Hafiza, who was watching them calmly.
A woman ready for her end. Who now only wanted to make sure Yrene did not think her frightened.
“I was waiting for you to figure out it was me,” Duva said. “When I destroyed all those precious books and scrolls, I thought you’d certainly realize I was the only one who hadn’t gone to the party. But then I realized—how could you suspect me?” She laid a hand on her full womb. “It was why he chose her to begin with. Lovely, gentle Duva. Too kind to ever be a contender for the throne.” A snake’s smile. “Do you know Hasar tried to take the ring first? She spied it in the wedding trove sent by Perrington and wanted it. But Duva snatched it before she could.” She held up her finger, revealing the broad silver band. Not a glimmer of Wyrdstone.
“It’s beneath,” she whispered. “A clever little trick to hide it. And the moment she spoke her vows to that sweet, lovesick human prince, this went on her hand.” Duva smirked. “And no one even noticed.” A flash of her white teeth. “Except for keen-eyed little sister.” She clicked her tongue. “Tumelun suspected something was wrong. Caught me poking about in forgotten places. So I caught her, too.” Duva chuckled. “Or didn’t, I suppose. Since I shoved her right off that balcony.”
Yrene sucked in a breath.