Celeste

  The hallway hadn’t changed.

  The walls were still damp, sweating moisture that gathered in dark streaks between the stones. The air carried the same smell and the same odd tapestry hung in the center—riders spearing a stag while hounds tore at its legs.

  My skin crawled as we walked.

  I knew I was stronger now. That I wasn’t the girl they’d dragged through this corridor in chains.

  But memory didn’t care what you knew.

  Lioren walked beside me in silence. He glanced at me once, probably making sure I was still holding myself together.

  I was.

  At the end of the corridor stood the door. Thick planks, iron-banded, a thick iron pull ring set into the door, polished dull by years of use.

  Lioren reached for it, then hesitated, looking at me.

  I nodded.

  He pulled the ring and opened the door.

  The guard inside turned at the sound, irritation already on his face. A lantern burned on a small table beside him, throwing light across the room and the first row of cells beyond.

  He squinted at us. “You’re late,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes slid to me, lingering a moment, before turning towards Lioren. “Didn’t hear about any buyers comin’ through tonight.”

  Lioren gave a small shrug.

  The guard frowned slightly—then froze.

  His eyes flicked back to me, then locked on Lioren. The irritation drained from his face, replaced by recognition. The color left him as he realized we weren’t his own.

  His mouth opened, but I moved first.

  Ardor flared from my hand and struck him square in the gut. The Light punched through leather and flesh alike, driving the air from his lungs in a wet, choking gasp. He staggered backward, collapsing hard against the stone.

  He tried to breathe, to shout, but only blood came, bubbling between his lips.

  I stepped forward and struck again.

  Light lanced down, burning through him as he writhed on the floor. The smell of scorched cloth and flesh filled the room. His body jerked once, then went still.

  Silence fell, broken only by the faint rattle of the lantern flame and the distant drip of water somewhere in the dark.

  I stood there a moment, breathing hard, my hands trembling—not from fear, but from the memory that still clung to these walls.

  The keys hung from a thick iron ring on a scarred wooden table beside the door. Lioren scooped them up without a word.

  The stairway down felt narrower than I remembered.

  At the bottom, the corridor stretched ahead, lanternlight thin and yellow, casting long bars of shadow between the cell doors. As we moved down the corridor, we looked into the cells. Most of them were empty.

  Relief and dread tangled in my chest.

  Fewer prisoners meant fewer lives to save … but it also meant fewer chances that Faylen was here.

  “Faylen,” I called softly, letting my voice carry just enough to reach down the corridor. “Faylen … it’s me.”

  Only silence answered.

  Lioren glanced at me but said nothing.

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  We continued moving down the line of cells. Some stood open and bare, nothing inside but straw and rusted chains. Others were shut but empty, doors creaking softly as we checked them. A few had the walls lined entirely of metal plates bolted into the stone, thick rings set at ankle level, heavy shackles dangling from short lengths of chain.

  “Earth Casters,” Lioren muttered. “Can’t pull stone if there’s none to touch.”

  I swallowed and forced myself to keep moving.

  The first occupied cell appeared halfway down the corridor.

  A young woman sat chained to the wall, her head bowed, hair hanging in tangled curtains around her face. She looked up at the sound of our steps, eyes wide and hallow.

  Lioren had the key in the lock before she could even speak.

  The shackles fell open with a dull clank.

  She only stared, as if in disbelief. Then she surged forward and threw her arms around me, sobbing against my shoulder, her whole body shaking.

  “It’s alright,” I whispered, holding her as gently as I could. “You’re all right. We’re getting you out of here.”

  She clung to me, fingers digging into my sleeves. I held her a moment before speaking again. “I need you to stay here,” I said softly. “We’ll free the others first. Then we all leave together.”

  Her grip tightened in panic. “No—please—don’t leave—”

  “I’m not leaving,” I said, kind but firm. “I promise. I’ll leave the door open. But you need to stay inside, all right? If someone comes down here, we can’t have everyone standing in the hall.”

  She hesitated, breathing unevenly, then slowly nodded.

  I squeezed her hand once before stepping back.

  We moved on.

  Th next cell held a boy, no older than ten. Another held an older man, gaunt and hollow-eyed. A woman with streaks of gray in her hair. A girl younger than me who wouldn’t stop trembling even after the shackles fell away.

  As we moved, I began to recognize the corridor and the spacing of the doors. The way the lanternlight thinned near the middle.

  “I was … somewhere along here,” I murmured, more to myself than to Lioren.

  From the outside, the cells all looked the same. Stone, iron, rust, straw.

  But then I saw it. A faint scar marked the door where a ring had once been torn free, the wood there patched with a newer pattern of bolts.

  “It’s a few cells down,” I said quietly.

  I moved past the cell that had once been mine, forcing myself to look only long enough to see it stood empty. Faylen’s had been the next one over.

  Empty.

  My breath left me slowly, hope thinning.

  We kept moving, inspecting every cell. The corridor stretched on, door after door, until at last we reached the end.

  We found nine in total.

  Nine prisoners gathered quietly in their open cells, watching us with eyes full of fragile, desperate hope.

  But none of them were Faylen.

  I stood there a long moment, staring at the blank stone wall, my heart beating too loudly in my ears.

  Lioren’s voice came quietly behind me. “We’ll keep lookin’.”

  I closed my eyes, and for a moment the world felt small and cold.

  Then I opened them again. “She was here once. And if they moved her … we’ll find where.”

  Lioren stepped closer. “I’m with you. However long it takes.”

  I didn’t look at him, but I nodded once. My mind was already turning to how to find her.

  They never kept prisoners in the main house. The Veil wouldn’t touch their merchandise. Teresa had been strict about that—ruthless, even. Prisoners stayed in their cells unless they were being moved or sold. Guards who broke that rule were punished.

  That was why Kaelin and Davos had taken me out through the woods that night. Teresa had been gone, and they didn’t want to risk being caught inside the compound with me for fear of punishment.

  I stared down the corridor. “I need answers,” I murmured, more to myself than to Lioren.

  Lioren watched me for a moment. “Answers how?”

  “I’ll have to interrogate them,” I said. My voice came out hard. “The men in the house. Someone there will know.”

  Lioren’s brow furrowed. “You think she’s in there?”

  I shook my head. “They don’t touch their slaves. Not without consequence. But they likely sold her. And if they did … I need to know to whom.”

  Lioren exhaled slowly and looked back toward the stairwell. “And how do you plan on doin’ that? We’d have to fight a small army while keepin’ some of them alive long enough to talk. All while not getting ourselves killed.”

  “I know,” I said. “I know what I’m asking for is a lot.”

  Lioren’s eyes stayed on mine.

  “But I can’t leave now. Not after coming this far—without at least trying to get answers. If she’s been sold, then this place is only the beginning. And I can’t walk away … not again.”

  He didn’t move or say anything. Then he let out a long breath through his nose.

  “All right,” he said at last, a grin tugging at his beard. “But you better be the one to tell Art there’s been a change of plans.”

  I gave him a small, grateful smile.

  He tilted his head toward the stairwell. “And I hope he’s as good a fighter as I’ve pictured in my head. For all our sakes,” he added, the edge of a grim sort of humor slipping into his voice.

  “He is.” I nodded, guilt already eating at me for asking them to risk more for my selfishness.

  We turned back down the corridor. The prisoners watched us from the threshold of their cells, uncertainty written on their faces as we drew near. Nine shadows tucked into open cells, as if the world outside still felt too dangerous to enter.

  “Listen. We’re leaving now. So stay close and stay quiet. If you can walk, you walk. If you can’t, you lean on someone who can.”

  A few of them hesitated, blinking like the words didn’t make sense.

  Lioren stepped forward, offering his hand to the boy first. “Come on,” he murmured. “one foot, then the next. You’ll manage.”

  They began to move, slow at first, legs trembling and joints stiff. I guided them as we went, stopping only to steady those who swayed. Once they started, all of them could walk on their own.

  The corridor felt longer on the way back.

  When we reached the base of the stairs, I looked up into the dark above. The air there felt different. Colder somehow.

  I took the first step—

  The world exploded.