Chapter 17

Elouera

"Three."

The heavy oak door didn't just open; it shattered. But in the violent fraction of a second before the iron hinges gave way, Jace moved.

He didn't speak. He didn't waste time looking at me with some tragic, lingering farewell. He grabbed the heavy iron ring of the floor grate beside his cot, violently hauled the massive stone tile up with his good hand, and shoved me straight into the narrow smuggler's hollow beneath the floorboards.

I hit the freezing dirt hard, biting my own tongue to swallow a scream as my broken rib slammed against the tight linen bindings. Before I could even draw a breath, the heavy stone tile slammed shut above me. Total, suffocating darkness swallowed me just as the door above splintered inward.

"Commander Corowa," General Vane’s harsh, grating voice barked. Heavy boots stomped across the floorboards directly over my head, shaking dirt into my eyes. "Drop your weapons and kick them across the stone."

I lay frozen on my back, my hands clamped tightly over my own mouth. My heart was hammering so violently against my bruised ribs I was terrified Vane would hear it through the floor.

I heard the heavy, metallic clatter of Jace’s hunting knife hitting the stone.

"You are charged with high treason against the Crown Prince," Vane sneered, his voice dripping with the arrogant satisfaction of a man who finally had his boot on the neck of a rival. "Bind his hands. Tightly. The Empress wants him in the deep cells."

"My hands are already bleeding, Vane," Jace’s deep, gravelly voice rumbled. There was no fear in it. No panic. Just a cold, impenetrable calm that made my chest physically ache. "Try not to slip."

The horrific, metallic rattling of heavy iron chains echoed above me. I heard the sickening sound of the manacles locking forcefully over Jace’s wrists right over the fresh, ragged stitches on his palm. A muffled grunt of pain escaped Jace’s throat, a sound so suppressed and raw that a hot, furious tear finally spilled over my eyelashes, cutting through the red dirt on my cheek.

He was taking the fall. He was letting them drag him into the torture cells to buy me time to disappear.

"Move," Vane snapped.

The heavy boots marched out of the room. The ruined door was dragged shut.

Silence fell.

I stayed in the freezing dirt for twenty agonizing minutes, terrified they had left a guard behind. When I finally gathered the strength to push the heavy stone tile up, my arms were violently trembling. I crawled out onto the floor of Jace’s empty quarters.

The room smelled like ozone, harsh medical alcohol, and his blood.

The blood he had spilled for me.

I touched my fingertips to the ruined, bloody stitches he had left behind on the iron cot. A profound, terrifying realization anchored itself in my chest, burning away the panicked fever of my suppressed heat. I wasn't just attracted to Jace Corowa. I was entirely, fundamentally tethered to him. He was the only man in this brutal, decaying empire who looked at my disguised, sickly frame and chose to protect it instead of breaking it.

And now he was going to die because of me.

Unless I burned the Empress's chessboard to ashes.

I didn't sneak back to my royal chambers. I slipped through the narrow servant corridors, bypassing the guard patrols until I reached the damp, suffocating darkness of the catacombs. I moved entirely on muscle memory, my feverish body running on pure, lethal adrenaline.

When I finally reached the Weaver's sanctum, a forgotten wine cellar deep beneath the palace I lit a single tallow candle.

I pulled out a fresh roll of Imperial parchment, uncorked a vial of black ink, and laid out the cipher matrix I used to communicate with the Outback rebellion. My hands were shaking so badly I had to grip my own wrist to steady the quill.

The Empress thought she could lock Jace away and secure her northern borders by marrying Stirling off to Duchess Vespera of the Adler House. She thought General Vane and Archduke Holden were her impenetrable shields.

She was wrong. They were arrogant, paranoid men. And paranoia was the easiest poison to weaponize.

I dipped the quill.

To the Outback Command, I wrote in the complex, shifting numerical cipher. The Doctrine of the Blue Mountain is abandoned. The Imperial Army is fracturing. It is time to bleed them.

I didn't just order a direct attack. That would unite them. Instead, I drafted a series of highly specific, lethal lies designed to tear the loyalist generals apart from the inside.

Strike General Vane’s supply wagons crossing the Iron Ridge tomorrow night, I dictated, my handwriting sharp and ruthless. Take the grain, burn the wagons, but leave behind the steel tipped arrows used exclusively by Archduke Holden’s personal guard. Leave them embedded in Vane’s dead men.

I paused, breathing heavily, the pain in my ribs a constant, blinding throb. I dipped the quill again.

Then, route your scouts to the northern border. Intercept the Empress's missives to the Adler House. Replace them with forged letters bearing Vane’s seal, insulting Duchess Vespera’s military competence. Make Vane believe Holden is trying to assassinate him. Make the Adlers believe the Empress is trying to insult them. Turn their swords against each other.

It was a slow, agonizingly precise strategy. Sowing d*****d wouldn't free Jace tonight. But within a week, Vane and Holden would be at each other's throats. The Empress's inner circle would collapse into paranoid infighting, and in the chaos, I would rip the keys to the deep cells from Vane’s cold, dead hands.

I sealed the encoded orders in a black cylinder, blowing a sharp, low whistle into the drafty air vent that led to the rookery. Ten minutes later, a blind raven fluttered down the chute. I tied the cylinder to its leg and sent it back out into the freezing night.

It was done. The first domino had been violently tipped.

Exhaustion finally crashed into me. My suppressed Omega biology, denied the grounding presence of Jace’s Alpha scent, surged forward with a vengeance. A brutal wave of dizziness hit me, accompanied by a sickeningly sweet wave of wild honey in the damp air. My heat was breaking through the drugs. I had hours, maybe less, before I completely collapsed.

I needed my emergency suppressants. They were hidden in the false bottom of my wardrobe in the Second Prince's bedchamber.

I pulled my dark cloak tightly around my chest, extinguished the candle, and began the agonizing climb back up through the secret passages. Every step was a battle. My vision was blurring, my skin flushed and burning.

I slipped out from behind the heavy tapestry in the corridor outside my rooms. The guards were changing shifts. I slid the key into my heavy oak door, turning it silently, and slipped inside.

I leaned against the closed door, closing my eyes as I let out a long, ragged breath of pure relief.

"You're out late, Elian."

My blood turned to absolute ice.

I opened my eyes. The oil lamp on my bedside table was fully lit.

Archduke Holden was sitting in his silver-wheeled chair in the center of my bedroom. His warm green eyes were terrifyingly hollow, completely devoid of the paternal affection he usually faked for the court.

But it wasn't his presence that made my stomach completely drop.

It was what he was holding in his lap.

Resting across Holden’s knees was the heavy leather bracer Jace had been wearing when he was arrested. It was completely soaked in fresh, dark blood. And resting right beside it was the torn strip of cheap silk from my shirt the piece Callan had ripped off my chest hours ago.

"I visited Commander Corowa in the deep cells," Holden said softly, his voice echoing in the quiet room. He slowly picked up the bloody strip of silk, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. "He is being remarkably stubborn. But I think you and I both know exactly what it will cost to buy his life."

Holden looked up, his green eyes locking onto my terrified face.

"Take off the cloak, Elouera. Let's see what you've been hiding from me."