Chapter 23

Elouera

The iron cage plummeted into the earth, the rusted chains screaming against the stone walls of the shaft.

With every hundred feet we dropped, the temperature spiked, suffocating the carriage in a heavy, toxic blanket of sulfur and burning coal. The pitch black air rushing past the metal grate tasted like old copper and decay.

I stood rigidly in the center of the shaking platform, my jaw locked so tight my teeth ached. The dull, freezing ache of Holden’s poison was still throbbing deep in my chest, a terrifying counter rhythm to my racing heart. I kept my head down, playing the part of the terrified, sickly Beta prince to the four heavily armored imperial guards flanking the corners of the cage.

But I wasn't terrified of the dark. I was terrified of what I was going to have to do in it.

Stirling stood less than an inch to my left. In the cramped space of the iron lift, his broad shoulder brushed against mine with every violent jolt of the descent. He hadn’t spoken a single word since we left the surface, but his Alpha dominance was bleeding into the cramped air, completely suffocating the sulfur with the heavy, aggressive scent of crushed cedar and frost. He had his hand resting casually on the leather wrapped pommel of his broadsword, his body angled slightly in front of mine, acting as a physical shield against the imperial guards.

He was protecting me. The Crown Duke of the Sovereign Empire, a man raised to be a butcher, was entirely willing to throw away his life in a subterranean pit just to keep me breathing.

A sharp, agonizing twist of guilt seized my stomach. He didn't know he was protecting the Weaver. He didn't know the pathetic prince he was hovering over had a body count higher than his own.

The carriage hit the bottom of the shaft with a bone jarring crash. The rusted iron gates groaned open, revealing the cavernous, sweltering maw of the Iron Sinks.

It was a sprawling, subterranean nightmare of massive iron pipes, hissing steam vents, and jagged black rock. The only light came from the violent orange glow of the distant refinery furnaces miles away.

But the sprawling cavern right in front of us was completely empty.

No rebel barricades. No rioting workers. Just an ocean of shadows and thick, billowing white steam.

"Form a perimeter," Stirling barked, his voice cutting through the hiss of the vents like a whip. He drew his broadsword, the steel singing in the dark. "Keep the Prince in the center."

The four guards drew their weapons and stepped out into the ash covered dirt. I followed, keeping my posture hunched, my breathing intentionally shallow. We walked in a tight diamond formation toward the massive steel arches of the main refinery crossing, the crunch of our boots echoing too loudly against the stone.

The ambush didn't come from the front. It came from the shadows directly above us.

A thick iron grate overhead violently snapped. Two massive, heavy shapes dropped from the darkness, completely silent until they hit the ground.

One landed directly on the vanguard guard, driving a pair of heavy trench knives through his collarbone. The guard didn't even have time to scream before he collapsed in a spray of warm blood.

"Ambush!" Stirling roared, lunging forward, his broadsword completely severing the first attacker's arm before the man could pull his blades free.

Total chaos erupted. More figures began pouring out from the heavy steam vents and rusted pipes. They weren't ragged, desperate miners. They moved with terrifying, synchronized precision, clad entirely in black leather, their faces covered by dark linen wraps.

This wasn't a rebel negotiation. This was an assassination squad. And they weren't aiming for Stirling.

A massive shadow detached itself from the hissing steam directly to my right, completely bypassing the remaining royal guards. A long, serrated blade lunged straight for my kidney.

I didn't scream. I didn't cower.

As Stirling violently engaged two attackers on my left, I stepped backward into the thickest cloud of blinding white steam, pulling the assassin in with me.

The moment the vapor swallowed us, hiding us from the rest of the cavern, Prince Elian completely vanished.

The assassin thrust the serrated blade forward, expecting to gut a sickly, panicking boy. I shifted my weight, dropping my center of gravity. I slapped his wrist away with an open palm, the brutal deflection sending the blade whistling inches past my ribs.

The man let out a muffled grunt of surprise. He tried to pull back, but I was already inside his guard.

I drove my left elbow upward, burying the joint directly beneath his chin. Bone crunched audibly. As his head snapped back, I hooked my right leg behind his knee and twisted my hips, throwing his massive weight sideways.

He hit the ash covered stone hard, losing his grip on the knife. He scrambled frantically, reaching for a secondary dagger in his boot, but I didn't give him a single second to recover. I dropped my knee squarely onto the center of his chest, using his own armor to pin him down.

My fractured rib screamed in pure agony, a sharp, blinding pain radiating through my chest, but the lethal training of the Weaver completely overrode the physical trauma.

I clamped both hands on either side of his head, twisting my wrists with a sharp, brutal, perfectly executed motion.

Snap.

His body went entirely limp beneath me.

I knelt there in the boiling steam, my chest heaving, the toxic air burning my lungs. I hadn't made a single sound. The kill was flawless, silent, and completely invisible to the men fighting just fifteen feet away.

I reached down, gripping the linen wrap covering the dead man's face, and ripped it away.

My blood turned to absolute ice.

It wasn't a rebel. He didn't have the soot-stained skin or the starvation-sunken cheeks of the lower sectors. He was clean-shaven, well-fed, and stamped into the flesh of his neck was the faint, black ink of a royal sparrow.

The Empress’s personal shadows.

She hadn't sent me down here hoping the rebels would kill me. She had sent her own executioners to do it under the cover of a riot.

A sickening, metallic sound sliced through the hiss of the steam behind me.

I spun around, staring through the thinning vapor.

The three remaining imperial guards that had escorted us down the shaft weren't fighting the attackers. They were standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them.

And they had formed a tight, inescapable ring of drawn steel entirely around Stirling.

Stirling stood in the center, his broadsword dripping dark blood onto the ash, his chest heaving. He was bleeding from a deep gash on his left thigh, but his green eyes were burning with a lethal, terrifying fury. He hadn't realized I was missing yet.

"Put down the steel, Your Grace," one of our own guards sneered, raising a heavy iron crossbow and aiming it directly at Stirling’s spine. "The Empress only ordered the boy's death. But if you raise that blade again, we will bury you in this pit with him."

Stirling’s jaw clenched, his grip tightening on his sword until his knuckles turned white. He didn't lower the weapon. He slightly shifted his weight, preparing to charge directly into a volley of crossbow bolts to buy me time to run.

He was going to die for a boy who didn't exist.

Unless the Weaver stepped out of the shadows.