More bootsteps came from the distance. Yells sounded too, but they were farther away and deeper within this rocky labyrinth, as though the other guards stationed within this terrifying enclosure were too far away to reach us in quick succession.
None of us stopped to find out.
Jax lifted me at one point, carrying me as fast as the wind. The others moved just as quickly and silently behind us, even if Bastian’s antlers scraped along the walls the entire way, and it struck me just how formidable this group was and why they were so feared.
They functioned as one. Stealthy. Silent. Deadly. And with Jax’s potent magic rendering anyone they encountered obsolete, it was no wonder they’d remained uncaught as a band of raiders.
We reached the stairwell to the Wood only minutes later. Phillen grunted when Bastian’s antlers caught alongside the narrow passage, catching in the rocky indents.
I quickly worked them free, and Phillen nodded his thanks.
We all hurtled upward on the remaining steps and out of the trap door, then the musky damp air from the caverns fell away, and the Wood’s fresh breeze swirled around us.
Nighttime had fully set in, the three moons appearing in the sky.
Once free of the stairwell, Lars slammed the trap door closed, and I hastily whispered a spell to lock it.
“Join hands!” Jax barked.
Everyone gathered around, linking together physically, and in a flurry of whispered words, the realm disappeared from around us as the portal key whisked us away.
CHAPTER 29
We slammed back into the prince’s private residence in The Silver Hand, everyone appearing at once. Phillen still held Bastian draped over his shoulder, but he released him and set him on the nearest chair.
Bastian fell onto it in a heap. His eyes remained open, and he bounced a few times, but it was as though he was unseeing. Not even aware of his surroundings.
Jax tore his mask off and kneeled in front of his brother before I could blink.
“Bastian?” he said urgently, smacking his cheek lightly.
Nothing. No response.
“Bastian!”
I undid my own mask, the others doing the same, and I pulled my bottom lip into my mouth, gnawing on it in serrating motions as I watched my mate try to rouse his brother.
Jax continued calling and shaking Bastian, but no matter what he did, Bastian didn’t respond.
I kneeled at his other side, then lifted the bottom of Bastian’s trousers. A flash of metal gleamed in the light.
The anklet that Esopeel and the semelees had told us about was indeed around Bastian’s ankle. “Jax, look at this.”
The prince stopped his frantic movements. A low growl rumbled in his chest, and when his finger ran along the anklet’s metal and stone, a chill ran through me.
Because the gem staring back at me—the gem the semelees had said was controlling Jax’s brother—was a purple stone. It was encased within the anklet, and it appeared to be the exact same stone that was locked within my collar.
“What do you think it means?”Jax paced in the living room. All of us had changed out of our dark clothes and were sitting together in a circle.
For the past hour, we’d tried everything we could think of to rouse Bastian, but it was no use. Whatever that anklet was doing to him was like my collar. No amount of effort could disengage its suppression. Magic held it in place. Powerful magic from the feel of it.
Bastian had sat numbly through everything we’d tried, and he was still unmoving. Still despondent. He lived physically, but it was as though he no longer existed, and even though he was with us, it was like he wasn’t there at all.
I knew Jax’s heart was breaking. It was as though his baby brother, the male he loved and cherished, was no more.
And the semelees warning that he was being controlled by another chilled me to the bone. There was nothing to say that Bastian wouldn’t suddenly become animated and try to kill us.
Jax placed his hands on his hips and eyed my collar and then the anklet on his brother. “Elowen, what did the semelees say about Bastian’s anklet?”
