“Who is back?” I asked in a calm, assured voice expected of a future queen.
“Your father,” she burst out. “His ship has returned to Apolis.”
Chapter Three
The room burst into chaos, everyone immediately running for the doors and following Priestess Amari to the docks, yelling out and shoving each other to get through and figure out what in the bloody waters was happening. Something I’d like to know, as well.
My mother actually did faint. Right into her guard’s arms.
I instructed the guards to take the queen back to her room, then spun on my heel and marched in the opposite direction of the doors.
Leoni followed me up the steps of the dais and behind the massive throne toward a column that stood against the back wall, the head of a statue sitting on top. It was of my great-grandfather, his face so serious, lips in a thin line, eyes surveying the room. Lochlan had often joked that every time we used this secret passageway, his frown grew deeper.
“What are you doing?” Leoni asked.
I hated that I was about to reveal this to her. She’d likely have it closed up so I could never use it again. But this was an emergency, and I needed to get to the docks before everyone else.
I took a deep breath and looked behind me. No one was paying attention, everyone either looking out the windows or trying to shove their way out the doors.
I pushed the column, and it tipped diagonally, the statue’s head tipping with it. A hole was dug into the white stone, just big enough for a person to get onto their hands and knees and crawl through the opening.
Leoni’s mouth dropped open, and she planted her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding me right now? A secret passageway?”
I dove into the opening in the wall. “I don’t have time to explain.” I hadn’t been in this tunnel in so long, not since my brothers were still here.
“When this is all said and done, I’m going to murder you,” Leoni grumbled, following after me as I dropped onto my hands and knees. “Metaphorically. But you should still be scared.”
“Go ahead and make it literal,” I said. “It would solve all my problems.”
She snorted behind me. “Where does this lead to?”
“You’ll see,” I told her as we crawled in darkness, the ground rough and pebbled under my hands.
“I can’t believe you’ve kept this hidden from me all these years. What if part of the tunnel collapsed and you got stuck in here?” Leoni asked. “What if you got closed in? What if?—”
“Well, none of those things happened,” I gritted out, feeling my way ahead in the darkness. Dirt probably coated my face, my hands, my entire dress, at this point.
“This isn’t going to fix things, you know,” Leoni said from behind me.
“What are you talking about?” The ground rubbed against my knees, scraping at my skin. I’d need a salve for that later.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Leoni’s sword clanged against the tunnel wall. “That if your father is back, if your brothers are back, things can return to how they were. But they can’t. You’renot just going to be able to run away from all this, not like you’d planned to.”
Not like you’d planned to. Her words struck down my own, rendering me silent until I finally sputtered, “You knew?”
“Of course I knew,” she scoffed.
I could just imagine the way she was rolling her eyes as she said it. I thought I’d been so careful with my planning. I’d spent months routing out my escape: the day, the time, the location. I hadn’t told a soul, not even my brothers, who might’ve been the only ones who’d understood. I was afraid that if I told anyone, they’d stop me. I so badly wanted my freedom, and I’d been so selfish.
“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked. “Why not stop me?”
She sighed. “Because you were the happiest I’d ever seen you. And because I didn’t want to take that from you. Not yet, anyway. I was never going to let you leave, but I didn’t have it in me to dash your dreams, so I waited, and then...”
And then it all went to shit, and my brothers and all the boys disappeared, and my father went after them, and it was because of me. Because of him. I’d let myself fall for him, fall for his stupid promises of freedom, fall for his easy smile and charming words. Then he betrayed me and blew my life to pieces. And Leoni had known about every bit of it.
“How could you still want to be my friend?” I asked. “Protect me? I betrayed you. I betrayed everybody.”
“No.” Her voice was fierce. “He did. And if I ever see the pirate lord of the Dark Seas again, I will run my sword straight through him.”
