Mila charged, ducking his sword and swiveling behind his back, meeting his blow with a solid strike. With his attention on her, I charged.
Another guard shot from the perpendicular hallway, intercepting me before I could reach Mila. He launched a series of triple-bladed Starsearcher daggers at me, like stars hurtling through the sky.
I ducked the first two, the third slicing along the skin of my neck. It sheared off a small section of hair with it, and I growled at the guard.
Pressing my hand to the wound, I dodged another dagger. Over my opponent’s shoulder, Mila unsheathed her second sword and crossed them to meet a vicious strike aimed for her head.
She stumbled back a step, but the guard pressed forward. He slammed his sword on her wrist as she twirled around him, and he knocked one of her short swords to the ground.
Shock widened Mila’s eyes. Shock—andfear. Something she never allowed to slip into her fights.
I saw red at it.
With a grunt, I blocked my guard’s final dagger and slammed my shoulder into his gut, sending him toppling into a marble statue. His head cracked back with a nasty crunch.
Unremorseful, I charged toward the Starsearcher now towering over Mila.
And I didn’t think as I sheathed my sword in his back. As the blade poked up through his chest, dripping with thick crimson.
I shoved the guard off it and wiped the blade on his tunic, trying to stop my own damn hands from shaking. I couldn’t lose myself again. But Mila?—
Only once I mastered my breathing and knew my panic was tamped down did I look at her. And I saw past the hardened stare, the nod she gave me in thanks. Pulling her to me, I pressedmy lips to hers and indulged the desperation that had become a live and pulsing thing within me.
“You’re okay?” I muttered against her mouth, one hand cupping her face.
She nodded, the fear evaporating from her eyes, but a question resting there. “You?”
“Yeah,” I assured her.Since you are. Stroking a thumb across her cheek, I added hurriedly, “Let’s get going before more guards show up.”
We didn’t waste time hiding the bodies. They’d know we were here when Vale was gone.
I jammed my heavy boot against the handle, the lock splintering and doors flying wide.
Mila and I barreled into a suite bedecked in as grand decor as the rest of the manor. With a lavish bed staring at a row of windows exposed to the night sky, rich rugs and large mirrors adorning the space.
But—
“Where is she?” Mila panted, racing around the room and into the depths of the bathing chamber while I checked the balcony, but the doors didn’t open.
“She’s not here,” I said. “Harlen said she’d be here. She’s here every night as soon as dinner ends, which was two hours ago now.”
Vale’s routine was clockwork. A repetitive pattern meant to lull her into mundane compliance and appease her magic.
“Do you think Titus demanded an emergency reading?”
My mind whirled. Did we go through the rest of the manor or retreat? I couldn’t face Cypherion if I chose the latter. Couldn’t return without answers and his girl safely in tow.
“I don’t know.” I gripped the hilt of my sword and stepped toward the door. “But we have to find?—”
A sharp, icy tip pressed into the skin of my neck, and a gravelly voice threatened, “Not another step.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ophelia
Despite the lightnessof our footing, our boots echoed against stone so aged, I feared it might crumble beneath our feet. Moss clung to the walls, trapping in that eerie chill and compressing the air. It trailed all the way down the stairs, stretching along the narrow tunnel at the bottom. Even with my heightened vision, I couldn’t see the end of it.
My boots thudded as they met the dirt floor, unnaturally loud. As if some celestial presence wanted to ensure whoever entered the Starsearcher Prime Warrior’s private space was announced.
