Chapter 62 The Silver Pit
The dungeon didn't smell like earth or damp stone anymore. It smelled like burning meat and the metallic, electric tang of the Void.
"Move, beast!" the guard barked, shoving the massive frame of Rune toward the open maw of the Silver Pit.
I watched from the shadows of the upper gallery, my heart fracturing with every heavy, stumbling footfall. It was Rune’s body—broad-shouldered, towering, built for war—but the way he moved was all wrong. He walked with the desperate, light-footed grace of a man who didn't know his own weight. He moved like Caspian.
"Get in there!" another warrior snarled, slamming a silver-tipped pike into the small of his back.
A horrific, wet hiss filled the corridor. The silver-lined walls of the pit reacted instantly to the Fae-resonance still clinging to Caspian’s soul. To the guards, it was just a rogue wolf reacting to the dampener. To me, it was a soul being grilled alive.
Caspian, trapped in that hulking body, let out a choked, gargling sound. He didn't fight back. He couldn't. The silver collar around his throat was glowing cherry-red, suppressing the vocal cords he didn't know how to command yet. They threw him into the cell, the heavy iron gate clanging shut with a sound like a guillotine.
"Let him rot," the guard muttered, spitting on the floor. "Traitor. Trying to lay hands on the Silver Luna while the manor is falling."
They left. I waited until their torches faded into embers, my breath coming in shallow, jagged hitches. The "Mute" I had placed on the Mind-Link was fraying. I could feel the Witch Lord—upstairs in Caspian’s skin—reveling in the luxury of the master suite. But down here, in the dark, there was a different kind of scream.
I slipped past the last gate, my bare feet silent on the cold stone. I reached the Silver Pit, the air shimmering with the heat of the anti-magic wards.
"Caspian?" I whispered.
The massive figure in the center of the cell didn't move at first. He was slumped against the wall, his wrists shackled to silver rings that sizzled against his tan skin. Steam rose from where the metal touched him. In Rune’s body, he should have been able to withstand some silver—but Caspian’s soul was a conductor for everything the silver hated.
"Caspian, it's me. I'm here."
He lifted his head. The amber eyes of Rune looked at me, but the pupils were blown wide with agonizing silver light. He lunged toward the bars, the chains snapping taut.
"Ghhh... L-Ly... ra..."
The sound was a shredded ruin. He collapsed against the bars, his forehead hitting the cold iron with a dull thud.
"Shh, don't try to speak," I said, reaching through the gaps. My fingers brushed his hair—Rune’s coarse, thick hair—but the way he leaned into my touch was all Caspian. I grabbed his face, forcing him to look at me. "I know you're in there. I know what he did."
He couldn't answer. He just breathed, a heavy, rattling sound. I pressed my face against the bars, closing the distance until our foreheads touched. The silver wards bit into my skin, but I didn't care.
I inhaled.
Beneath the scent of scorched flesh and the damp cellar, it was there. Faint. Fragile. The sharp, clean scent of cedar and the ozone of a coming storm. The Soul-Scent.
"I smell you," I whispered into his ear. "He can take your face, Caspian, but he can't take the way your soul smells. He can't mimic this."
Rune’s massive hand—shaking with a fine, electric tremor—reached up and covered mine. He pressed his forehead harder against mine, a silent, desperate plea for contact. I felt a tear fall from his eye, hot against my thumb.
"The Envoy said I have to choose," I murmured, my voice trembling. "He said I have to kill the vessel to purge the shadow. But I won't do it. I'll find another way. I'll drag you back into your own skin if I have to burn this manor to the ground."
The chains rattled as he tried to pull me closer, his body vibrating with the effort to overcome the paralysis of the swap.
"He’s watching me, Caspian," I said, my heart racing. "The thing in your body... he touches me like he knows me. He tastes like rot. I have to get you out before he finishes what he started."
Suddenly, the bond in my head didn't just hum—it screamed.
A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through my temple, and the silver circlet on my head pulsed with a rhythmic, sickly light. I gasped, falling back from the bars.
"Who’s there?" I called out, my hand flying to the dagger at my waist.
The shadows at the end of the dungeon corridor shifted. A figure stepped into the dim light of the soul-candles.
It was Kael.
He didn't look like the hollowed-out statue from the hallway. His eyes were wide, glowing with a frantic, internal brilliance. He was clutching his head with both hands, his knuckles white.
"Kael? What are you doing here? If the Witch Lord finds out—"
"I can hear him, Lyra," Kael interrupted, his voice a jagged, terrifying whisper. He wasn't looking at me; he was staring at the massive man in the cell.
"Hear who?"
"Him!" Kael pointed at Rune’s body. "The link... it’s crossing over. The Mind-Vow I took... it didn't just bind me to you. It bound me to the soul that was in the circuit. When the Witch Lord swapped them, he didn't account for the Mind-Link’s residue."
Kael took a stumbling step toward the cell, his eyes fixed on Caspian’s trapped soul.
"His thoughts are screaming inside my head, Lyra," Kael choked out, a thin trail of blood leaking from his nose. "I can hear him feeling the silver. I can hear him calling for you. It’s like a bell ringing in a void. He’s... he’s fighting the swap from the inside."
Caspian—as Rune—let out a low, guttural growl, his eyes locking onto Kael’s.
"The resonance is bleeding through," Kael said, falling to his knees in front of the bars. "I can see what he sees. The Fae realm... the portal... the way he held you. It’s all pouring into me."
"Can you help him?" I asked, hope flared in my chest. "Kael, if your minds are linked, can you pull him back?"
Kael looked up at me, his face twisted in a mask of agony and a strange, terrifying realization.
"I can't pull him back," Kael whispered. "But I can feel the Witch Lord reaching for the link. He’s trying to use me as a second bridge, Lyra. He’s trying to jump from Caspian’s body into mine."
"What?"
"He’s not satisfied with the Soulmate," Kael cried out, his body beginning to jerk. "He wants the Alpha’s Mind. If he gets both, he doesn't need the manor anymore. He becomes the Gate himself."
In the cell, Caspian lunged at the bars, his chains screaming as he tried to warn us. He let out a loud, agonized roar that finally broke through the paralysis.
"NO!"
The word was a tectonic shift, a sound that shook the very foundation of the Silver Pit.
"Kael, get back!" I yelled, reaching for him.
But it was too late. Kael’s eyes suddenly went dark—not the silver-black of Caspian, but a flat, oily void. He looked at me, and his mouth curved into a grin that matched the one I had seen upstairs.
"Too late, Silver Luna," the Kael-voice said, but the tone was the Witch Lord’s. "I told you. One by one."
Kael’s hand shot out, grabbing the bars of the cell. The silver sizzled against his palms, but he didn't flinch. He looked at the trapped Caspian and laughed.
"Now I have the Mind," the possessed Kael sneered. "And the Body is in chains. Tell me, Lyra... what’s left for you to love?"
I backed away, my heart hammering against my ribs, as the two possessed brothers—one in the suite above, one standing before me—began to speak in a terrifying, synchronized unison.
"The Triple Claim is mine."
The manor groaned, and the floor of the dungeon began to liquefy into black shadow.