Chapter 21 Find The Boy

Chapter 21 Find The Boy
NYX

The dormitory sinks into the heavy, uneven breathing of exhausted bodies long before the moon reaches its zenith, and I lie on my cot with my eyes wide open.

The carton of a blanket doesn’t do much to save me from the piercing cold and my nose is in a permanent scrunch. 

They reek.

All of them. 

The smell of salt and sweat is as overpowering as the cold.

Are the maids forbidden to take a bath? 

I will fetch them a pail of water each if it means breathing properly for a few seconds. I turn with a crunch from the stupid mat, facing the walls.

Sable’s words loop through my skull on an endless reel. ‘Nightbane Dargo, served the old king’, until they feel branded behind my eyelids.

If this woman truly knew my father, if she carries even a fragment of the truth about what happened the night Eclipse County burned, then the dungeon is the only place left in the world that matters.

And I need to be there. Speak to her before that demon does and find out what I can. I slip my eyes shut, hearing my heartbeat go off like a band of drums against my ribcage.

Today, I have had my fair share of suspense. 

I wait until the last snore fades into silence, then slide from the cot. My bare feet find the cold stone soundlessly as I aim for the lazy iron door that creaks almost as loudly as their snores.

But the moment my fingers close around the iron latch the air shifts behind me. Then comes a grip, skinny on my shoulder.

Someone’s hand. 

I breathe through my gasp and turn slowly enough, hands balled to throw a firm punch to the face of whoever it is—if it comes to it.

A part of me hopes it does. 

With all this rage growing in my belly, if I can’t punch Kane, maybe his subordinates can help him express how much it hurts—although the cunning little bastard wouldn’t even care.

Greta, the old bat, grips me with all bone and spite, glaring. “Where do you think you’re slinking off to, girl?” Her voice is a rasp, those huge owl eyes narrowed to slits in the half-dark.

“Dishes, ma’am.” I purse my lips. “Someone’s got to scrub the pots before morning.”

She studies me for a long, sour moment, then takes one step back. Her frail arm gestures to the corner of the room, at a towering stack of wooden bowls. “Everyone’s. Including the maids’. Earn your keep. You’re quite useless.”

And you look a shove away from a cremation urn. 

“Okay.” I offer a slow nod and carry the plates, huffing and having my knees buckle upon every step. 

Her eyes follow me all the way out until the door slams shut. I drag in a deep breath.

I hate them. Every single one of them.

The kitchen looks particularly receptive to a young maid when I reach it, because it’s crawling with undone dishes. This hygiene for a few more months and it’s not my poison that will kill their Alpha. 

It still holds a faint memory of Zephyr that unsettles me. The last look in his glassy eyes when the knife hit a point of no return will continue to linger in me like an unscratchable itch.

I dump the bowls in the sink with a clatter that feels like sacrilege, then slip through the servants’ stairs to the lower levels where the air instantly turns damp and metallic, holding a stench with it. 

Rust. Blood. Rotten skin. Despair. So strong they hit the back of my throat. Looming ahead are the black, aging iron bars of the dungeon gate. And the senseless giant charged with protecting it.

With a stick of flame in one hand and a sword in the order, Jabari leans against the coarse walls. He looks more like a prisoner than the slaves I have seen. 

His eyes flick up, lazy and mean. I am surprised he can still see past the bushy beard that makes his big head even bigger. 

“Little late for a stroll, snake girl.”

After I kill Kane, I’d hang him by his beard—I swear it.

In character, my head tilts and I find my feminine voice, hiding behind the rasp and rage lodged in my throat. “Some guards up top asked me to fetch you. Said they’ve got women waiting, wine too. Sounded urgent.”

His brows lift as his face brightens up and goes pink. “Which guards?”

I give him an innocent shrug. “I didn’t catch names. There was one tall one and a short, fatter one. But they mentioned you specifically.”

He hesitates only a heartbeat before pushing off the wall and hanging the keys to the belt around his disproportional waist. 

“Better not be a trick.” He lumbers past me, and I bump into him.

The moment he’s gone, I flick the key around my index finger.

Being a petty thief sure has its perks. It’s not long before I’m through the gate, down the narrow corridor where the torches are as bleak as my future if I get caught.

I pass rusted bars and hollow-eyed faces that don’t even look up anymore, until I reach the farthest cell. The look tells me all I need to know.

It’s like a palace cell, but only in terms of security. Reinforced iron, double bars with runes scratched into the frame. 

It’s built for something more than human. And I see her there, sitting in the center of the floor with her legs crossed

She sits in the center of the floor, legs crossed. Her dauntless white hair flows to her shoulders, consisting of braided strands attached to bones and feathers that clink softly when she turns her head. 

And she turns it to me. 

Her eyes stay on mine, a knowing look blossoming on her wrinkled face. I feel a shrill vibration dance down my backbone. 

The silence stays. I don’t move because I am too captivated, too scared of what she knows and if I should be doing this at all. 

I wrap my fingers around the bars, crouching against them. “Do you know who I am?”

Her calloused fingers close around mine through the bars. “You’re not supposed to be here, little spark,” she rasps. Her voice was dry, dehydrated, and weak. It sounds like dead leaves under a hunter’s boots. “The dark remembers every footstep.”

Moonlight leaks through a slit high in the wall, sending a thin silver blade of light slicing across her face while leaving the rest of her face and the cell drowning in pitch, uncomfortable black. 

I can barely see the runes on her skin, can barely see anything except the urgency in her grip as she pulls me closer until my forehead almost touches the bars.

“Did you know him?” I whisper. “Alpha Benedict of Eclipse County. Did you serve him?”

Her smile widens, but she gives no response.

Instead, her grip tightens until her bones grind against mine, shooting pain up my hand. 

“Find the boy,” she hisses. “Protect him. He’s just like you, waiting to reclaim his place in the world.”

I jerk, confused. My stomach knots with dread and my heart—it won’t stop stuttering. 

“What boy? I don’t understand? Who are you talking about?”

She shakes her head so fiercely that her braids rattle. “No time. You can ask all the questions later, child, but now you have to find him. Find him before he does.”

A creak echoes from the corridor and I snap my head in the direction of it. My hair whips my face, and the realization pumps into me.

Someone’s coming.

I yank my hand free, the sudden absence of her grip leaving my fingers numb. “I’m coming back for you,” I promise, already backing away. “I will save you.”

The moonlight catches her one last time as she lifts a bruised hand in farewell, or warning, I can’t tell.

I spin and run for my dear life. 

What boy?

Why won’t she answer my damn questions?!

My legs don’t stop. I round the corner and—

I freeze.

There’s someone.

Something. A figure that makes me back away sharply, panting as I hold the walls for support before my legs give out.

He. She. It. They—don’t know—stand stiffly at the entrance. Tall, motionless, arms folded. 

And most frighteningly, NOT Jabari. There’s a distinct scent that feels familiar yet strange.

This one is leaner, wearing a cloak that pools at their booted feet. And the stance just shows that they've been here long enough. There’s a distinct scent rolling off them that feels familiar yet strange.

“Not so fast,” the masculine voice says, in an amused tone that’s laced with a smile I can hear but not see.