House of Pounding Hearts (The Kingdom of Crows #2)(137)

“Sword first, Fallon. Five.”

I stare at Nonna and release the sword. It clanks onto the ground and rolls, stopping when it hits . . . when it hits . . .

A skull.

One of hundreds.

There are bones everywhere. And amidst the bones are scattered thousands of black weapons—obsidian.

“Good girl.”

I grit my teeth. “Release her, or I don’t step forward.”

He tosses Nonna aside the same way I discarded my sword.

Dante takes a step forward and scoops up the steel sword, then nods to the pit. “Now, Fal.”

Dust streams from the rocky ceiling as the force of Lore’s anger continues to sock the mountain.

“Move,” he says, “or I slip this blade through her heart.”

I leap forward. “Don’t harm her!” I give the reddened point of Dante’s sword a wide berth as I advance toward the frightful male who stands between me and my fallen grandmother. “Can I just—can I just have a minute with her?”

Justus’s mouth curls. “Why . . . go ahead.”

I frown, not expecting him to accept, much less smile. As I roll my grandmother onto her back, I catch a look passing between Dante and Justus. My forehead grooves harder, until I lower my gaze to Nonna’s.

I bounce away, one of my feet rolling on a bone. As I go down, I gape at the blond Fae I was about to embrace.

The soldier smiles, dusting his pristine uniform.

“Blood-casting is incredible, isn’t it?” Dante seizes my bound wrists and hauls me to my feet before shoving the steel blade against my bobbing throat. “Meriam is a fount of knowledge.”

I thought he was holding that woman prisoner, but he’s working with her?

I stagger forward as the soldier who resembled Nonna only a moment ago straightens and takes the torch from Justus’s hand, wiping drips of blood off his forehead.

Dante hands my grandfather back his sword, then winds his arm around my throat. “I don’t want to hurt you, Fal, but I will if you fight me.”

“Eat sprite shit, you prick.” I jerk my face down in the hopes of sinking my teeth into his flesh, but he anticipates my move because he tightens his grip, blocking my chin from dipping through the noose of muscle and bone.

“I said, behave.”

I wheeze as he walks me to the pit and forces me down a whole bunch of steep steps. By the time we reach the belly of the earth, my vision has grayed and I’m panting as though I’ve raced across the Selvatin desert.

Fallon! Lore’s voice explodes inside my mind—or is it inside my ears?

I try to tear myself out of Dante’s hold, but the Fae King’s limb is unyielding. Lore?

Justus and the guard who pretended to be Nonna sidestep us, the torch burning away the darkness before illuminating another slab of black.

Justus seizes my bound hands. As he raises his palm to the wall—door?—he stares at the soldier who pretended to be my grandmother. “Wash away the sigils as soon as we’re through. The abounding obsidian will weaken them and prevent them from shifting into smoke. Strike down as many as you can, and don’t forget to soak your blade in the witch’s blood.” He hands the soldier a glass vial speared onto a leather cord that the male swiftly loops around his neck.

Behach ?an? Lorcan hollers.

Tears cling to my fluttering lashes like sequins. Lore, they’re taking me down into the tunnels. I pray my words ring loud and clear into his mind. They’re leaving only one soldier behind, but he has access to Shabbin blood and has been told how to use it. Get away from the mountain! Please! And don’t come after me.

Mo khrà, if you didn’t want me to come after you, you shouldn’t have run away.

I . . . The word didn’t fades to air as Justus slams his palm against the black stone and carries us through it.

Through a wall!

A wall!

I gasp when he releases my fingers, my gaze hitting Aoife’s immobilized body which Dante’s soldiers are carting down a narrow, torchlit passageway like draft horses.

“Gods, you look like them.” Justus’s blue eyes draw over every millimeter of my face as he wipes his palm along his long velvet jacket that is the color of night—a blue so dark it melts into the abounding obsidian. “How I ever believed you shared my blood is beyond me.”

Same, you monster. Same.

Wait . . .

Did he just say: “Them?” I rasp.

“Your mother and grandmother.” Dante’s mouth is too near my ear for comfort.

“They’re both here?” My voice patters against the tunnel walls, amplified by the stretch of black stone that covers every surface.

Justus’s smile chills me to the core. “I see Aurora hasn’t been very forthcoming.”

My heart jounces at Bronwen’s Fae-given name.

“I suppose that female stockpiles her secrets better than my mother hoards her jewels,” Justus adds under his breath.

Is he saying that Bronwen knew where my mother was all this time?

Lore?

Silence.

Lore?

As Dante shoves me forward, I stare over my shoulder at the slab of obsidian we passed through. When Lorcan doesn’t reply, I swallow. Has the tea’s effect taken ahold of me again or is it the stone that silences the bond?

Or did that soldier . . .?