The Forsaken Throne (Kingfountain #6)(53)

There was a hissing noise. A serpent slid from underneath the husks of its comrades, drawn to the light, to the heat. Trynne slashed down quickly and severed the creature in half. It convulsed in agony and quickly died. Her heart hammered as she saw more heads poking out through holes in the walls.

“I don’t like this place, Martin!” she called over her shoulder.

As she walked, she struck down the hissing reptiles one by one.

They were lethargic and weak. Her boot crunched against the desiccated spine of one, and she groaned at the sensation before shoving it away with the edge of her foot.

The tunnel was not very tall. Someone like Fallon would have needed to stoop in such a place, but she was unburdened by the need to crouch. Something darted out at her face from a hidden warren in the walls—a hissing tongue, fangs, a gaping maw—but instinct served her well. She instantly reached up and sliced the snake in two. The air had a sick smell to it, the musty odor overridden by the stench of decay. Her anxiety grew as she walked cautiously down the corridor, holding up the torch to see.

There was a small chamber at the end of the tunnel. Six pillars held up the stone ceiling. Each had a face carved into it, but the faces had all been broken off. Something had been wedged into the stone floor at the center of the room. A drain of some kind, or a brick removed. She’d wondered why she had not sensed any Leerings as she made her way down the hall.

They’d already been destroyed.

On the far side of the room, a stone door stood between two of the pillars, slightly ajar.

The door was so heavy, Trynne had to sheathe her sword to heave on it. It slowly ground open, and cool air gushed out of the interior. Many snakes lay dead in the chamber beyond.

With the torch held firmly aloft, she gazed into the room. All was empty and quiet. Void. And she realized before her eyes adjusted to

the dark that the hetaera Leering was already gone.

The Aldermaston of Dochte Abbey was in chains, cowering in a cell, trying to shield his face from the glare of their torches. He looked terrified, his clothes incongruously wealthy and mostly unspoiled for such a fetid location, save for a few blotches on his elbows and tunic front. The iron cuffs binding his wrists together made him look almost like a supplicant as he tried to see against the painful light. He was middle-aged with streaks of gray in his pale brown hair.

Martin stood in the entryway with Trynne and Fallon next to him.

The captain looked like he was about to explode from built-up fury and resentment.

“Well, how the mighty have fallen!” Martin said with a scoffing tone.

“I know that voice,” the Aldermaston whimpered. “The Pry-rian accent. You have been here before.”

“Aye, and you were a miserable host. I’ve come for my vengeance and the queen has come for hers.”

“She will not hurt me,” the Aldermaston said, his eyes flashing with enmity. “I made her.”

“But the question is, can you unmake her?” Martin challenged.

He stooped by the cowering man. “We’ve been to the garden. The Leerings on the pillars were all broken. But the serpent Leering, the one that brands the hetaera, it is no more. I don’t know how you managed to move such a stone, but it was done. Where is it?”

“I don’t know,” the Aldermaston said, and Martin struck him hard across the face. Trynne jolted from the sudden violence. Her stomach twisted into knots.

“It wasn’t moved without your knowledge or assistance, Aldermaston,” Martin said with feigned patience. “That Leering outside won’t summon fire for me, but there is a brazier full of coals, and I will pour them into your hands if you don’t answer me.”

The Aldermaston’s eyes blazed with sudden fear. “I didn’t say they took it without my knowledge. I said I don’t know where it is. It was too vulnerable here. The mastons may return someday—”

“Aye, and they will!” Martin growled.

“Naturally they would seek to destroy it! It’s been moved to another abbey. I was not told which one. It is to be lost from memory.” He licked his lips. “I was to pretend it was still here. The works were done at night, in secret. You saw it yourself! The Leering is gone.”

“If you are lying to me . . .” Martin said, shaking his head in wrath.

“To what purpose!” the Aldermaston wailed. His shoulders slumped and he leaned back against the wall, a broken man.

“Everything is taken from me now.”

“Why?” Martin demanded. “You served the hetaera. You condoned the Dochte Mandar despite all the mastons they’ve murdered. Why would they forsake you now?”

The Aldermaston’s lip twitched. “Because I failed to keep . . .

because of who I let escape.”

Trynne’s insides began to burn with heat. She gazed at the cell, gazed at the chains the Aldermaston wore. Then she stepped forward and knelt before the Aldermaston.

“There was a prisoner here,” she said, her voice trembling.

The Aldermaston looked at her face. He nodded. “I never knew who it was. It may have been the Earl of Forshee, the man Hillel has been looking for so persistently. If I still had him here, she surely would have spared my life.”

This was the cell where her father had been kept. She’d never been more certain of anything. She rose, swaying slightly, and pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth. It was horrible to imagine her father in this dank confinement.