“Lead the way,” he said, and Addie started running.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Gandrett’s mouth fell open in a silent scream. Had she remained where she had been standing a few moments ago, she might now be dead—either from the impact of the door on her skull or from breaking her neck being pushed back into the debris in the cell.
A long shadow flickered in the now fire-lit space, and Joshua Brenheran’s voice carried inside like a promise of pain, “I hope you’re not under that heap of gravel. It would be a shame if I didn’t get to kill you.”
Gandrett tightened her grip on the chain and dared a glance around the room, just to know her surroundings, to know of the traps, the potential additional weapons. The walls were black stone covered with some purplish moss that didn’t seem to depend on daylight, and where the chain had been lodged in the ceiling, a crater remained, big enough to fit her head in. But there was nothing but the rocks on the ground and the chain in her hand that would help her overpower Joshua Brenheran.
The shadow started moving, a counterpart to the escaping haze. Gandrett didn’t move. Not yet. The element of surprise worked only once. And she had to make it count.
He neared another step. And another. Then the tip of his sword was visible from the side. Gandrett rallied her strength and let him take another step before she hurled the chain like a whip, watching it wrap around his blade, and tugged it free from his grasp.
His responding growl was nothing less than lethal. The sword clattered to the ground between them and Joshua Brenheran had already drawn a dagger—Nehelon’s dagger—by the time she bent, trying to pick it up. Gandrett hurled back the chain, leaving the sword where it was before Joshua could launch at her with the new blade gleaming in his grasp.
“You should not fight me,” he warned her, teeth bared, emerald eyes piercing through the dim light. “It will only make your suffering longer.”
He took one feral step toward her, dagger ready to slice into her.
She needed to find his weakness. She had caught him off guard before in the hallway. All she needed to do was—
“I am here to help you, Joshua,” Gandrett tried. If there was any truth to what the Brenheran family said about their heir, then she had to find a way to get him to stall rather than to fight. To listen. “Your father sent me to get you out of this castle.”
Joshua didn’t seem human as he waved her off and took another step. “My family is glad I am gone.” He laughed darkly. “The black sheep of the Brenherans. A stain to my family’s honor.” He spoke, it seemed, more to himself.
Gandrett didn’t stop him. As long as he had something to say, he wouldn’t kill her. So she didn’t stop him.
“It’s a surprise my father”—he laughed as if that word was a joke—“even let me live. A Brenheran by name and blood, but—” His eyes grew distant as if he were listening to something.
Gandrett strained her ears, trying to make out any sound but the slow shifting of Joshua’s feet on the gravel-covered ground.
Now. It had to be now.
With another—last—surge of strength, she let the chain lash against Joshua’s neck, and as it wrapped around his throat, she pulled hard enough to fell a tree, but Joshua didn’t even tumble. And he didn’t yield.
“You vicious creature.” His face distorted, all handsomeness relinquished by the grimace, and his free hand grabbed the chain, now pulling Gandrett closer as if he were hauling in a boat.
Gandrett, no matter how hard she dug her heels in the dirt, couldn’t hold her ground. Not as Joshua released his full strength and tugged, sending her stumbling forward until she came to a stop an inch from his dagger—Nehelon’s dagger.
A surge of fury filled Gandrett’s chest, strong enough to burn the fear for her life and dulling the pain in her face, in her limbs, in her torn palms. Nehelon’s dagger. His diamond-blue eyes flashed before her, centering her, and felling her rage.
“Give me that dagger,” was all she said.
Joshua cocked his head in response, seeming confused by her demand.
“The dagger, Joshua Brenheran. Give it to me.”
He did no such thing, but his confusion grew, spreading wide on his features. His grasp on the chain, however, held fast.
“A friend gave it to me, and I would not want to return to him without it. So give me the dagger. I won’t say it again.”
As Joshua’s lips curled into a cruel smile, the leash on Gandrett’s temper snapped, and she tugged on the chain with all her force, grabbing the blade of the dagger before her with one already injured hand.
It cut into her palm, sending searing pain up her arm, but she didn’t let go. The blade shook between her grasp and Joshua’s, but she didn’t yield. Even when the blade turned hot like a branding iron between her fingers, she didn’t loosen her grasp. She held Joshua’s gaze, staring him down until he flinched, sucking in a breath of surprise.
“Magic—”
Armand’s breathing was ragged by the time they made it down the stairs. He never took this corridor—even though he knew of its existence, knew where it led, he never took it.
“How much further?” The servant girl kept running ahead, her legs fast as a doe’s as she leaped around corners, braid bouncing on her slender back.
He could still feel the looks on his guards’ incredulous faces as he’d taken off with her. But he’d care about that later. Right now, his ray of hope needed his help, and he would run until his lungs bled if he had to.
“I don’t know how long she’s been in there,” the girl panted as they flew down the next flight of stairs. Never in his life had the castle felt that unnecessarily large to him. “But if we don’t make it soon…”
Do you have any idea how she got there? Wherever that is. He wanted to ask. But he saved his breath for running.
“She didn’t sound good when I left and”—Addie flung out her hand, holding on to the wall at the corner she was turning—“and someone was coming.” She didn’t pause for a second to see if he was catching up. “She was scared, Sir.”
It was when they made it to the bottom level of the north tower that Armand’s chest tightened. The north tower was the last place he’d seen her. What if she had never left?
They made it past another turn and then down into the underground levels where the ancient dungeons of a time long before the Dragon King were located.
The humid smell of mold climbed into his nostrils as they entered a long, torch-lit corridor.
“Almost there,” the girl panted and pointed ahead, this time glancing back over her shoulder, her face panic-stricken.
He heard it then, Gandrett’s scream. A sound shaking him to the core of his bone marrow.
His legs automatically pushed harder, as if in answer to the horrifying sound of pain, and he darted past the girl, sweat sheathing his neck.
It couldn’t be far. Just—
In the corridor, coming into view as he made it past the next corner, a shape was cowering on the floor, hands raised before her face and shaking uncontrollably.
Gandrett.
She was wearing the same elegant, dusty-blue dress as the last time he’d seen her. Only now it was hardly recognizable, covered in dust and something darker he hoped wasn’t her blood.