Second alarm, she mouthed.Be ready.
Then he was gone, swallowed by the darkness below, and the grate clanged shut behind him.
Vask turned back to her, his robes swirling around his legs as he moved. “I’ve been patient with you, navigator. More patient than most in my position would be. But patience has limits, and you’ve been testing mine since the moment we met.”
“What do you want?”
“I told you. Cooperation.” He clasped his hands behind his back—that patient predator stance she’d learned to recognize. “But I’m beginning to think you need additional motivation. Something to clarify the stakes.”
He moved past her, toward the corridor that led back toward their holding cells. The guards fell into formation around the three women, herding them forward with growls and the occasional shove. Elsa’s cheek throbbed with every step, the swelling already starting, but she kept her head up. Kept her awareness focused on the bond, on Sylas’s presence burning like a beacon in the darkness.
Vask led them through a different passage than the one they’d come through—narrower, older, the stone worn smooth by centuries of feet. The air grew warmer as they walked, thick with the smell of bodies and sweat and fear. Machinery hummedsomewhere nearby, the grid systems that powered the pits, the technology that Vask wanted her to unlock.
They emerged onto a ledge overlooking a vast open space.
The pit sprawled below them—a crater carved into the earth, surrounded by tiers of stone seating that rose like the interior of some ancient colosseum. The floor was packed dirt, dark with stains Elsa didn’t want to identify. Figures moved across it—workers, guards, prisoners shuffling under the weight of chains and exhaustion. The scale of it hit her like a physical blow. Hundreds of bodies. Maybe more. All of them trapped in this underground hell, invisible to the fortress above.
Vask stepped to the edge of the ledge, his silhouette framed against the orange glow of torchlight below.
“The Alpha King has been very careful,” he said, his voice carrying despite its softness. “Very measured. The court expects him to react publicly—to demand answers, to make threats, to demonstrate the weakness that comes from caring too much about a single human female. But he hasn’t. He’s playing the patient king, waiting for the right moment to move.”
He turned to face her, and the torchlight caught the satisfaction in his expression.
“I’m going to change that.”
He raised a hand, and somewhere below, a horn sounded—low, resonant, echoing off the stone walls of the pit. The movement on the floor stopped. Guards barked orders. Prisoners dropped to their knees, heads bowed, in a display of submission that had been drilled into them through violence.
“Tomorrow,” Vask said, “there will be a demonstration. A public event, visible to anyone with access to the pit viewing galleries. The kind of spectacle that draws attention from all levels of the fortress—including the crown.” His smile widened, cold and certain. “By the time it’s over, Sylas won’t be able to ignore what’s happening down here. He’ll have to respond.Publicly. Emotionally. In exactly the way that will prove to the court how compromised he’s become.”
Elsa’s stomach dropped. “What kind of demonstration?”
“The traditional kind.” Vask’s gaze swept across the pit below, across the hundreds of bodies frozen in submission. “Combat. Pain. The ancient rituals that remind everyone why the strong rule and the weak serve.” His attention returned to her, sharp and purposeful. “Your friends from theStardancerwill participate, of course. The engineer and the cook. Their usefulness has run its time. I have no use for them anymore. They will provide a better example for those who reject my authority.”
No.
The word echoed in Elsa’s skull, but she didn’t let it reach her lips. Couldn’t afford to give him the satisfaction of seeing her break. Her cheek throbbed. The bond pulsed with Sylas’s rage. And somewhere below, Rowan and Milo were being marched back into darkness, unaware that they’d just been scheduled for public destruction.
Vask watched her face, reading every micro-expression she couldn’t quite suppress. “The spark dims further. Good. Perhaps you’re finally understanding the reality of your situation.”
He gestured to the guards, and they herded the women back toward the corridors. Away from the pit, away from the ledge, away from the horror that was being prepared below. Elsa moved mechanically, her mind racing through possibilities and outcomes, trying to find the angle that would let her change what was coming.
The second alarm. She’d told them to wait for the second alarm.
But if Vask’s demonstration happened first—if Rowan and Milo were dragged into that pit before Sylas could move—
Through the bond, she felt Sylas’s attention sharpen. Felt him register her fear, her desperation, the shape of the threat even if he couldn’t hear the specifics. The connection thrummed between them, carrying information she couldn’t put into words.
Hurry, she thought.Whatever you’re planning—hurry.
And somewhere in the fortress above, in the dark places where kings became hunters, she felt him answer.
28
Sylas
The tunnels beneath the fortress breathed like something dying.
Sylas moved through the dark with Vor at his flank, their footfalls silent against stone. The air tasted of rust and old blood and the faint chemical tang of sedatives—the same compound that had severed his bond with Elsa three days ago and left him hollow in ways he refused to examine too closely.