Like old blood.
I kept moving, one hand braced against the wall, though every instinct urged me to turn back.
When the iron doors finally emerged at the end of the corridor, I knew I had found the heart of this city’s rot.
The gate was forged from scarred black iron, a brutal contrast to the elegant spires above. No luminous crystals lit this place. Only the cold breath of the mountain remained.
I shoved the gate aside, the hinges screaming in protest before the door thudded against the stone.
Beyond it, iron cells stretched into the darkness in a long, merciless row. Each one glowed with a weak, sickly light that revealed a body folded inside.
Like something discarded.
Revulsion clawed up my throat and I staggered back, my shoulder striking the wall.
These had once been people.
Now they were husks—bodies emptied of whatever had made them human. Their eyes were milked over, reflecting the dim light like dull glass. Their skin had gone ashen, shadowed with deep violet bruising beneath hollow cheeks.
My eyes flitted through the cells, searching for any recognizable faces and a strangled noise escaped me when my eyes landed on a familiar head of blonde hair.
Had it not been for the unruly curls that tickled her waist, Sena Torvin would have been unrecognizable. Her honey colored eyes were no longer and her lips not tipped up in their usual grin.
My knees almost gave out at the sight of the girl who had raced me through the reeds and laughed until her face went red.
I looked away from her soulless form and swallowed the lump in my throat. Staring at her was not going to give me any answers and it definitely was not making me believe it was a great choice to come down here.
Drawing a slow breath, I pushed deeper into the corridor.
I kept my eyes forward until I reached a cell that glowed far dimmer than the others. Its front had been sealed with a heavy slab of stone, leaving only a narrow opening no wider than two outstretched arms.
I leaned closer and peered through the gap. I had expected a beast—something with claws and a hunger that matched the darkness of the mountain.
Instead, I found a man.
He sat with his head bowed, his ribs tracing sharp, skeletal lines beneath skin as pale as funeral shrouds. But it was the way he held his hands—fingers curled as if still reaching for a sword that had been stripped from him centuries ago—that stopped my breath.
He lifted his head, the movement stiff and pained. When the weak, sickly light finally hit his face, it did not reveal a monster. It revealed a man whose emerald eyes were the exact, haunting shade from the stories.
“Xylos,” I whispered.
He blinked at me, the movement stiff. “Who are you?”
“Kaelia,” I uttered.
He rose slowly, towering even in his weakened state, his bones shifting beneath barely-there muscle.
“Are you okay?”
His voice was a low growl. “What do you think, little mortal?”
I did not have time to answer, because his eyes suddenly cut past me and his body tensed like a drawn bow, every muscle locking.
I turned to follow his gaze and my breath snagged when I saw a body in the entryway. Neya stood in the shadows of the chamber, her amber gaze lit like flame.
Xylos’s hands gripped the stone edges of the slit, his voice cracking into a plea. “Neya.”
Neya’s jaw clenched, her features turning to ice, but she did not reply as her eyes darted between us.