Darya nodded. “The small bird flies.”
“On the wings of the golden-eyed girl,” Lei intoned.
Wren frowned, but Lei seemed to understand what the strange words meant. “You two need to get inside the King’s fortress undetected, yes?” Darya asked. As Wren tensed, she explained, “Miss A told me. She said if the palace came under attack, at least one of you two would try to get to the King while both armies were occupied. She also told me I was to help in the case of her… absence.”
Lill sniffed, and even Darya couldn’t keep a flash of pain from her features.
“She was so nice to me, Mistress,” Lill mumbled, blinking up at Lei. “She looked after me, and brought me sweets, and told me I’d see you again soon so I shouldn’t cry so much.”
Lei hugged her. She looked at Wren. “She was a good woman,” she said. “A good friend.”
“Come on,” Darya said crisply. “The entrance is this way.”
“The entrance to what?” Lei asked.
“The tunnel to the King’s palace.”
Lei shot a look at Wren. “Did you know about this?”
“It wasn’t on any of the plans I’ve seen,” Wren replied.
Darya waved a hand, unconcerned. “Miss A told me you’d say that. According to her, the King’s father ordered the construction of a series of underground tunnels within the palace grounds before his death, and the current King completed them just a few years ago. He killed the workers to keep their existence quiet from most of the court. It’s almost as if he was concerned about his safety,” she added wryly.
“He told me once he has ways around the palace even the court doesn’t know about,” Lei murmured.
After a chilled pause, Wren said, “But even if they were mostly a secret before, he’ll certainly have them guarded now.”
“Miss A planned for that,” Darya said. “Our spies have taken out the guards by the entrance within the King’s building the tunnels connect to, and others have already been here to clear the way on this end. Miss A knew this would be the route you’d most likely take—”
She broke off at an abrupt surge in noise from the distant battle. The Hannos’ army must have broken through to the Inner Courts.
“We should hurry,” Wren announced. “If the King thinks he’s in danger of losing the palace, he might use one of the tunnels to escape. We could lose him.”
“And the Demon Queen,” Lei added. She swapped a dark look with Wren, then bent to hold Lill’s shoulders. “Lill,” she said, “I’m so happy to see you, but you can’t come with us. It’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not afraid,” Lill said, jutting her small chin.
“I know,” Lei replied. “I am. I’ve put you in danger too many times. I’m not going to let anything happen to you again.”
The doe-girl clutched Lei’s hand, her glassy eyes imploring. “Please, Mistress, I don’t want you to go again.”
“It’s only for a short while. I’ll find you as soon as things are safe, Lill. I promise. And you’ll be with Darya until then. She’s been nice to you all this time, hasn’t she?”
Though still teary, Lill nodded, and with a relieved look, Lei took the girl’s hand. “Where’s this tunnel, then?” she asked Darya as they set off into the grounds.
“Oh, just some old temple. No one really goes there, which is why the old King picked it, I suppose. Its name is fitting—the Temple of the Hidden.”
“Sounds scary,” Lill mumbled.
“I think it sounds perfect,” Wren said, and she shared a private glance with Lei.
How fitting that a pathway the King thought himself so clever for creating—in a place where Wren and Lei had fallen in love, right under his nose—would lead to his downfall.
Their footsteps rang out in the empty temple. It was eerily quiet, the noise of the battle shut out by the stone walls and the large banyan that hung over the building. Darya led them to the central courtyard. The room was cast in a green, underwater glow from the banyan’s leaves, its hanging roots drooping through the caved-in roof.
“Over here,” she said, sweeping aside a clutch of dried leaves in one corner before prizing up a stone to reveal a narrow passageway.
Wren peered in. Roughly hewn steps disappeared down into darkness. “Where does it come out?” she asked.
“A rarely used courtyard on the ground floor of the King’s fortress. Only take the first right turn in the tunnel,” Darya instructed. “If you come across bodies by the stairs on the far side, it’ll be the demons our spies took out. Use our code with the guards. If they don’t give you the correct response, you’ll know they’re not with us.”
Despite Wren’s earlier conviction, she was growing uneasy. She wished so deeply she had her magic. The world felt wrong without the steady hum of it at her fingertips, waiting—wanting—for her to call it into life. Not to mention, the pain and exhaustion she’d been fighting this whole time had started to burrow up within her once more, filling her body with a ruinous weight.
Lei had said Wren made her own power. Wren wanted so badly to believe her. But after a lifetime of being special because of her Xia blood, to suddenly be stripped of its properties made her feel incomplete.
Lei said her good-byes to a teary Lill. Then she gave Darya a hug. “Thank you,” she said. “Please look after her—and yourself.”
The panther demon reached down to rub Lill’s furred ears. “We’ll be safe here, don’t worry.” As Wren and Lei descended into the murky tunnel, Darya called after them, “Give them hell, girls. For all of us.”
“We will,” Lei promised.
There was a low, grinding noise over their heads, and then they were plunged into pitch-black.
THIRTY-EIGHT
LEI
WE GRAZE OUR FINGERTIPS ALONG THE rock wall to follow the passageway’s curves and sharp bends. The air is stuffy. Our breathing comes loud. Wren’s sword clinks at her hip where she walks in front of me, keeping up a fast pace I match despite my aching muscles.
“How much longer?” I ask, wiping a sleeve across my brow.
“It can’t be much farther. We should be passing under the upper-west curve of the river about now.”
I shudder, feeling the press of the earth over our heads like a giant’s palm. Coming from the open plains of Xienzo, being underground has always made me uncomfortable, and the last time I was beneath the palace was in the King’s secret torture chamber where I’d killed Caen.
A bolt shoots through me; Wren has no idea I murdered him. That I killed someone who wasn’t only her lifelong teacher and her father’s lover, but her friend, her family. How will she react once I tell her? After the awful things I said to her on the Amala’s ship, she’d have every right to throw them back in my face.
Caught up in my thoughts, I bump into her, not noticing she’s stopped. The coppery smell of blood hits my throat. I remember Darya’s warning. “The guards our spies killed,” I breathe. “We’re here.”
“Take care not to trip,” Wren cautions.
We pick our way around the bodies in total darkness—moving quietly, knowing we’re right below the palace—until Wren finds the stairs.