palace were dimly lit, throwing sinister shadows across the faces of the many statues and reliefs. Inlaid jewels and golden paints glinted in the light Mereruka had conjured with his magic. In his hand, the piece of Bas guided them to what he desperately hoped was the rest of his son, alive, if mutilated. Helpless rage, guilt and terror galvanized his steps. If Bas were dead…no, best not to think on it. He’d asked him to remain behind for his safety, and now his son had been maimed. Careless, foolish, reckless. He never should have encouraged Bas in this endeavour. He should have found someone else to take into the fold of his secrets, to train as his best spy, someone he didn’t love. Whatever happened to Bas, it was Mereruka’s fault. What kind of father was he to allow his son to live such a dangerous life? Bas should have spent his days chasing skirts and making friends, not slinking into enemy territory and listening for secrets. Instead, the child of his heart was in pain.
Though this was certainly a trap, he couldn’t slow his steps. How good of the soon-to-be-dead swine to give Mereruka what he would need to weave a locator spell. The thin, ugly red line stretched out from the chunk of Bas’s tail and pointed the way, like the needle of a grim compass.
“Still unable to locate him, Vasilisa?” he asked.
“I can’t. It’s like he’s not anywhere.”
The darkness mage’s pronouncement sent chills down his spine. He dared not ask if her magic prevented her from locating the dead.
“He must be behind a barrier of some kind. When we find him, your first priority is to get him to safety. Taisiya and I will deal with whatever other resistance there is. Once he’s safe, then you can come back for us,” Mereruka instructed, praying he was correct.
Taisiya and Vasilisa nodded. Fury, barely contained, fairly crackled beneath the surface of their hard stares. Good. He’d already explained that this was a situation where lethal force was not to be stinted on.
No one hurts my son.
“You taste anything, even a hint of magic, and you unleash hell, Taisiya.”
“It will be my pleasure,” she replied.
Taisiya was dangerously under-protected in this fight. He’d had just enough time to fashion a bracelet with some rudimentary defences against the worst fae curses, but this was an engagement for which they were woefully underprepared. He’d not had a chance to commission or create a necklace like the one she’d lost in the desert. It should have been his first priority when he’d returned, outside of assuring Bas’ safety.
The spell led them into a newer section of the palace—so new, in fact, that few of the reliefs had even been painted, the outlines still visible where the work would soon begin. The air was hot and thick with constructive magics. The structures surrounding them had only just settled permanently into reality after being created using fae spells.
To be walking so blatantly into a trap, it was just what Khety would want. But the piece of Bas he’d been given was at least a day old. There was no telling how dire his situation had become.
They followed a circuitous route down to a chamber below. Only a few, dim torches penetrated the gloom, but it was enough. Lying across the floor, beaten, maimed and bleeding, was Bas. His hands were tied behind his back, his fingers either broken or missing. His back was a tapestry of gore, his face nigh unrecognizable from the swelling, and his ears appeared tattered and chewed. A thick black collar hung around his neck, no doubt preventing him from shifting to repair the damage.
Mereruka saw red and dashed forward.
“Oof!”
“Ow!”
His light went out, casting the room in even greater darkness before numerous torches came alight in its absence. Mereruka whipped his head back. Both Taisiya and Vasilisa were cradling their noses and hissing in pain at stubbed toes. He was about to reprimand their clumsiness when a muffled sound caught his attention.
“Mrph!”
An indignant feminine growl accompanied the sight of a bound woman, squirming along the stone floor, facing away. Another piece of bait in this pit, no doubt. Whoever she was, she could wait.
“Meri? Meri!”
He looked back again at Taisiya. She pounded on air, as if she stood behind a sheet of glass.
“We can’t enter!”
He squinted his eyes. Above their heads, a message scrawled across the arch of the doorway.
“Fuck.”
“What?” Taisiya asked.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Mereruka removed Bas’ bindings. He went to unlatch the collar with his magic but found himself unable.
“Shit!”
There would be time for regrets later.
He picked up Bas and gently as he could, fighting his rising tide of panic. He’d been caught like a rat in a trap. There must be iron within this room, to affect his magic so. Just when his son needed his healing magic most, he’d failed him. Helpless, stupid, weak. This was all his fault.
“Meri? Tell me what is going on!” Taisiya’s eyes widened in fear.
Walking to the invisible barrier, he found his way blocked. Just as he’d feared. He couldn’t put a single hair on his over that line, but Bas’ head lolled across it. Some small measure of relief hit him.
“Vasilisa, take Bas. Go back to the barge and rouse my soldiers. Have them remove the collar he wears and force him awake. If he can shift, he’ll be able to repair the damage while he’s between forms.”
At least, Mereruka hoped as much. Shapeshifters were notoriously hardy, but Bas was young and had never been forced to reform missing pieces of himself. He’d never been injured to such an extent—Mereruka would never have allowed it. But he’d ordered him to spy on vicious foes. Never again. Handing Bas off was a less than graceful affair, as he had to let his son’s body tumble from his arms into Vasilisa’s while never crossing the wretched barrier.
“I’ll be back with the soldiers,” Vasilisa replied, bursting into inky flames as she sank into the darkness, Bas cradled in her arms.
“Meri!”
“It seems I’m caught, my love. The spell on this place says ‘One in, one out.’”
“How do I undo it?” she asked.
“Mrph! Mrph!”
Taisiya raised her brow and looked around.
“Is someone else in there?”
“A moment, wife,” Mereruka replied.
He grabbed the nearest torch and held it high. The bound woman’s skin glinted gold, her dark green hair in disarray.
“Betrest?” he asked.
She was tied and gagged, struggling furiously, her violet eyes enraged. Mereruka put the torch down and freed her.
“You gods-damned fool!”
“You’re welcome, Your Most Just,” Mereruka replied with all due sarcasm.
“You freed some mangy, half-dead shifter servant instead of your sister-in-law! Now we’re both trapped here!” she raged as she clutched her bruised wrists.
“Of the two of you, you can hardly argue your situation was more dire than his,” Mereruka replied, holding back his ire. Even if he’d known Betrest had been the bound woman, he still wouldn’t have chosen her. As if he would choose his relatives over someone he loved.
“Yes, well now we are both trapped here, with your bloodthirsty imp of a sister on the loose,” Betrest hissed.
“This was Itet’s doing?”
This elaborate scheme was hers? The same Itet whose life revolved around drinking and brawling? The one who smashed all her problems with a mace? The spell on the entrance was exceedingly powerful, and yet managed to function with iron nearby. Had his sister tied the spell to her life?
“It is. I’ve spent the last day trapped in here, listening to her mad ranting. Why hasn’t Khety come? At least tell me he has soldiers searching for me.” Betrest pinched the bridge of her nose.
“If Khety knew you were missing, he has not made it public, or shared the information with me,” Mereruka replied.
The information was like a body blow to the queen. It was as if her mind refused to accept it, that the king not only held her in such low esteem, but that he thought nothing of her prolonged absence. No doubt stunned by her own utter lack of importance, the light in her eyes dimmed.
“What else can you tell me?” Mereruka snapped his fingers in front of her face to bring Betrest out of her emotional stupor. “Well?”
Betrest slapped his hand away, tears held in check in her glittering eyes.
“She discovered your servant searching Inkaef’s quarters and tortured him for information. Itet knows you switched the seals. Now she wants you and all her other brothers dead. She kidnapped me to play the part of bait and left me here with that servant and a scroll.”
Mereruka walked back to the threshold he could no longer cross.
“Did you hear all that, Taisiya?”
“Yes.”
“I suspect that if Itet dies, the magic holding us here will as well. For now, I want you to remain nearby, but hidden. With only three pieces of bait and four brothers, I suspect she may still be searching for one final thing.”
If he had to guess, it would be something of Radjedef’s that he valued more than his own safety. Luckily, Mereruka had already located his hot-headed brother’s weakness and had it safely stowed out of Itet’s grasp.
“You can’t overcome the barrier yourself?” Taisiya asked.
“No. My magic has been dampened. There must be iron nearby.”
Taisiya cursed.
“Would iron break the barrier?”
It was an excellent question. Mereruka poured as much as he could into his spell-sight, straining to see the hidden strands of the magic that kept him confined.
“Well?”
“Not unless that iron was shoved into Itet’s heart. She really did tie this damned spell to her life,” Mereruka answered, almost impressed by his sister’s tenacity.
“Of course she did,” Betrest scoffed. “That she-goat has so little talent with magic, I wouldn’t be shocked to find her sire was an actual animal.”
Mereruka ignored her. He wanted to put his hand on Taisiya’s cheek, to touch her in some way. His son was hurt, and he couldn’t even hold him, couldn’t heal him, hadn’t been able to do anything aside from drop him into the arms of another and hope for the best. Now he couldn’t even take comfort in his wife. Would there ever be a day when he had enough power to leave this sickening helplessness behind him?
“Find somewhere to hide. I will shout if Itet shows her face. If you see her before I do—”
“I’ll skewer her with a bolt of lightning,” she said, her eyes a solemn promise, her palm pressed to the barrier.
“Good. Trust no one, Taisiya.”
Taisiya nodded and turned, reluctance in every line of her retreating form.
Mereruka watched her go until her form was swallowed up by the darkness. Ignoring Betrest’s further complaints, he located the scroll she’d mentioned. Seeing the broken seal, his heart skipped. It was a monarch’s cartouche—but not Khety’s. Using what little of his spell-sight remained, he ran hungry, anxious eyes over the object. Every fibre of the scroll had been meticulously spelled to prevent destruction or decay. Opening the scroll, he hoped against hope that this was what he’d suspected. He read the opening lines several times over, just to be sure.
It had always been a mystery to Mereruka why Khety had killed their mother in cold blood, when it was certain she had but a few decades of life left to her. He chuckled darkly. This was, without doubt, the bait meant to lure Khety. It turned out his long-held suspicions about Mother’s murder had been correct after all.
But if this was meant for Khety, then what was the queen doing here?
He turned his eyes on Betrest, a wicked sense of triumph curling in his gut.
“Betrest, dear, who—exactly—are you bait for?”