I dove again, throwing myself against the first set of iron bars. Raihn swam beside me, helping me pull at the metal.
Not the first. Nor the second. When we rose for another quick breath, the voices of the soldiers were even closer.
Fuck. The longer we stayed in one place, the greater our risk of being seen. I didn’t know how much longer we had here before someone would wander too close.
Please, Vincent, this had better be the one.
We slipped under the water and threw ourselves against the next set of bars.
And maybe the Goddess or my dead father were looking out for us, after all, because this one ground into movement immediately.
The door was awkward, designed to be pushed out from the inside instead of entered from the outside. Raihn held it open for me to wiggle through, and I did the same for him as he squeezed between the metal rods. No easy feat against this current, stronger than ever this close to the castle sewers.
Inside, Raihn had to grab my arm and use his body mass to keep me from getting swept away. By the time the tunnel started to rise, we were practically dragging ourselves along the slime-slicked walls. My muscles screamed. My lungs burned, desperate for air. I clutched the strap over my chest, suddenly very afraid that the current would sweep the Taker of Hearts off my back.
When the floor finally rose and we could stand, I choked out, “Thank the Mother.”
“That,” Raihn muttered, “was fucking vile.”
He wiped sludge from his face as I leapt out of the water and dragged myself up a steep step at the side of the tunnel. The air was hot and stagnant, and it absolutely reeked of shit.
It was still a Goddess-damned perfumery compared to where we’d just come from.
Raihn followed me, the two of us now standing on a raised pathway along the edge of the sewer. It was very dark in here. I conjured a little ball of Nightfire in my palm, and blue light bathed Raihn’s face.
I snickered.
“What?” he said.
Here he was. The Nightborn King. Drenched, wearing ill-fitting, cheap leathers, face completely covered in shit save for the domino mask of “clean” skin he’d wiped around his eyes.
He read my face and sighed. “Because you look so fucking fantastic, princess. Ix’s tits. Let’s get going. Where’s this tunnel?”
Right.
That was a good question. I shuffled along the wall, hand pressed to the brick—rough, old, slimy. More or less how one would expect stone that had been marinating in centuries worth of wet excrement to feel.
“It was around here somewhere,” I muttered, feeling around the bricks. “Under one of these arches—”
My fingertips snagged on something. At first, I thought it was just a crack in the bricks, but a second pass and a closer look with the Nightfire revealed otherwise—no, it was an outline.
“Here,” I said.
“I’ve got it.” Raihn threw his weight against the door. He strained against it for a few seconds, face contorted, before giving up and leaning against the wall. “You’re sure this opens in this direction?”
Fuck. I certainly hoped it did. Otherwise, we were screwed.
Vincent was so thorough. I couldn’t imagine that he would go through the trouble of creating such an elaborate path out unless he also planned to use it as an emergency path back in, too, if he needed it.
But… only if he needed it.
“He’d have made sure that only he could use it,” I said. “Maybe I…”
On a hunch, I grabbed my blade from my hip and swiped the tip over my palm, opening a delicate river of red. Then I pressed the bleeding wound to the door, cringing slightly at the sting of the slimy surface against the cut.
My first thought was, I am definitely going to get an infection from this.
My second was, This isn’t going to work.
But those words barely had crossed my mind before the door opened before us with a growl of grinding stone, revealing a narrow, dark tunnel lit with Nightflame lanterns.
That was… quick. And easier than I had thought it would be. Easier than using my blood to operate Vincent’s magic ever had been before.
I stared down at my bloody palm. I could feel Raihn’s gaze on me—making the same observation, no doubt.
“Looks like the door wasn’t just for him,” he said.
I swallowed thickly.
Did you really think, Vincent whispered in the back of my mind, that I wouldn’t account for you, too, my little serpent?
I flinched. Once, I’d craved his voice so fiercely. Now, it brought with it a wave of complicated emotions.