Chapter 264: Criminals of the Royal Family, A Queen on a Mission, and a Door That Knows Better Than to Refuse
Chapter 264: Criminals of the Royal Family, A Queen on a Mission, and a Door That Knows Better Than to Refuse
The shadows disappeared the moment the lock clicked.
Zorathys was simply gone.
The cell was quiet.
Azerion looked at Aziren.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
Aziren nodded. He was still breathing slightly harder than usual, the small flames in his hair low and subdued, but he nodded. "I’m okay."
Velira was looking at the door.
She had her bunny pressed to her chest with both arms.
"Did His Majesty," she said slowly, "just lock us up?"
Retheris looked at the door too.
Then at the walls.
Then at the ceiling, which was solid stone and offered no information.
"It seems like it," he said.
No one argued with this.
They stood in a small group in the center of the cell, silently.
Thalira was the one who broke it.
She had been staring at the floor. Then she looked up slowly, her light blue hair still damp, and she looked at each of them in turn — Retheris beside her, Azerion, Aziren, Velira — and when she spoke, her voice was smaller than usual.
"Are we," she said carefully, "criminals of the royal family?"
The cell was very quiet.
"Because of what we did?"
No one answered.
They looked at each other instead, and the fear that was already present in each of their expressions found its shape in that question and settled there.
Aziren’s ears drooped further.
Velira pulled her bunny closer.
Retheris opened his mouth and then closed it again, because he was the one who had summoned the deep water creature, which meant he was at minimum partially responsible for whatever classification they had just received, and he did not feel that this was the moment to offer reassurance when he was also one of the people who needed it.
Azerion said nothing.
He sat down on the floor of the cell, crossed his legs, and looked at the locked door.
---
Rin had seen all of it.
She had been hovering in the corridor when the shadows had moved the children — there one moment, gone the next — and she had tracked the direction of it and known, immediately, where they had been taken.
She was thinking at this point.
She could not release the children.
That was the first conclusion she arrived at. Especially if she valued her life, she couldn’t let that happen.
If she released the children, it would be her head.
Literally.
But if the Queen found out, and found out that Rin had known and had not told her—
Rin shook her raven head.
The lesser evil here was clear.
She turned in the air and flew.
Back up through the palace, through the corridors that connected the lower levels to the upper, through the passages that led toward the hall where the Queen had been holding court. She flew fast now and soon, the hall came into view.
The line, which had stretched past a pillar she couldn’t see around when she had been here earlier, had reduced significantly. The demons who had come and gone were leaving with expressions that were — remarkable, actually. They had beaming smiles on their faces, like they were satisfied with the Queen’s judgment.
Rin transformed mid-flight, landing in her usual form at the edge of the hall, and she quickly approached Elyn, who frowned when she noticed her.
Elyn held up a hand to the demon currently in front of her — a large ogre, broad-shouldered and grey-skinned, waiting patiently — and said, "Hold on a moment," with a calm that the ogre accepted immediately.
She turned to Rin, who was right next to her now.
"What’s wrong?" she asked.
Rin swallowed audibly.
"My lady," she said, and her voice came out smaller than she intended, "the King has locked the children up."
Elyn tilted her head.
"What do you mean?"
"I—"
"Zorathys hasn’t shown himself for two weeks," Elyn said. The frown had deepened. "How is it possible that he’s locked the children up?"
"I cannot explain everything here," Rin said quickly, "but the King has — the children have been — they are in an underground cell, my lady. He has branded them as criminals."
From beside Elyn, Naviel groaned.
Elyn’s eyes widened.
Something moved through her expression — it happened quickly, passing through surprise and into something sharper, something with an edge that had been building for two weeks and had just found its direction.
"Naviel," she said, her voice very even. "Morthen."
Both of them looked at her.
"Handle things here."
Naviel opened his mouth.
"I’m going to see Zorathys," she said, before whatever he had been about to say could arrive.
She took a step.
"He dares lock the children up." She said it like she was confirming it to herself, turning it over once to make sure she had heard correctly. "And he has been avoiding me for two weeks." Another step. "The only time he chooses to appear is to lock the children in an underground cell."
"My lady—" Rin started.
"There might be a reason," Rin said, very quietly.
Elyn turned to look at her.
"I don’t want to hear it," she said simply. "Zorathys will explain himself to me."
She turned, and just a few steps away, Zorathys’s door appeared before her, like it knew she would be searching for it.
Elyn looked at it for exactly one second.
Then she opened it and walked through.
She didn’t take note of the state of his room now; she only noticed her husband-to-be in the air.
His wings were out — large, dark, spreading from his back in that unhurried way they did when he had decided that the ceiling was a reasonable place to exist — and he was reclining slowly in the space, a novel open in his hands, his ruby eyes moving across the page.
Elyn stood at the entrance of the room and placed her hands on her waist as the door disappeared.
"Zor," she said in a soft voice.
He paused.
Then, very slowly, he turned his head, ruby eyes gazing at her as he swallowed.