Chapter 13: The Woman They Took
1059 Words
Silver light burst from Destiny’s skin like lightning under water.
The shattered remains of furniture trembled.
Glass cracked.
Kael caught both her wrists before the energy could surge outward.
“Breathe.”
“I am breathing.”
“You’re threatening architecture.”
Old Nora glanced at the ceiling.
“It was ugly anyway.”
Destiny dragged in air.
The light flickered once, then withdrew beneath her skin, leaving only a sharp ache behind her ribs.
Kael released her slowly.
Neither mentioned how close they were standing.
Cassian appeared at the doorway.
“My King.”
Kael turned instantly.
“Report.”
“The Queen Mother’s escort was found unconscious outside the archive wing. No blood. No body. No sign of struggle.”
Lyra arrived seconds later, dress half-unfastened, carrying two daggers and righteous irritation.
“I leave one dinner early and Mother gets kidnapped.”
“She’s your grandmother,” Cassian said.
“She raised me. Titles vary.”
Lyra’s gaze landed on Destiny’s glowing hands.
“Oh good. You’re haunted now too.”
Destiny stared.
“Is everyone in this palace like this?”
“Yes,” Kael and Lyra said together.
Then looked annoyed they agreed.
Kael moved toward the corridor.
“Seal every gate. Search all tunnels, roof paths, servant routes, and waste passages.”
Cassian nodded and ran.
Kael looked back at Destiny.
“With me.”
“I was already coming.”
“You say that now.”
“I would say it later too.”
Lyra sighed dramatically.
“They’re definitely flirting through trauma.”
“We are not,” Destiny snapped.
“Of course,” Lyra said. “That’s why you both look angry.”
---
The archive wing smelled of dust, old leather, and secrets.
Tall shelves lined shadowed halls. Lamps burned low. Guards flooded every entrance.
Two royal soldiers lay against the wall, alive but unconscious.
Corvin the healer knelt beside them.
“Drugged,” he said. “Efficiently.”
Kael crouched near a dropped cane on the floor.
Evelyne’s cane.
Its silver wolf-head handle was bent.
“She fought,” Destiny said.
Kael looked up.
“How do you know?”
“She doesn’t seem kidnappable.”
Lyra snorted.
“Correct.”
Destiny stepped farther into the corridor.
That pressure returned.
A hum beneath her skin.
Wrongness.
She closed her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Kael asked.
“Trying not to be useless.”
The hum strengthened near the east wall.
Destiny moved toward a shelf of royal ledgers.
Stopped.
Touched the wood.
Cold silver light spread from her palm in branching lines.
The shelf clicked.
Then swung inward.
Everyone froze.
Behind it waited a narrow stone passage descending into darkness.
Lyra blinked.
“Well. That feels narratively significant.”
Kael rose in one fluid motion.
“Guards with me. Cassian, rear watch.”
He looked at Destiny.
“No.”
She folded her arms.
“No what?”
“No, you are not coming into a hidden tunnel after assassins.”
“I opened it.”
“Excellent. Your contribution is celebrated.”
She stepped closer.
“They took her because of what she knows about me.”
“They took her because they’re reckless.”
“They took her because of both.”
Their stares locked.
Lyra looked between them with delight.
“I adore this.”
Kael lowered his voice.
“It’s dangerous.”
Destiny lowered hers too.
“So is leaving me ignorant.”
Something shifted in his face.
Respect.
Worry.
Annoying tenderness.
He exhaled once.
“Stay behind me.”
She smiled faintly.
“That sounded like permission.”
“It sounded like strategic defeat.”
---
The tunnel descended beneath the palace like buried memory.
Torchlight licked damp stone.
Ancient carvings lined the walls—wolves, moons, women crowned in silver flame.
Destiny brushed one symbol with her fingertips.
The same pulse answered.
“This place is older than the palace,” she whispered.
“It predates the current dynasty,” Lyra said from behind them. “Which Father hated because history existing before him felt rude.”
Kael almost smiled.
They moved deeper.
Then voices echoed ahead.
Male.
One female.
Sharp with contempt.
Evelyne.
Kael signaled silence.
They advanced to a chamber lit by lanterns.
Three mercenaries stood around the Queen Mother, who sat tied to a chair looking more inconvenienced than frightened.
A fourth man faced her in dark traveling leathers.
No mask.
Tall.
Blond.
Elegant in a cruel way.
He held an old parchment in one hand.
“Tell me where the girl’s mother went,” he said.
Evelyne yawned.
“You kidnapped me for questions? I expected creativity.”
The man smiled thinly.
“Age has not softened you.”
“It sharpened me. You should try surviving longer.”
Kael stepped from the shadows.
“That opportunity may be ending.”
Chaos erupted.
Mercenaries lunged for weapons.
Cassian’s guards charged.
Steel rang.
Lyra threw a dagger into one man’s shoulder before he finished turning.
Destiny ran to Evelyne.
“Duck,” the older woman said.
Destiny obeyed instinctively.
Evelyne headbutted the guard behind her so hard he collapsed backward with a broken nose.
“Good girl,” Evelyne said.
Destiny stared while cutting her ropes with a fallen blade.
Kael collided with the blond man in a blur of violence.
They crashed into a stone pillar, trading brutal strikes too fast to follow.
The stranger laughed through blood.
“You finally found her.”
Kael drove him into the wall by the throat.
“Who sent you?”
The man grinned wider.
“You know who wants the Fourth Bloodline.”
Destiny’s pulse roared.
Silver light crawled over the carvings around the chamber.
The stranger looked past Kael straight at her.
“There you are.”
Terror punched through her.
The symbols on the walls ignited.
Light exploded across the chamber floor in a circle around Destiny.
Everyone was thrown backward.
Kael hit stone hard.
Mercenaries screamed.
The blond man staggered, eyes wide with greed.
“She awakened the seal.”
Evelyne rose slowly, rubbing her wrists.
“Oh,” she said.
“That’s much worse than I hoped.”
The ground beneath them began to shake.
And a section of the chamber wall split open with a roar, revealing a hidden vault of silver fire.
- Writer
