Throne of Sin

No Killing Unless Necessary

"Princess, I was fighting before you were born." Talon's smile was sharp and dangerous. "Just point me at whoever needs killing."

"No killing unless absolutely necessary. We're trying to get out quietly."

"Where's the fun in that?"

Despite everything—the danger, the ticking clock, the impossibility of what they were attempting—Catalina found herself smiling. "Come on, General. Let's go reclaim an empire."

They moved back through the dungeons, Talon between them, his presence somehow making the shadows feel less threatening. At the door to the maintenance passage, Evander paused, listening.

Shouts echoed from somewhere above—distant but growing louder. Marten's distraction, right on schedule.

"Now," Evander said, and they plunged back into the darkness, back into the secret passages, racing against the dawn and the executioner's blade.

Behind them, the alarm bells began to ring.

The alarm bells shattered the night like breaking glass.

Catalina's heart hammered against her ribs as they ran through the maintenance corridor, Evander leading, Talon at her back. The passage was narrow—barely wide enough for the general's shoulders—and the stone walls seemed to press in from all sides. Behind them, the shouts were getting closer.

"How many exits?" Talon's voice was calm, almost conversational, despite the fact they were running for their lives. He lived in danger almost everyday.

"Three from this level," Evander said without breaking stride. "Two are compromised. We're taking the third."

"The aqueducts?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful." Talon's tone suggested it was anything but. "I f*****g hate tight spaces."

They burst through a door into a wider corridor—and straight into four guards running toward the alarm.

Time seemed to slow. Catalina saw the guards' eyes widen in recognition, saw hands reaching for weapons. Her mind raced through options in the space of a heartbeat.

"Evander, left two. Talon, right. I'll take center." The words came out sharp and certain, the voice of command of a true empress ready for battle.

Evander moved like liquid shadow, his knife flashing in the torchlight. The first guard went down with barely a sound, the second stumbling back with a hand to his throat.

Talon was less elegant and far more brutal. He caught the third guard's sword-arm, twisted, and the man's weapon clattered to the floor. A single punch to the jaw, and the guard crumpled.

Catalina didn't have time to think. The fourth guard was coming straight at her, sword raised. She dropped low, swept his legs, and as he fell she brought her knee up hard into his face. The impact jarred through her leg, but the guard went limp.

The entire encounter had taken perhaps ten seconds.

"Not bad," Talon said, looking at her with something that might have been approval. "For a princess."

"I'm not just a princess." Catalina was breathing hard, adrenaline singing through her veins. "And we need to move. Now."

More shouts echoed from both directions. They were running out of time.

"This way." Evander grabbed her arm, pulling her toward a side passage. "The garrison will seal the main corridors. We need to go deeper."

They ran. The passages twisted and turned, descending into older sections of the citadel where the stone was rougher and the air thick with damp. Twice more they encountered guards, and twice more Catalina made the calls—when to fight, when to hide, when to run. Each time, Talon followed her orders without question, though she could feel him watching her, assessing.

Testing.

"Left or right?" Evander asked at an intersection, his voice tight with urgency.

Catalina looked both ways. The left passage was wider, better lit—the obvious choice. But she could hear boots echoing from that direction, getting closer.

"Right," she said. "They'll expect us to take the easier route."

Evander nodded and plunged right without hesitation. Talon followed, and Catalina brought up the rear, her knife still in her hand, her heart still racing.

The right passage narrowed quickly, forcing them to move single file. The ceiling dropped lower, the walls pressing in. Behind them, the sounds of pursuit faded—they'd guessed wrong, taken the left passage.

"Good call," Talon said from behind her. His voice was closer than she expected in the confined space, and she could feel the heat of him at her back. "Most would have taken the wide corridor."

"They would have gotten us caught." She kept her voice steady despite the way her pulse jumped at his proximity. "I'm not most people."

"I can see," he agreed.

There was something in his tone—respect, maybe, or the beginning of it. She'd earned that much, at least.

The passage ended at a heavy iron grate set into the floor. Evander knelt, working the lock with his picks. "This is it. The aqueducts. Once we're in, there's no turning back."

"How far to the exit?" Catalina asked.

"Half a mile. Maybe more." Evander's hands moved with practiced precision, and the lock clicked open. He lifted the grate, revealing a black hole that seemed to swallow the torchlight. "It's going to be tight. And dark. Darker than anything you've experienced."

Talon peered down into the opening, and Catalina saw his jaw tighten. "How tight?"

"You'll fit. Barely." Evander pulled out a small hooded lantern, lit it with shaking hands. "But there's a flooded section about halfway through. We'll have to wade through it. The water's cold and the ceiling drops low. Very low."

"How low?" Talon's voice had lost its casual edge.

"You'll be on your hands and knees in water up to your chest. Maybe higher." Evander looked at him directly. "Can you swim?"

"I can fight. I can ride. I can command armies." Talon's expression was grim. "Swimming was never part of the training."

Catalina felt a spike of fear. If Talon panicked in the water, in the dark, they could all drown. But they had no choice—the alarm bells were still ringing, and soon the entire garrison would be searching every passage in the citadel.

"Then I'll help you through," she said. "We go together. All of us."

Talon looked at her, something unreadable in his dark eyes. Then he nodded once. "Lead the way, Princess."

Evander went first, disappearing into the darkness with the lantern. Catalina followed, her hands finding the iron rungs of a ladder set into the wall. The descent seemed endless, the air growing colder and damper with each step. When her feet finally touched stone, she looked up and could barely see the opening above—just a faint square of lesser darkness.

Talon came down last, his bulk making the ladder creak ominously. When he reached the bottom, the space felt impossibly small. The three of them stood in a tunnel barely five feet high, the walls close enough to touch on both sides.

Evander closed the hooded lantern to a bare sliver of light. "From here, we move quietly. Sound carries in the aqueducts. If there are guards above, they might hear us."

The darkness was absolute. Catalina had thought she understood darkness—the moonless nights at Whitepeak, the deep shadows of the mountain caves. But this was different. This was the darkness of being buried alive, of being swallowed by the earth itself. She couldn't see her hand in front of her face. Couldn't see Evander ahead or Talon behind. There was only the tiny sliver of lantern light, barely enough to show the wet stone beneath their feet.

They moved forward. Catalina kept one hand on the wall, feeling the slick algae beneath her fingers, the cold seeping through her clothes. Water trickled along the channel cut into the floor, the sound echoing strangely in the confined space.

Behind her, she could hear Talon's breathing—controlled, but faster than it should be. The general who commanded armies, who faced death without flinching, was afraid of the dark and the tight spaces.

She understood. This wasn't a battlefield. This was a tomb.

The tunnel branched and turned, descended and rose. Evander navigated by touch and memory, his movements sure despite the darkness. Catalina followed, and Talon followed her, and the only sounds were their breathing and the whisper of water and the occasional drip from the ceiling.

Then the water began to rise.

It started at their ankles, cold enough to make Catalina gasp. Then their knees. Then their thighs. The tunnel was sloping downward, and the water was getting deeper with every step.

"This is the flooded section," Evander said quietly. "The ceiling drops in about twenty feet. We'll have to crouch, then crawl. Keep your heads up and breathe when you can. It's about fifty feet to the other side."

Fifty feet. In freezing water, in absolute darkness, with the ceiling pressing down.

Catalina felt Talon's hand on her shoulder, gripping hard. "Princess—"

"Catalina," she said. "My name is Catalina. And we're going to make it through this Talon. Together."

She reached back, found his hand, squeezed it once. His palm was rough with calluses, his grip strong enough to hurt. She could feel the tension in him, the warrior's instinct to fight warring with the knowledge that there was nothing here to fight.

"Stay close to me," she said. "I won't let you drown."

"I'm twice your size."

"Then you'll be easy to find in the dark." She tried to make it light, tried to give him something to hold onto besides fear. "Come on, General. You've faced worse than this."

"I really haven't."

Despite everything, she almost laughed. Then the water reached her waist, and the ceiling dropped, and there was no more room for laughter.

It was now or never.