Page 114 of The Nymph King

Lore moved before the words could echo. He stepped seamlessly between Imani and the cell, his hand snapping out to strike the iron bars with a punishing rap. The sharp crack made the man flinch, cutting him off mid-sentence.

“Keep going,” Lore murmured, not looking back as the prisoner shrank into the shadows. “We’re running out of time.”

They swept through the remaining rows with brutal efficiency, scanning each cell as their options dwindled. Faces blurred into a useless repetition of the wrong height, wrong build, wrong presence. Imani dismissed them instantly, refusing to let desperation cloud her judgment.

She checked the last row twice, then stopped. She turned her attention outward, assessing the architecture rather than the occupants. The layout was perfectly consistent. Every cell exposed. Every prisoner accounted for. Nothing hidden.

Her focus homed in on Kiran’s mind. Where would he keep his brother? Alive, yet entirely erased from the world.

“He’s not here,” Imani mumbled.

“No. I can’t feel him,” Meira agreed.

“Fuck.” Esa pivoted toward Imani. “This is the most logical place to keep him.”

“Exactly,” Imani replied, the words spilling out as she tried to think like her heartmate. “Which is why Kiran would never leave him here.”

Esa frowned.

“He didn’t need to know we would come looking,” Imani continued. “He only needed to know someone eventually might. Saevel disappeared when Kiran took the Throne from his father. If anyone began asking where the Heir Apparent had gone, these dungeons would be the first place they searched.”

Imani examined the exposed cells again. They were too accessible. Too ordinary.

“Kiran would put him somewhere a search could pass over completely.”

Footsteps echoed down the corridor, louder and quicker this time. Imani acted instinctively, diverting from the main route and signaling the others to split in an orderly fashion. They moved into a narrow maintenance crevice between two load-bearing walls. The space was pitch-black and oppressively tight. They pressed their backs against the cold stone, holding their breath as the patrol marched past the intersection they had just left.

The footsteps faltered near the corner. The silence stretched thin, trembling with tension, before the boots finally marched on.

Imani remained perfectly still in the dark, shrouding everyone in her shadows, her mind racing beyond the castle’s physical walls. The only place she could think to look wasn’t in the castle at all, but just beyond it—where she’d found the Drasil. A hidden passage leading to a secluded space, concealed by ancient design and demanding intent and magic to uncover.

Kiran would not have accepted the mystery of how she found it. That blind spot would have driven him to dismantle the castle piece by piece, tracing every corridor and testing every seam until he uncovered the answer. He didn’t tolerate unresolved questions. If he suspected the Drasil was hidden in Kehomel, he would have found it and claimed the space for himself.

Looking down at the stone beneath her boots, Imani’s voice cut through the dark with absolute certainty. “Zorah.”

Esa’s head snapped toward her. “That’s a myth.”

“No,” Imani said, her tone dropping to anchor it in truth. “It isn’t. I’ve been there.”

They stared at her. Imani forced herself to hold their wide eyes without fidgeting.

“You’re certain?” Lore asked.

“Yes. It’s…” She trailed off, hesitating.

Everyone watched her expectantly.

“It’s where I found the Drasil,” she admitted softly. “And it isn’t accessible unless you know how to look. The city is buried under the castle itself. You don’t find it by accident.”

Esa studied her, tension corded in the muscles in her neck. “And you think he found it, too.”

“I know he did,” Imani replied. “It would have been impossible for him to leave it alone. He would have taken the castle apart until he understood where I went, how I got there, and what I found. Kiran doesn’t tolerate gaps in his knowledge.”

Lore looked back toward the dungeon proper. “Even if that’s true, going down there⁠—”

“He doesn’t hide what matters where it’s obvious,” Imani cut in, her voice hardening. “He buries it where it’s inaccessible. Where taking it back is impossible.”

“And you’re willing to go back into it?” Esa asked.