The Amulet Of Nicmir (The Scripts Of Neptune, Book 1)

Chapter 68

Erilian was a patchwork puzzle of spires and old architecture, dark streets and littered alleys pieced together around the crown jewel: the palace.

The castle itself was half as big as the camp had been, different wings built with different kinds of stone, a mess of dull colors in the fading sunlight. Crynia stared up at the gates through the grate, stopping for a moment with her hand braced on the sewer wall. Nyle beckoned her quietly, and they continued into the stinking bowels of the city.

The stone sewn into her waistband still felt like a searing brand against her skin, waiting to burn through and fall into the putrid water that pooled beneath the streets. She'd managed to pickpocket Lillian the night before, trading a duplicate amulet that Naru had given her as insurance for the real gem. Her gut had sunk with guilt when she did it, but three words soothed the bitter taste in her mouth and laid her conscience at ease.

It's for Sam.

And it was. Everything she was about to do was for Sam, for getting him back and ending this wretched war once and for all. Naru had promised Agnir's death. As much as Crynia hated to think it, Naru was far more likely to succeed than Chad was, with his soft heart and gentle spirit. Chad...Chad was not a killer. Crynia would sooner surrender herself than taint him with deliberate murder.

They found the grate Kariana had talked about by looking at her map, wrenching it free with prybars they'd slung across their backs, laying down a sheet to dampen the noise when they set the barred metal down. Then came the crawling, creeping like spiders through the veins of the castle, stopping at every turn to check their direction, going as quickly as they could. Forty-five minutes. Then thirty. Time was falling away far too quickly.

The light was dim, but they found the garbage chute leading to one of many abandoned kitchens lower in the castle. Nyle pressed himself against the wall, hunched over as he sat, and she wiggled past. A moment later, he hoisted her up the chute, and she pushed the trapdoor open, a crack too small for even a mouse to get through.

Everything was dead silent inside, lit only by the glow of sunset through the single window. When Crynia further opened the trapdoor and looked left and right, all she saw was a countertop with a thick layer of dust, a stove that likely hadn't been touched in a hundred years, and weathered wooden cupboards that held a thousand cooks' secrets in their grooves and notches.

"It's clear," she whispered down to Nyle, opening the trapdoor fully until it clanked on the wall behind her. Pushing herself up with her arms, she hooked her knee over the edge and leaned back in to grip Nyle's hands, acting as a human rope to help him up.

The halls were as blessedly abandoned as the kitchen had been, guardless and heavily quiet, like a blanket had been thrown over everything, muffling even their footsteps. They were wraiths, shadows against the walls, slipping with stealthy speed up cracked staircases and into the parts of the castle that boasted life and color.

It became a harrowing game of hide-and-seek, then, pressing themselves flat against walls while guards patrolled the hall just around the corner. Crynia's heart was in her stomach half the time, sitting in her throat the other half. Nyle was stoic; never making a sound, his dark eyes sweeping their surroundings and measuring their next movement. She remembered days like that, back in Ctash, when they'd do a heist and have to be stealthy as hunting cats to get away without arrows in their throats. She'd gotten a bit out of practice, she supposed. Falling in love caused that sort of thing.

It took longer than she was comfortable with to find Kariana's chambers, in all their gilded, royal glory. The plan Crynia was acting out now was not the one she was following, with the intended mingling in Agnir's crowd to gather information and report back. No, she had her own place to be, and she knew her window was small. Time was a tricky thing, and Naru had made clear that if she was late, it could bring the collapse of everything. She was lucky she'd convinced everyone to let her be a scout at all; she wasn't going to waste this chance. Not with Sam on the line.