The Rejected True Heiress (Liora and Callum) novel Chapter 516

Liora’s POV

The two pupils who walked us down to the tunnel entrance couldn’t have been more than fifteen based on their small stature, but it was hard to tell with their veils in place and their hands tucked into their sleeves.

They walked several steps ahead of us the whole way, down a stairwell that wound tighter and steeper the lower it went. The torches sat farther and farther apart as we descended, until there were long stretches where I could barely see anything without my wolf’s enhanced vision. Callum stayed close beside me with his hand on my arm to guide me, Zane a step behind, quiet and morose.

The stairs finally ended, and a narrow passageway opened up into a small chamber in which was set a circular stone door. Around the seams of the door was a shimmering energy, a magical lock I supposed.

“This is as far as we go,” one of the students said as the other pressed her small hands to the center of the door. The stone began to glow around them as she murmured words under her breath, ripples of light flowing outwards until they met the light around the seams. “It’ll stay open a while. But when it shuts, it shuts, and we won’t open it again. So don’t be on the wrong side of it.”

“Comforting,” Zane said.

Finally, the light flashed bright around the door, and the student stepped back. The door moved on its own, the stone shifting and grinding as it slid outwards, then to the left, revealing a pitch black tunnel beyond.

The students moved to the side and waited.

I exchanged looks with my companions, then went first.

The stone closed behind us, leaving only the light from the torch Callum had taken from the room. The tunnel ran deep, the ceilings low, the air smelling of damp—but everything was made from that smooth, polished obsidian.

This was the place.

We all took a breath in unison before we started down the tunnel. The rock had crumbled in areas, leaving gaps that we had to crawl through, taking care not to dislodge anything.

After about five minutes of walking, Zane suddenly held his arm out, stopping both Callum and I from taking another step.

When it settled there was a fresh heap of rubble behind us and a ragged hole overhead, breathing cold air into the tunnels.

“Told you,” Zane said. There was no grin behind it. There hadn’t been one in days.

We kept moving, following the tunnels. The air grew colder as they ran deeper, our breath eventually coming out in white puffs.

The second trap nearly took my head off.

The walls had drawn in close to us on either side. I had my eyes down hunting for more symbols when Callum’s hand suddenly clamped around my wrist and hauled me aside.

Before I could react, he swung me hard into the wall, into a shallow pocket behind a stone buttress, and pinned me there with the length of his body, one arm braced over my head, the other flat to the stone by my hip. Half a breath later the air where I’d been standing lit up and shrieked, something sharp and metallic in color flying down the corridor at the exact height of my chest. I felt the hair lift on my arms as it tore past.