The wind picked up, howling up the ravine as Briar reached the pale-gray wall at the front of the stronghold. Dark clouds amassed quickly in the night sky, and the scent of rain hung in the air. She didn’t have much time before the storm broke.
Ignoring the stone door and its elaborate protective curses, Briar studied the broad wall, which had been built across a natural fissure to form the stronghold long ago. It was a stone charmer’s work, one of the finest examples in the kingdom, formed as an extension of the mountain itself, but that didn’t mean it was faultless.
Briar took a deep breath and laid a hand on the pale-gray stone. Her fingers tingled, almost to the point of pain. She was tired, but she hadn’t reached her limit yet.
She opened a jar of umber and began to paint.
Archer was pretty sure he had cracked several ribs. That would explain most of the pain. He had cuts on his face, too, lacerations of the normal, clotting variety. He should be pleased about that. He had always thought a few scars would make him a more convincing outlaw.
But despite his best efforts, he couldn’t be glib. As he lurched down Narrowmar’s torchlit main corridor, it was difficult to believe he’d ever claimed to care for nothing but his dog and his bow and the open road. Archer cared a great deal, for his team, for his friend who had been ill used by his brother and kept captive by his father, for the girl who could slay him metaphorically with a look—and literally with a flick of her paintbrush.
Deep within the mountain, Archer once again felt like young Ivan Larke, who had been trapped within the walls of his station and his father’s name, who’d thought he lacked the power to change anything around him. Despite the callous household he’d grown up in, he cared about the people under his father’s dominion, those who had suffered, those who had been treated unfairly. And now Jasper Larke was trying to grab more power, no matter who got hurt along the way.
Ivan Archibald Larke had had enough. He’d once raged ineffectually against his father, his anger righteous but weak. He’d run away from his family’s name and legacy, believing he couldn’t change them. But after traveling with Briar and seeing the way she tried to use her dark power for good—albeit with varying results—he knew he could do better. He might never leave that mountain, never walk free on the open road, but he was his father’s son still, and he could right at least one of his wrongs.
He had put a patch on his youthful rage before. Now it had returned, but new-forged, focused. He let his new wrath drive him down the corridor, propelling him through the pain in his body. It wasn’t enough to be angry. He had to stand up and fight.
The stronghold reverberated with the shouts of men and the pounding of footsteps. They were searching for the missing prisoner in every chamber and exclaiming about a tunnel. If Mae and Briar had decided to go out the way they came in or hide instead of trying to leave through the cursed doorway, it wouldn’t take the soldiers long to find them. He wondered what had become of Jemma and Nat. They were all supposed to be in there together.
Archer stuck to the main corridor, and no one challenged his right to be there. The torches flickered as he hobbled past, marking his progress toward the front of the stronghold. That was where Briar and Mae had been headed when he’d seen them last, so that was where he would start.
As he neared the end of the main corridor, he spotted Donovan Dryden crouched by the stone door. A full selection of paints lay before him, and he was embellishing the curse on the threshold. Beside him loomed a familiar pair of broad shoulders topped by a mop of thick brown hair. Archer’s steps faltered. It was his brother, Tomas.
The firstborn Larke son watched the curse painter work, a sword in his hand, blood dripping from the blade. Archer hadn’t expected Tomas to remain in Narrowmar for the birth of his child after delivering Mae there. He had washed his hands of her months ago, casting aside his responsibility and leaving Archer and their father to clean up his mess, as usual. Archer clenched his fists. Tomas was so frustrating. He bumbled through life with a smile on his face, not noticing how much damage his carelessness caused.
Archer stopped ten paces from the door, eyeing the blood dripping from Tomas’s blade. His brother never cleaned his weapons promptly either. The owner of the blood sprawled on the ground between Archer and the pair, the old captain who’d kept Narrowmar faithfully for decades.
Archer didn’t understand why Tomas would kill the captain. He’d been their father’s man for decades, as much a part of Narrowmar as the great stone door itself. Whatever the reason, the captain’s sword was still in its sheath at his belt, its hilt wrapped in burgundy leather.
Archer checked the corridor behind him to make sure no one was coming then studied the weapon. Dare he reach for it? Tomas was the better swordsman, and Archer was injured. He didn’t fancy the idea of stabbing his brother in the back, but what if he could take out Donovan while he was occupied? Would his death break the curse on the door?
Before Archer could lunge for the sword, the curse painter turned.
“I know you’re lurking in the shadows,” Donovan said. “Take heed, for there is an incendiary curse in place between us. You will not live long enough to slay me.”
Tomas looked up, his blunt jaw slackening in
