Chapter 17 · A Voice from the Throne

The door wasn't a door.

Lyra's hand hovered an inch from the surface, and the carvings started to move. Not glow. Move. The wolves etched into the stone twisted and ran, chasing each other in circles around a symbol she didn't recognize. Something old. Something that made her vampire blood sing in a way that had nothing to do with hunger.

"Don't touch it," Kade said, but his voice came out hoarse. Strained.

She pulled back. "Too late. I think it already knows we're here."

The chamber had been cold before. Now it was freezing. Her breath misted in front of her face, and the torches along the walls guttered and died one by one. Kade moved in front of her without thinking, his shoulders tight, and she hated how her first instinct was to let him.

"Your mother said to come here," Lyra whispered. "She wouldn't lead you into a trap."

"She's dead." Kade's tone was flat. "And the dead don't get a say in what the living walk into."

The stone door shuddered. A sound like grinding bone echoed through the chamber, and then the door swung inward, slow and deliberate. No light beyond it.