Chapter 31 · The Crown Key Picks Her

"Don't touch the key. Sula, get away from that well!"

Kaiser caught my wrist before my fingers reached the crown-shaped piece of black bone rising from the ice.

His grip was cold. Too cold. The skin around his knuckles had gone gray, and thin black veins crawled under his sleeve.

I twisted hard. "Let go."

"You don't know what it is."

"I know exactly what it is."

Below us, something struck the other side of the frozen well.

The fortress floor jumped. Dust dropped from the stone ceiling. The black-bone soldiers lining the lower hall lifted their heads at the same time.

Varan shoved through the guards and seized my waist.

His arm locked around me, hauling me back against the hard plate of his chest. Heat burned through my dress where his palm pressed below my ribs. His breath touched the side of my neck.

"You're not taking that thing," he said.

I drove my elbow into his stomach.

He grunted, but he didn't let go. "Try again and I'll carry you out."

"Try it and I'll break your fingers one by one."

Kaiser still had my wrist. Varan had my waist.