“Cael?” Drayce said softly.
“Yeah, we need to go,” Caelan replied, not caring how rough his voice sounded. He started to turn away, but his eye snagged on a framed picture on the nightstand. Picking it up, Caelan smiled at it.
He couldn’t say that he was surprised his mother had a picture of him by her bed, but he was shocked that it wasn’t one of the million formal pictures that had been taken of him over the years.
No, it was a candid shot that had been taken of him, Drayce, Rayne, and Eno after he’d graduated from university. It was the night he’d gotten trashed with his friends in his private chambers. They were all casually dressed and laughing like lunatics while crowded together on his couch. He was pretty sure they’d called a servant up to bring some pizza and convinced the poor soul into taking their picture. Of course, much of that night was a blur in the mind.
But she’d liked that picture best and for a moment, she’d felt like a normal mom.
He smiled to notice that the snapshot wasn’t in a simple frame, but an ornate silver frame with the body of a dragon wrapped around the photo. He’d never seen such a whimsical thing in his mother’s possession, but it was just another sign that there were sides of Queen Amara that he never got to see.
Placing the frame on the bedside table, Caelan turned to his friends, who were watching with varying expressions of worry and sadness. He wasn’t alone. His world might be teetering on the edge of chaos, but he wasn’t alone.
They continued through the other rooms of the queen’s private chambers. The library and private study were in shambles, papers and books strewn all over the place. He wasn’t entirely sure what they’d been searching for. Important government documents would be locked up in a safe if they were on paper. Otherwise, all digital records would be encrypted and locked away.
No, Caelan was willing to guess the New Rosanthe soldiers had been sent through to look for any old books and papers that might give clues and information about the Life Stone, or even all the godstones spread about Thia.
If such things existed, Queen Amara would have had those locked up and hidden away so a casual search wouldn’t reveal them.
Now that the thought was crossing his mind, where the hell would his mother put such a thing? To hell with New Rosanthe; he could use more information about the Life Stone and all the other godstones.
He could guess where the godstone in Ilon was—the capital. In his life, he’d been to Ilon plenty of times, but he’d never been permitted to visit the capital. But what about the one in Zastrad or on the Isle of Stone? He couldn’t even begin to guess where the Blood Stone was hidden in the Ordas.
While he hoped he’d never have to visit those gods, it felt smart on his part to at least know where the others were hidden away.
“So, what’s the plan from here?” Drayce asked, dropping his voice to a whisper as they neared the doors leading into the main corridor.
“The Godstone Room is up two floors from here. It is about two dozen steps from here to the closest stairwell,” Rayne described with the kind of precision Caelan had come to expect from him.
“Drayce and I take the lead, getting rid of any Empire soldiers blocking your path to the Godstone,” Eno explained. “You’ll be on your own when you reach the stairs, but we’ll follow as soon as everyone is wiped out, and protect your back. Unless everything goes to shit, we’ll leave the same way we came in.”
Caelan nodded. There was no point in further discussion. They’d gotten this far, and they could only hope that Tomas and Johanna were keeping New Rosanthe busy. As they crossed through the queen’s rooms, Caelan had glimpsed out the window and caught sight of some fires at the gate entrance to the Towers, but they were too high up to make out any details.
The main hall had a scattering of Empire soldiers keeping watch. Drayce and Eno had no trouble taking care of them, leaving their corpses on the floor as pools of blood spread across the marble. Caelan tried to slow up to help them, but Rayne roughly grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the stairwell. He was right. They had their task, and he needed to focus on his.
Slipping away from the fight, Caelan charged up the stairs with Rayne on his heels. The walls were heavily cracked and the stairs were covered in plaster and crushed rock. He’d forgotten that the upper levels of the Tower were missing after the attack. Was enough of the Tower even left for him to reach the goddess?