Cheen’s presence was a reassuring curl of warmth in the depths of my mind; a shield to hold back the glacial cold threatening to swallow me. I’d never wanted to come back here. I’d never wanted to reenter these walls. Never wanted to lay eyes on the serpent again.
And I’d sure as fuck never wanted to see the hellion hanging broken and in chains, whatever innocence she had left flayed right along with the skin of her back.
I threw back the hood of my ragged cloak, and saw recognition flare in the guard’s eyes. It hadn’t been long enough for all of them to forget me. In the man’s defense, he hesitated for only an instant before lunging at me, sword extended. The two blades clashed in a flurry of blows. He was competent—no surprise for a personal guard entrusted with the serpent’s safety.
Even so, it took only moments to find a chink in his technique. He parried a sword feint when he should have been worrying more about the boot I aimed at his knee. The man stumbled, exposing his left side, and my blade slashed across his gut, felling him. Another slash opened his throat, and he was finished.
It was only moments… but when I whirled to face the wall where Frella was shackled, it was to find that the serpent had used that precious time to unhook her chains and slide in behind her. Lesimba now stood facing me with a knife held to Frella’s throat, using her as a shield between us. I froze, my veins turning to ice as Lesimba and I glared at each other with mutual hatred.
“I didn’t really believe you’d ever come back here,” said the serpent. “Drop your sword and back away, unless you want to watch me open another throat for you, Rathanii.”
Images from the past crowded in, overlapping strangely with the present. I could still see Frella, wet and bedraggled with her tunic slit open and blood coating her chest. But I could also see another figure, slender and willowy, with gray streaks running through her black hair.
The figures’ eyes wavered back and forth in my vision. One moment they were dark brown and hopeless, gazing at me with apology and a mother’s love. The next, they were blue and snapping fire, still indomitable despite the torture she’d undergone. The odd interval faded, and it was only Frella standing before me with a blade to her jugular.
I blinked, the spell broken, and lowered my sword to the straw-covered floor. A slow smile spread across the serpent’s face. Frella’s expression morphed into outrage, as though I’d personally offended her by giving in to the threat against her. Do better, her blue eyes demanded.
“Let her go,” I said aloud.
I need a distraction, and I need it now, I added silently, directing the thought to that warm presence coiled inside my mind.
“Rayth—” Frella rasped, her voice scraped raw.
She was cut off by an unearthly screech from the dark skies beyond the cell’s single window. Lesimba frowned, craning around to look for the source of the noise. Her dark, hateful eyes widened as flames erupted outside the building, throwing dancing shadows over us.
Before I could lunge forward, Frella hauled off and smashed her fist between Lesimba’s legs, using the heavy iron shackle around her wrist as a weapon. Lesimba screamed in shock and pain, the knife jerking in her grasp as she doubled over and fell to her knees. Frella let out a cry of rage and threw a loop of chain around Lesimba’s neck, pulling it tight between the shackle it was attached to and her other hand.
I stood utterly frozen, useless with shock as Frella threw her modest weight backward, dragging on the chain. Lesimba’s eyes bugged, and she scrabbled helplessly at the metal links strangling her. My heart thumped against my ribcage, marking time until something shook loose in my mind and I strode forward—unsure if I was moving to stop Frella or finish the job myself.
Whatever the case, I was too late. Something crunched wetly; cartilage giving way beneath the weight of iron chain and Frella’s fury. Lesimba convulsed, frothy spittle flying from her painted lips. The froth turned pink, then red, and the light of hatred in her large brown eyes dimmed before extinguishing completely.
I’d stumbled to a halt, my boot inches from the torture-master I’d killed with a throwing knife before I’d engaged the lone guard with my sword. Silence fell over the cell, broken only by Frella’s ragged breathing. I stared for long moments at the corpse of the woman who’d betrayed me before my eyes strayed upward to meet dazed pools of summer-blue.
“Please get me out of here,” Frella said in a tiny voice, her face pale and her lips tinged gray with shock.
Finally, my thoughts shook free of their paralysis. I crouched, feeling along the dead torturer’s belt until I came up with a heavy keyring. Most of the keys were large—intended for doors or storage chests. When I found a small one hidden among its bigger brethren, I knelt next to Frella and inserted it into one of her shackles, carefully not looking at the crumpled body of the dead woman tangled in the chains beside us.
“Rayth?” Frella asked uncertainly, a tremor in her voice.
“Hold still,” I said, aware on some level of how gruff the command sounded.
In moments, I had her free and was hefting her to unsteady feet. She swayed, but stayed upright under her own power. Her tunic was in ruins, hanging around her shoulders in tatters. I swept my cloak off and bundled it around her, raising the hood to cover her distinctive golden hair. Still, I didn’t dare allow my eyes wander to the slight female form lying broken on the floor.
Frella fastened the cloak at her neck with clumsy fingers, flinching as the rough wool settled over her injuries. I retrieved my sword from the floor and pulled the dagger from the torturer’s body, handing the short blade to her hilt-first.
“We have to make it outside and find someplace large enough for Cheen to land,” I told her. “She’ll fly us to safety.”
She nodded, her eyes still hazy with encroaching shock. Outside, a second source of dragon cries joined the first, and the flames around the structure were growing higher. I grabbed Frella’s free hand and started toward the door.
“Nyx,” Frella asked. “Is he—?”
I realized that she would have no way of knowing if Leannyck had been killed in the attack after she’d been snatched.
“He and Aristede are making a spirited attempt to burn the barracks of the city guard to the ground with dragonfire,” I told her. “Eldris was doing the same for the palace guards’ barracks earlier, but it sounds like he must have joined Cheen outside.”
She sagged in relief upon hearing that the lad had survived, nearly stumbling over her own feet. I used my grip on her hand to keep her upright and moving forward, knowing there was no time for weakness just yet. Not until we were safely in the skies and well away from the city.
“Well, thank the gods for that,” she breathed.
The dungeons at night weren’t heavily trafficked, and the first few people we passed were milling around in a state of panic as fire rained from the skies outside. We’d almost made it to the entrance when we rounded a corner and came face to face with my half-brother, flanked by four guards. All seven of us came to an abrupt halt, separated by perhaps fifteen strides.
Oblisii’s mouth opened in surprise, recognition flaring in his flat, brown eyes. He laughed—a single, harsh bark. Somehow, I failed to see the humor in the situation.
“Oh, good,” Frella muttered beside me. “Prince Creepy-Eyes has joined the party. Just what I needed.”
“Why, Brother,” Oblisii said with false effusiveness. “Now this is a surprise.”
“Oblisii,” I said grudgingly, shifting my grip on the sword hilt in readiness for a five-on-one battle. Well… four on one, more likely. When it came to real bloodshed as opposed to sparring, Oblisii had always been a coward at heart.
My younger brother regarded me, his expression growing thoughtful.
“How strangely providential this is,” he mused. “I came straight here after murdering Father, you know—working on the assumption that my pretty little golden-haired captive must somehow be involved with a dragon attack on the palace. But I certain
ly never expected to find the perfect scapegoat for regicide awaiting me in the dungeon tunnels.”
An unpleasant sinking sensation hit me in the stomach, like a steep dive on dragon-back. “You did what?”
He gave a lazy, leonine shrug of one shoulder.
“You heard me—I killed him. The confusion surrounding the attack seemed a perfect opportunity to finally do for the old fool. He was passed out drunk in his bed—the idiot. Didn’t even realize what was going on outside. It only took a minute to smother him with a pillow. I was going to play it off as a weak heart, but how much better to pin it on the bastard prince, returning for revenge against the king who exiled him?”
“And heroically apprehended by the rightful son and heir, no doubt,” I managed, trying to wrap my mind around the idea of both Father and Lesimba being dead. I entertained the knowledge for only an instant before choosing, instead, to push the knowledge into a deep, dark hole for later examination.
Preferably, with the help of plenty of strong wine.
“Apprehended. Killed. I’m not too fussy,” said the boy who’d once followed me around with a pair of wooden swords for a week, begging me to teach him.
I wondered if he intended to execute the group of guards flanking him, once the excitement was over. They must be loyal to him, but the information he’d just spilled so casually was far too valuable to trust to underlings—people who might use it for their own benefit someday. It was a moot point right now, though, because at a gesture from Oblisii, all four drew their swords and started toward us.
A flash of movement caught my peripheral vision, and one of the men fell to the ground, scrabbling at the dagger-handle protruding obscenely from his neck.
“I should have grabbed the guard’s sword, back in the cell,” Frella muttered.
“You’d be lucky to lift it off the ground in your current state,” I shot back, aware that the situation about to go straight to damnation. We were still outnumbered, and more guards would be appearing at any moment.
“Next time you stage a rescue, bring along more throwing daggers,” she said, her tone oddly conversational. “Also, please don’t get killed in the next few minutes, because I really, really want to get away from here. No offense, but your family is fucked, Rayth.”
“Trust me, hellion—you don’t know the half of it,” I replied, and stepped in front of her with my sword drawn and ready. The remaining three guards yelled, charging toward us with their weapons raised.
Chapter 12: Escape
Frella
I STILL HADN’T decided if this was a dream or reality. I was leaning toward the former… figuring it was more likely that I’d passed out again and was currently hanging from my shackles while someone went to fetch another bucket of icy water to throw at me.
And, hey—if it was a dream? I was all in. Color me Team Hallucination from here on out. Nyx was alive. My friends had come for me. And Rayth—fucking Rayth—had stormed in like a vengeful spirit to save me from my captors.
The drunken, irritating twat whom I’d refused to think of as anything other than a thorn in my side had come to rescue me twice now. Once after the battle in the valley, when he’d found me weeping next to my dead horse. He’d glued my broken pieces back together, carrying me back to the cave in front of him in the saddle with a gentle arm wrapped around me as I cried. And now, returning to a place he’d apparently been exiled from years ago, for the sole purpose of saving me—even though I could see how close his facade was to shattering, after hearing the news that his brother just murdered their father.
I shrank back from the fight, intent on staying out of Rayth’s way as he fought three trained men in the confines of the narrow corridor. Blades clashed in a flurry of blows, and he roared as he muscled two opponents’ swords away with his own.
One thing was certain; if he fell, I wasn’t planning on letting the guards take me alive.
I was not going back to that cell, damn it.
Rayth kicked out, shoving one opponent back a step even as his sword slashed at another, catching the man high on the left arm with a non-critical blow. He ducked and spun, the third guard’s blade missing him by a finger’s width.
I kept a nervous eye on Oblisii, but so far the prince seemed content to let his paid muscle take all the risk. The contrast could not have been starker. Rayth, who was always at the front whenever danger threatened, and his brother, hanging back nervously—waiting to see how the battle went before he got anywhere near it.
Rayth’s skill with a sword was frankly terrifying, as I already had plenty of cause to know. Even so, holding off three trained soldiers who’d been considered good enough to form the personal bodyguard of a prince would have been impossible in an open space. Only the cramped quarters of the dungeon corridor prevented them from coordinating their attack, flanking Rayth and taking him down in seconds.
A lucky slash sent one of the guards staggering, clutching a gaping wound in his gut. Rather than kicking him back in the direction he’d come, Rayth grabbed him with his free hand and sent him stumbling in my direction. The unfortunate guard lost his battle with equilibrium and crashed to the ground at my feet, still howling and trying to keep his innards from spilling out through his hands.
“A bit of help wouldn’t go amiss, hellion!” Rayth growled, dodging and parrying madly as he fought the remaining two soldiers.
My wits were still scrambled, and I blinked stupidly at the writhing man lying at my feet. Torchlight glinted off a gilt handle hanging from the man’s belt, and realization dawned. A dagger. In the midst of the battle, Rayth had thrown me a dagger. It just happened to have a mortally wounded guard attached to it.
Gods, if only I didn’t feel like my body was on fire and my head was about to float away, disappearing into the wooden rafters above. It was a good thing the injured man was too focused on his wound to make a grab for me, because I was slow and clumsy as I crouched and jerked the knife free of its sheath.
I nearly fell over my own feet while trying to regain them, my vision swimming briefly at the change in altitude.
“If you want me to help, give me a damned target!” I called, once I was reasonably certain I wouldn’t keel over.
The dagger wasn’t weighted for throwing, and my arms still had painful pins and needles pricking them after being raised above my head for so long. But, ready or not, a second guard came stumbling in my direction—this one uninjured. He was already whirling to attack Rayth from behind… putting his back to me. Big mistake.
The good news was, only a handful of steps separated us, so it wasn’t exactly a challenging throw. My chest, shoulder, and back screamed in protest, but the heavy blade carried enough momentum to lodge between the man’s ribs, close to his spine. He gave a high-pitched scream, the sword dropping from his hand as he flailed madly for the dagger handle, unable to reach it. I watched in vicious satisfaction as he fell, limbs jerking.
Rayth was holding his left arm close to his body, protecting it. But that didn’t slow the dazzling arcs and thrusts of his sword as he engaged in a deadly dance with the final guard. I held my breath as they traded blows, and let it out when Rayth’s blade flashed, disappearing into the other man’s torso through the gap at the side of his leather chest armor.
The guard grunted and sagged. Rayth put a boot against his stomach and used the leverage to pull his sword free with a sickening wet noise. And, hey—what did I say earlier? I’d been right. This was a good fucking dream.
My eyes flew to where Oblisii had been hanging back, waiting for Rayth to fall. The corridor was empty. I rushed to Rayth’s side, trying not to trip over any of the writhing bodies on the floor. My hand closed over his uninjured arm, squeezing hard.
“Your brother! He’s gone—”
Rayth stood frozen as still as a stone statue, his eyes fixed on the place where Oblisii had been. I could feel his need to chase after his brother thrumming through his body. He was practically vibrating with it. But after a tense moment,
he shook his head as though to clear it and looked down at me with hard brown eyes.
“No,” he said. “I’m not here for him, hellion. I’m here for you. More guards will be coming, and we need to be gone before any of the commanders can get the dragon-harpoons positioned and loaded on the palace walls.”
With that, he grabbed my hand with his free one, ignoring the blood running down his fingers from whatever injury he’d sustained. I balked long enough to pull the throwing knife out of the first guard I’d downed, and then allowed him to drag me along the corridor and toward the dungeon entrance.
Outside was chaos. Everything was on fire, or at least it felt like it. The heat hit me like a wall. I tugged the hood of the borrowed cloak forward, putting my face in shadow and protecting as much of my skin as I could. Rayth guided me through gaps in the flames as though following an invisible path that only he could see. People were screaming, whether in fear or because they were being burned, it was impossible to tell.
My lightheadedness grew worse, the smoke and heat making it hard to breathe. I could only follow along in Rayth’s wake, trying to lift my feet and set them down over and over without tripping or staggering.
When we finally stumbled into an open area that was relatively free of burning detritus, I nearly sobbed in relief. It was still smoky, but not completely impenetrable. Moments later, a swirling downdraft pushed the haze away. I recognized that unnatural wind. I’d felt it before… many times in the last few weeks.
A dark shape blotted out the sky, and Cheen dropped down near us, her ebony wings spread wide.
“Right on time,” Rayth murmured.
Before I knew it, I was being lifted into the saddle. I swallowed my cry at the painful sensation of my various wounds pulling. It didn’t matter. Right now, nothing was more important than getting to safety—out of Oblisii’s reach, at least temporarily. Rayth vaulted up behind me, his arm circling my ribcage just as he’d done when transporting me back to the valley on horseback, when he’d found me after the battle with the bandits.
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