by Keri Arthur
I frowned. “I don’t think—”
“Eat.” He tore off a chunk of bread and handed it to me. “Trust me, you’ll regret it later.”
And regret it if I did. My frown deepened, but he began to eat. Or, at least, pretend to. The minute the camera was off us, he spat it out and tucked it in his pants pocket. And that meant he did indeed have an escape plan, even if getting out of this cell—let alone a drakkon-guarded settlement filled with Mareritt—was going to be difficult in the extreme.
I didn’t give voice to questions crowding my mind. I simply repeated his actions and hoped that if the Mareritt had placed something in the bread, it wouldn’t have any effect in the brief time it was in my mouth. Eventually, he closed his eyes and appeared to go to sleep, but he remained very much awake and alert. I could feel it. Sense it.
Time ticked by. The farmers consumed their food and then rapidly fell asleep—too rapidly, in my opinion. The bread had obviously been laced with some sort of sleeping draught. It would certainly be one way to ensure a peaceful, drama-free night, even if none of these farmers were likely to cause a problem.
Eventually, the warrior nudged my shoulder, then leaned close, his breath warm against my ear as he whispered, “Next sweep, we move across to the privy and take the monitor and audio out.”
“The chains will give our movement away,” I murmured.
“That’s not a concern—they’ll just think someone is using the facilities.”
Up until the point where we destroyed the monitor, anyway. “But they laced the bread—”
“Only enough to ensure a light sleep. They don’t want us comatose, because they don’t want to clean up the mess that might ensue.”
I nodded and surreptitiously watched the device. It rolled back toward us, paused when it was pointed at the door, and then began its sweep back to the rear of the cavern.
The minute it had passed our bench, we rose and walked toward the privy, making little attempt to hide the noise. Once there, he did indeed use the facilities and then flushed it. As the rush of water echoed through the silence, he opened the cistern, pulled what looked to be a long but slender screwdriver from the water, and handed it to me.
He might claim not to be part of the resistance, but the mere fact that he knew there’d be a screwdriver in the cistern disputed that.
He cupped his hands and looked at me expectantly. The minute I stepped into his palms, he boosted me up until the chain that bound the two of us was taut. I swapped the screwdriver over to my free hand, making sure all my fingers were on the rubber grip rather than the metal. I didn’t know a whole lot about electronics, but I was well aware that metal and electricity were a damn dangerous mix. I drew back my hand and then, with all the force I could muster, thrust it into the bulbous lump. Sparks flew, bright in the darkness; as smoke rose, the camera came to a grinding halt.
I jumped down. The screwdriver was quickly placed back into the cistern, the top replaced, and then we hurried back to our bench. We’d barely resumed our position when the door was wrenched open and five Mareritt swept in, their guns raised and expressions intent. Light speared the room, blinding in the semidarkness. I closed my eyes a heartbeat before the beam hit my face, my heart racing as I fought to keep still, to not react.
Several very long seconds passed, and then one of them moved toward us. I kept my eyes closed and my limbs relaxed—no easy task when all I wanted to do was jump up and cinder. He stopped in front of us, his stink so strong it filled every breath. I continued to breathe evenly and hoped like hell the overly fast pounding of my heart wasn’t as audible to him as it was to me.
After a pause, he placed a hand on my left arm and shoved me sideways. Hard. Given I was supposed to be as drugged as the rest of them, I had no choice but to go with the movement—which by necessity meant I took the warrior with me. I hit the bench with shoulder-bruising force and then was hit by him. I didn’t react. Didn’t dare.
The Mareritt grunted and moved away. I remained where I was, my pulse rate flying and the warrior a dead weight leaning over me. The beam of light finally shifted from my face, its brightness no doubt following the Mareritt as he checked everyone else.
“Nothing?” came a guttural comment from near the door.
“No.” The reply came from the privy area. “Something has definitely pierced the listening device, though.”
“Could we have missed a weapon?”
The other Mareritt snorted. “We searched them. Thoroughly. They ain’t got nothing but clothes and skin.”
The man at the door grunted. “Tech can fix the thing in the morning. We’re not going to get any problems from this lot tonight.”
The Mareritt retreated. The door slammed shut again, a hollow sound that echoed. I didn’t move, not for several minutes. But as my shoulder began to protest my awkward position, I carefully opened an eye. There were no Mareritt in the room, waiting to catch the unwary.
The warrior pushed upright, forcing me to do the same. I gingerly rubbed my shoulder in an effort to ease the ache and said, “Do you have a name, stranger? Because I’m getting rather tired of mentally referring to you as ‘the warrior.’”
His teeth flashed, bright in the darkness. I wasn’t entirely sure if it was a smile or a snarl. “Kai. You?”
I opened my mouth in the vague hope it would appear on demand, only to close it again in disappointment. “I undoubtedly have one, but I can’t recall it right now.”
“How convenient.”
“Annoying would be a better word.” I hesitated. “How did I come to be in the pod? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t a part of the raid.”
“You weren’t. I believe we were diverted to pick you up.”
“But from where?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
Couldn’t? Or wouldn’t? Either way, it was frustrating, this not knowing. That vague memory of falling from the back of a drakkon slipped past the ice again, but if the only drakkons in this land were the same size as the one who guarded this fortress, then that was surely a false memory.
Wait, false memories? Was that something the Mareritt could even do? I struggled—and failed—to recall the snippet of information and had to restrain the urge to knock my head against the wall in an effort to shake the ice loose. Why in the wind’s name couldn’t I just remember it all?
I scrubbed a hand across my eyes and then said, “I take it you have a plan to get us out of here?”
“Yes.”
“And does that rescue include everyone in this cell?”
“No, simply because that’s beyond our capability right now.” He studied me for a moment. “You are included by necessity, but betray me and you’ll regret it.”
My smile held little in the way of humor. “If you trust me so little, why include me at all? Why not simply knock me out, undo the shackles, and leave me behind?”
“For one reason: chaining prisoners together is a new ploy, and one we were not prepared for.”
“And the second reason?” Because there obviously was one.
He hesitated. “It was your reaction to the drakkon. No Mareritt spy, no matter how skillful, would have reacted to her presence the way you did. I have no idea what game you play, but I’m willing to let it roll and see what eventuates.”
“How very generous of you.”
“Red, you have no idea.”
The grimness in his tone not only had unease rising but also visions of white-haired, black-eyed men and women being executed. They weren’t images from my past but rather his.
How those visions related to me I had no idea—and no immediate intention of finding out. “Why call me Red, then?”
“Because of this.” He raised his hand and lightly tapped the corner creases of his right eye. “The spot in your eye gleams like bloody fire, even in this darkness.”
Of course it did—the crimson mote was the sign of a drakkon rider. It was said to have come from the time when the first ancestor shared blood
with the first drakkon to save both their people. The process not only made them kin but gave the females of her line the strength and fast healing abilities of the drakkons and drakkons the ability to control and use flame. It was a union that had echoed successfully down through the generations.
“And you’re aware of the reason for that mote, aren’t you?”
“I’m aware that it no longer applies.”
How could it not apply? You were born kin or not. What had happened here to erase that?
But now was not the time to ask such a question—better to concentrate on simply getting free before I worried about anything else. “How do you plan to get us out of here?”
“I’ve done my part. Our escape is now dependent on others.”
Which meant I’d guessed right; the resistance he supposedly wasn’t a part of had people in Break Point Pass. It would certainly explain the screwdriver in the cistern. It’d also explain why he’d been angry but not overly concerned about being captured.
I hoped said resistance moved sooner rather than later. Waiting wasn’t something I’d ever been good at… a thought that made me wish I could remember the important stuff as easily as I did the random.
“And the drakkon?” I said. “I take it there’s more than one in this place?”
“Actually, no. They tend to keep their main stock guarding the more troublesome territories.”
Stock. How could drakkons—half size or not—be considered nothing more than stock?
It just didn’t make sense. None of this made sense. I scrubbed a hand across my eyes again and wished the ice would hurry up and melt. The answer to all this had to be in my still out-of-reach memories somewhere… didn’t it?
“How many drakkons do the Mareritt have?”
“At last count, they had a fighting force of twenty-five.”
So just over two graces—and that meant they had indeed been successful in raising drakkons from stolen eggs. There was no other way to explain that number—Zephrine’s aeries had only contained three eggs and five drakklings. Even if they’d somehow managed to gain control of all eight, that still left a large gap. “What about Esan? And her aeries?”
“Esan exists, but aeries don’t.” His voice was flat, and yet his anger surged, a thick wave that damn near stole my breath. “The Mareritt didn’t overrun us as they did Zephrine, but they nevertheless ensured we had no means to fight them from the air.”
My breath momentarily caught in my throat—its cause, his anger and my growing horror. “How did they destroy the aeries if Esan never fell?”
He shrugged, a casual movement that belied the dark wave. “With ice, of course. Both those on guard and the breeding drakkons were frozen and then shattered; two eggs and three drakklings were taken. We have no idea if any survived.”
Tears stung my eyes. While drakkons were generally long lived, they only bred once or twice in their lifetimes. To lose so many in one hit would have been catastrophic even when the fortress had a full complement of drakkons. To lose them when the graces had already been decimated by the coruscations…
I briefly closed my eyes against the rise of grief even as another piece of the puzzle fell into place. The “coruscations” was the name we’d given the Mareritt-created icy spheres of magic that had threatened Arleeon, and against which the combined might of both Esan’s and Zephrine’s graces had flown.
I drew in a deep breath and then said, “If Esan survived, why did it never mount—”
“Esan exists, no more, no less.” His voice was curt. “Where did you get that uniform?”
“Where do you think I got it? From Zephrine.”
“Old Zephrine lies in ruins. There’s little left but broken remnants of what it once was.”
“So you keep saying.” I hesitated. “How was it destroyed?”
“When the drakkons disappeared—”
“They didn’t disappear,” I cut in again. “They’re still here, in the hands of the Mareritt.”
“And are little more than shadows of the might they once held.”
“Yes, but why?” It was but one of many questions that burned inside of me, and I had a suspicion solving what had happened to them might—at least in part—solve the conundrum of what had happened to me. “What caused such a calamitous size change?”
He grimaced. “They already had a number of the smaller drakkons under their control—”
“Which had to have been unleashed after the coruscations had done their work.” We certainly hadn’t seen any sign of them before we’d flown into icy disaster.
“Yes.” He hesitated. That dark wave of anger rose and then fell as he regained control. “We believe they’re culling the larger drakkons in favor of the smaller ones.”
Culling drakkons. Two words that sent a chill racing through my veins. “But why? No one can ride a drakkon that’s little bigger than a longhorn.”
“But they can control them, whereas they seemingly couldn’t the larger ones.”
“Have you any idea how they’re being controlled?” Because they couldn’t have been using a mind link like the kin—the name given to the women who could communicate with and ride the drakkons. The Mareritt might be masters when it came to magic, but there’d never been any indication they were also capable of mind speech.
“We’ve never managed to capture a drakkon, and it would be pointless if we did, given there are none alive who can communicate with them.”
How was that even possible? How could the first ancestor’s line be so entirely erased? I shook my head. “When did all this—”
I stopped as he held up a hand and cocked his head to one side.
After a moment, I heard it—the soft “churring” of a Nightjar. Unless their habitat preference—which was generally almost any tree-studded area rather than stark mountainside—had changed as drastically as the size of the drakkons, it was way out of its usual hunting area.
Kai immediately rose, forcing me to do the same. We walked across to the door, and he repeated the soft call. After a moment, the rattle of keys sounded. The door swung open just enough for the two of us to slip through and was then locked again.
Three figures waited in the shadows beyond, one of them facing us and the other two on watch. Their heads were swathed in material and their clothes dark.
“Changeover lasts for another two minutes. That’s all the time you have to get into the forecourt and tunnel.” The speaker—a woman—shoved a cloth-wrapped package into Kai’s hands. “Pickup will wait twenty-five minutes, no longer.”
Twenty-five minutes seemed an extraordinarily dangerous amount of time to wait—how long was the tunnel?
“That’s fine,” Kai said. “Thank you.”
The woman nodded. “Good luck. With those chains, you’re going to need it.”
Then, with barely a look my way, the three of them melted into the darkness. Kai quickly unwrapped the parcel; inside was a handgun the likes of which I’d not seen before and a couple of clips—none of which would go far if we were discovered.
He shoved the clips into his pocket and then checked the gun. With a soft grunt of approval, he motioned me to follow and then padded toward the main courtyard, keeping close to the wall and well away from the yellow line. The Mareritt who’d filled the area earlier were absent, but there were now a couple of guards on the wall. Thankfully, they were all looking out rather than in. I glanced around, and up. The drakkon remained on the outcrop, a forbidding shadow against the starry sky.
Again, the urge rose to contact her. Again, I ignored it.
Kai paused as we neared the courtyard. I crowded closer and studied the buildings opposite. The U-shaped courtyard was empty, and there was no sign of movement, but I had no doubt there were guards we couldn't see.
“See that guardhouse down the end?” Kai whispered.
My gaze followed the line of his finger. Sitting to the left of another big metal door was the building in question. It wasn’t overly large, but it di
dn’t really have to be if its only purpose was to protect those on duty from the elements.
“That’s where we’re going,” he added.
I narrowed my gaze, judging the distance and the time we had left. It was going to be close. “The rattle of the chains will give us away in seconds.”
“Not if we remain far enough apart to keep them taut. Ready?”
I nodded. We’d already wasted close to a minute.
“Good. Go.”
We moved as one, fanning out until the chain that bound us was stretched tight and less likely to rattle.
Twelve seconds.
That’s all it took for the Mareritt soldiers to react.
Lights came on, lifting the shadows, and the sharp sound of rifle fire bit across the night. Multiple rounds of bullets chased our heels as we raced toward the guardhouse. Mareritt poured out of the nearby buildings, some half dressed but all with weapons raised. Kai fired left and right, but we were greatly outnumbered and the guardhouse still too far away.
Heat burned through my blood, and this time I didn’t control it. I raised my free hand and unleashed.
Flames spurted from my gloved fingertips and spread in an arc across the Mareritt to my right. They lit up like torches; flesh instantly peeled from their bodies, and their screams echoed around the courtyard for barely a heartbeat before death snatched the sound away.
I twisted and threw fire at the Mareritt on the wall, setting them alight, melting their bones. High above, the drakkon screamed and launched into the air; there was no one on her back, but the metal band encircling her rear leg had an unnatural sheen in the glowing embers of those I’d destroyed.
She swooped toward us, her mouth open as she sucked in air, getting ready to unleash in much the same manner as I had. I clenched a fist and punched upward with fire, hitting her under her chin. The blow flung her sideways and her screech echoed loudly, a sound that was both surprise and fury. She crashed into a building three stories up, her weight shattering the structure and sending a deadly rain of stone into the courtyard.
I leaped over a number of boulders, my head pounding in time with my heart. There was always a cost to using blood heat—always a price to pay in strength. I wasn’t at my limits yet, but the pounding was an indicator I was roaring toward it.
