Yassen jumped after her.
The wind roared in his ears. The tops of the trees glinted like spears as he hurtled toward them. Yassen braced himself, knees bent, head curled, but the forest met his body too fast. He crashed through the canopy, leaves and branches clawing at his face and skin. Pain lanced up his arm. He tried to stop himself from falling farther, tried to kick out his legs and grab a tree limb with his good arm, but the mountain heaved from another blast and the world swayed as he smacked into the ground.
Yassen gasped. He lay staring at the burning sky in shock. Blood filled his mouth. But adrenaline, training, and the pain that splintered up his arm wrenched him awake and pushed him, swaying, to his feet, retching.
He could not die here on this mountain. Not when he was so close.
He stumbled through the dark forest. Here, the air was cooler, but the smoke lay on top of the canopy like a thick cloud, slowly suffocating everything within. Yassen felt for his old pistol and found it still wedged in the band around his thigh. He pulled it out and clicked back the safety.
“Elena!” he called.
The sound of distant pulse fire answered him. He crept through the underbrush, searching every shadow, every crevice.
“Elena!”
He followed a trail of broken branches and wilted leaves as the pulse fire grew closer. He coughed, his chest burning. A branch snapped to his right, and Yassen whirled, finger on the trigger; then he spotted the soiled edge of a skirt.
Elena lay crumpled within the roots of a massive banyan. It was the only banyan in a thicket of pine, and it was almost as if it was protecting her, the long vines curling around her in an embrace. Blood trickled from her nose, staining the Phoenix necklace wrapped around her throat.
Yassen fell to his knees. He pushed away the necklace as he felt for her pulse and gasped in relief to feel a thrum of life.
“Ferma?” She lifted her head, bleary brown eyes looking up at him.
“I don’t have the hair,” Yassen said, regret lacing his voice. “Can you stand?”
She licked her cracked lips, her tongue curling at the taste of blood, but she nodded slowly. He helped her to her feet.
“Did you break anything?”
“No, I don’t think so,” she whispered and looked at him. “You?”
Pain stabbed through his arm, but he shook his head. “There’s an escape route Majnu mapped in case of an attack. We need to get there.”
She nodded, blinking groggily. Yassen led the way, pistol out. The ground was high and uneven with thick leaves that slapped at them. He tried his best to pick his way through the bramble, but another explosion shook the mountain. He teetered, and then Elena yelped and knocked into him, and they both tumbled down a slope.
This time, the fall was shorter, meaner. Jagged rocks cut across his skin, scraping his knees and elbows. Yassen moaned as blinding pain shot through his arm and shoulder. He nearly fainted.
“Get up,” Elena rasped beside him. “We have to get up.”
He lifted his head. Her dark brown eyes met his, and he was shocked to see how steady they were, how clear.
She slowly pushed to her knees. He noticed fresh blood staining her shoulder, but she did not seem to be aware of her wound. This time, she helped him stand. She picked up his pistol and handed it to him. When his fingers brushed hers, she touched the black mark on his palm.
“Did you know that the Arohassin would attack today?” she asked, her eyes boring into him.
Yes.
He was to lead her to her death, to deliver her head to the Jantari king. He would bring destruction upon the people who had forsaken him.
But smoke stung his throat, his eyes. In the distance, he could hear screams, the faint patter of gunfire; he could smell the metallic stench of charred flesh, and it gripped him, wrenching his chest. He had caused this. Mother’s Gold, he had done this.
Yassen stumbled back under the weight of Elena’s gaze. She stepped forward, her voice shaking.
“Did you know?”
A desert yuani shrieked in the canopy, and Yassen looked past her to see a man moving through the brush behind them.
It happened at once.
