Shey arched one brow. “You think they put up fake exit signs?”
“Wouldn’t you?” The bastard looked serious for two seconds before his lips twitched into a smirk. They were both exhausted, blood-splattered, and sore. His desperation for freedom was the only thing keeping Shey moving at this point. His body tingled and muscles spasmed as he continued to hold on to the magic, refusing to release it in case he needed it in a final, frantic fight for their lives.
“I’m taking a chance.” Shey pushed off the wall and hurried along the hallway, his shoes squeaking on the tile. They’d left behind a trail of dead bodies and nightmarish memories. Sheywas ready to take a breath of freedom at long last. After they returned to civilization, he could figure out the next steps for ending this savage treatment of innocent people.
With a trembling hand, Shey shoved open the last heavy metal door enough to peek outside, but the wind caught it and ripped it open, revealing a howling storm. Shey stumbled back a step, bumping into Tyche as he stared at the swirling black sky illuminated by frequent flashes of lightning and crashes of ear-splitting thunder. The wind forced the sheets of rain sideways, creating a blinding gray blur that nearly blotted out the world. There was no way to tell what time of day it was.
“Fuck! Can you tell Daddy to rein in the storm?” Tyche cried.
Shey opened his mouth, but he didn’t have the words. He didn’t think this was from Kaes. It felt like his own endless rage over all the brutality and frustration he’d suffered during the past several weeks. The bubbling anger that had roiled in his stomach and pounded in his brain had found its outlet in the storm that roared in front of them.
“Look!” Tyche grabbed his shoulder, slender fingers digging in to bite into flesh and muscle. With his free hand, he pointed past Shey at the horizon. Shey started to say that he saw nothing in the darkness, but another round of lightning flashed, briefly outlining trees thrashing in the wind. Endless trees. No skyscrapers or buildings of any kind. Not even city lights.
“We’re in the middle of fucking nowhere,” Tyche howled.
He’d barely finished speaking when backup lights flickered on in the long hall and a sharp claxon screamed. They’d gotten the generator and various systems up and running again. It was going to be a matter of seconds now before they rallied their forces and came to overwhelm them. Even tapping his god-gifted powers, Shey knew he couldn’t keep fighting them. His strength and energy were flagging. Too many days of too little food. They couldn’t keep fighting as they were.
“We take our chances out there or we crawl back into our cells and let them kill us like they killed Teitei,” Shey shouted over the siren and thunder.
Tyche released his arm and rolled his eyes. “You say that like it’s actually a choice.”
They could do this. Shey checked the magazine of the handgun gripped in his right hand to find that it was nearly full. He then grabbed Tyche’s wrist with his left hand and launched them into the violent storm, pulling the smaller man behind him.
He couldn’t save Teitei or any of the other prisoners. Since entering Damardor, he’d lost Juro and Kaeda on this trip. Nothing was going to keep him from making sure Tyche got out of that hellhole and got a damn cup of decent coffee.
CHAPTER 21
Adrian Westergren
The shard of blood-red crystal sparkled and shone as it caught the early morning light and reflected it around the black car. Adrian couldn’t draw his eyes away from it as he turned it between both hands. He was holding a piece of an actual godstone.Thegodstone that had held Caris, the Goddess of Fire.
An emissary from the Isle of Stone had delivered it the previous day after flying for nearly two days straight to get it to them quickly. Poor Shou was still asleep on Haru’s bed and wasn’t likely to move for another ten hours. Haru had warned them that they would need to order a great deal of food to help replenish the dragon’s strength before they could send him back to Nori and the rest of the Omari clan.
“Please be careful, my Adrian,” Haru murmured from beside him in the car’s rear seat. Vitor was once again driving them across town, this time to meet up with Ruben. “The edges are very sharp. I do not want you to be injured.” His hand drifted close as if to snatch the crystal, but he drew away, placing his hand in his lap.
Haru was so damn overprotective. It would be adorable if it wasn’t so annoying.
They were both dressed in clothes that fit their roles of Yujian and Mitso, though their attire was slightly more subdued. Yujian was wearing “business flirty” in shades of dark gray and soft lavender. Adrian was wearing a bit more than in their first appearance, allowing him to hide a few weapons on his body under all the black clothes. Haru was technically unarmed, but he was a dragon. He was a walking weapon.
“I don’t understand how you’re so calm about allowing Ruben to even set eyes on a shard from the Firestone,” Adrian said. He reluctantly fitted the shard into its leather and steel box. The interior was heavily padded so that no harm could come to the shard even if they dropped the box. However, it wasn’t so snug that Adrian couldn’t easily remove the shard and replace it with the phony that was tucked up his sleeve.
Haru shrugged and lifted his head to gaze out the windshield as Vitor slowed the car for a clump of traffic. “Why would I care?”
“What do you mean? Every other word out of your mouth is Caris this and brilliant goddess that. I’ll give you that while most of the gods and goddesses can take a flying leap, she seems okay. She helped Caelan and gave Drayce an amazing set of wings. But still…” Adrian lifted his eyes from where he’d been staring at the crystal in the box to find that Haru was now watching him with a smirk.
“First, you know that every other word out of my mouth is my Adrian this and brilliant Adrian that,” Haru corrected.
“I will agree with that,” Vitor grumbled from the driver’s seat.
“And second, why would I value a broken piece of my goddess’s prison? The very thing that held her trapped for thousands of years and stifled her great powers. If I had my way, all those remaining shards would be ground into dust and dropped into the ocean’s waves, forever disappearing from thisworld. There should be no reminder left behind of that evil prison.”
“Oh.” He hadn’t considered it that way.
Haru cocked his head to the side, sending several strands of his silky black hair tumbling over his shoulder. Silver rings and gems were once again woven into his hair, but not quite as many as he’d worn for the party. This time, Adrian had helped him while Haru explained the tradition among the dragons for braiding in jewelry. It helped Adrian feel like Haru was keeping something of himself even as he put on the mask of Yujian. They sparkled and glittered in the sunlight, and he seemed even more magical. “Why? Do you value the Godstone of Erya?”
“I don’t know.” That was a hard question. Sometimes he struggled to reconcile a lifetime of believing that Tula was a kind, benevolent deity who protected all her children with the reality that she was a cold, self-centered, calculating, manipulative monster with near-unlimited power. “It’s more of a nostalgia thing, I guess. Growing up in Erya—particularly Stormbreak—the Godstone was looked upon as something of honor and pride. We were protectors of the goddess. Sure, the royal line was the true protector of the Godstone, but I don’t think there was a single citizen of Stormbreak who wouldn’t fight and die to keep it safe. But I doubt anyone believed the goddess wasinthe Godstone. It was simply a repository of her power. Or a symbol of her.”
“You must also keep in mind, Haru,” Vitor chimed in as he maneuvered the car through the busy intersection. “Except for the royal family and a few select others, most of the people of the world didn’t realize there was more than one godstone or that they were prisons for the gods in order to protect us all from Zyros. The Godstone of Stormbreak was a symbol of hope for the whole world. That is why many people scrambled to collect eventhe tiniest sliver after it shattered. They still wanted to hold on to that hope.”
