“I won’t let go.”
“Good. I’m going to lower you down to my shoulders.”
His shoulders? He was going to carry me up? I didn’t want to take him down with me.
The assassin above leaned over and yelled, “I’ll take your hand when you’re in reach!”
Slowly, he lowered me until I hooked my thighs around his shoulders and pressed my ankles to his sides. “I’m too heavy, Viper, I?—”
“Shut up,” he snapped. “You’re not too heavy for me. We’re going up now. Are you ready?”
“Yeah.”
Even with my added weight, he moved up the rope with the stealth of a cat. The assassin at the top took my hand and jerked me up over the edge. “Damn, new blood, I thought I was about to witness your death,” the man behind the mask said. The name on his collar wasIndigo. “It wouldn’t be the first time an apprentice has fallen off the wall. Happens every few years. The rain was bad luck for your first time.”
I practically fell into his chest and wanted to hug him but forced myself not to. He held onto my shoulders to steady me, though. “Are you good?”
I nodded. “I think so.”
Vander swung his legs over and landed gracefully on the wet stone beside me. “She’s not falling on my watch.”
“Viper.” Indigo released me and clasped wrists and bumped chests with Vander. “I didn’t think you were getting an apprentice this year.”
“Commander Locke said otherwise.”
“Hopefully you have better luck with this one.”
Were his other apprentices failures? Maybe that’s why he didn’t want me. It made him look bad to have another weak apprentice.
Even through his mask Vander’s glare was icy. That hit a nerve.
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,” Indigo muttered and reached over the edge to pull the rope up.
Too disoriented to worry about it, I leaned back against the cool, drenched stone of the turret and took in several deepbreaths, trying to calm my racing heart. The dizziness subsided quickly, and the rain came to a misty drizzle. Of course the downpour would stop once we were on solid ground, not when we were dangling sixty feet from death.
I slid down the wall and pressed my forehead to my knees. I should have eaten something before we left.
“We’re burning daylight.” Vander’s voice would be soothing if he wasn’t ordering me to repeat what I had just barely survived. I lifted my chin and looked at his waiting hand. Was he out of his mind?
“Now? I almost fell.”
“But you didn’t.”
“If I was afraid of heights before, it’s intensified a thousand-fold. I’m not going.” I hugged myself, pressed my back into the wall and shook my head. I was getting off this wall some other way. Stairs hopefully. There had to be stairs somewhere.
He squatted, putting his eyes level with mine. That same warning I got whenever he was this close tingled the back of my mind. Predator. Dangerous... Enchanting. There was something about him that pulled me in, like marveling at the beauty of the stars. “Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”
“Youthink?” I repeated with more harshness than I intended.
“I want us to get along. We’re going to spend a lot of time together.”
“Then maybe you should apologize for how you’ve treated me since we met.”
He tugged his mask down. “I stepped in to help you when no one else was going to before you got in the arena with Morrow. I am also sharing my room with you, and I will do everything in my power to keep you alive over the next year.”
“Only because you have to.”
A crease formed between his brows, and he practically bared his teeth like a wild animal. “Get up. We’re going.”
