“Let’s go get our girl,” Ashley said reassuringly, slapping her hand against my shoulder.
“You don’t have to tell me twice, firecracker,” I grinned, my magic slowly calming enough for me to control myself once more.
We ran.
The ground split behind us as Jaden threw up walls of rock to slow the horde, helping the other soldiers before we left them behind. Ashley hurled bombs over her shoulder without looking back, each one turning the mist into fire and ash. Lionel half-dragged Eve as we sprinted towards the shadow of the castle.
The structure loomed larger with every step, its spires curving like claws, its walls covered in living shadows that breathed with a slow, dreadful rhythm.
“Here!” Lionel pointed towards the wreck of what might once have been a watchtower, half-buried under blackened vines.
We dove inside. The stone was cold and slick, the air thick with the stench of layers of dust. I turned, making sure nothing followed us here.
Silence fell, broken only by the rasp of our breathing.
Ashley slid down the wall, hands covering her face. “Faelin’s gone.”
Nate knelt beside her, hand patting her shoulder. “We couldn’t have saved her.”
“She was trying to shield us,” Lionel said quietly. His voice was flat, clipped, a soldier’s tone. But his hands were shaking as he reloaded.
I leaned against the cold stone, blood still whispering under my skin. The tether, her tether, was pulling at me, pleading. I could barely feel it, like a single thin line stretched to its breaking point.
Lionel looked at me. “You still feel her?”
“Yes.”
“How far?”
I peeked out through the opening, towards the castle, the pulse in my chest tightening like a fist. “Inside.”
He nodded once. “Then we plan.”
Ashley lifted her head. “Plan? You mean we’re actually stopping to plan somethingnow?”
“I mean,” Lionel said with a sharpened tone. “We go in, we survive, and we get her back. But we do it smart.”
I laughed softly, sharp, humorless. “You think there’s a smart way to walk into hell?”
“There’s a dumber way,” Eve muttered. “You charging in alone.”
I met her eyes coldly. She didn’t flinch.
Lionel spread the map he had been working on along the way across the cracked floor, quickly adding the details he had seen. “We find a weak point. A window, a servant’s tunnel, anything that leads inside without setting off the entire damned place.”
Jaden crouched beside him. “The cliff on this side of the castle,” he gestured to the east side on the map. “I might beable to shape it to let us get close enough to climb on top of the walls.”
“Good,” Lionel said. “That’s our entry. We go in quietly.”
“Quietly,” Ashley echoed, deadpan. “With him?” She jerked her chin towards me.
I ignored her. My gaze stayed locked on the castle.
Every heartbeat was agony now, every moment another inch of distance between me and her.
“Give me a second, I just need to patch Eve up,” Lionel said, folding the map together and rummaging through his belongings.
That was the last straw.
