Rhaezon turned back toward the opening.
"Don't—" Davn's voice, strained, from the other side: "Keep going. I'll hold them."
"You're hit."
"I saidkeep going."
The blaster fire resumed. Slower. One weapon instead of two. Rhaezon stood at the threshold with every fiber of his body screaming at him to go back for the man who had freed him from chains a decade ago, the man who sat at his table and slept under his roof and had never once asked for anything in return.
November's hand tightened on his arm. She did not tell him to go or stay. She left the choice with him and her fingers on his skin were warm and his friend was bleeding and his mate was barefoot in a tunnel and he could not save everyone.
He turned away from the opening.
They ran.
The tunnel sloped downward, curving beneath the estate's foundations toward the plateau's edge. He knew every step of it. The route would bring them out near the lower pastures, a quarter mile from the stables. From there?—
He rounded the bend and stopped.
The ceiling had come down.
Not partially. Completely. A wall of stone and packed earth filled the tunnel from floor to the jagged remnants of its roof. The explosions above had done their work thoroughly. No gap. No way through.
November looked at the collapse. Looked at him. Did not waste time on the obvious.
"What else?"
He was already calculating. "Side door. East corridor, ground level. Stables."
"Stables," she repeated. She understood.
He led the way, and they reversed. Back up the slope, back through the tunnel, past the hidden doorway — the corridor beyond was empty now, blaster scoring on the walls, no sign of Davn — and up the flight of stairs. He carried her again through the parlor and then left instead of right, toward the east corridor and the service exit the kitchen staff used for deliveries.
The door was intact. He set November down and checked the exterior through the narrow window. The stable yard was lit by the burning north wing, shadows jumping, but the stable building itself was dark and standing. He could hear the kethral — their panicked vocalizations, the heavy percussion of hooves against stall doors. Alive. Scared. Rideable.
He opened the door. Cold plateau air hit his lungs and cleared the smoke from his head. They ran.
The stable was chaos. Kethral stamping and screaming in their stalls, eyes rolling white. The young one that had broken through the fence had already kicked through its door and vanished into the dark. Two of the older animals were pressed against the back walls of their stalls in rigid terror.
Rhaezon went for Aethon — his own mount, the steadiest animal on the estate. November went straight to Shade.
He stopped. "November?—"
She was already in the stall, hands on the kethral's neck, her voice low and continuous. The animal was shaking. Its ears pinned flat. It bared its teeth when she approached, but she did not stop. She put her forehead against its broad jaw and spoke to it the way she spoke to all frightened creatures — full sentences, steady cadence, absolute calm. Shade stopped shaking. One ear came forward.
"We'll move faster on two," she said without turning around. "I'll follow. You lead."
He wanted to argue. Every instinct in his body wanted her pressed against his chest where he could feel her breathing. But she was right. On a single kethral they'd be heavy and slow. On two they could split if pursued, take different routes to the caves. She was right, and he hated that she was right.
He threw a saddle on Aethon. No bridle — no time. He looked across the aisle. November had Shade's halter on. No saddle. She'd vaulted up bareback, the kethral shifting beneath her in the firelight, her bare legs gripping its sides, her feet still bare, his shirt torn and blood-stained and the scale blazing at her throat.
"Stay behind me. North slope. There's a cave system — I'll signal before I turn."
She nodded. Her face was calm. Her eyes were not. She had decided to be brave and was going to keep deciding it for as long as it was required.
They rode out of the stable at a flat run.
The plateau opened around them — dark and vast, the burning estate falling behind, both stars invisible behind smoke. The kethral's six-legged gait ate ground with the rolling speed that made them the dominant riding animal on Aelthar's high country. Wind hit his face and he leaned forward. The world narrowed to the dark terrain ahead and the sound of November's kethral behind him, close, matching pace, her weight moving with the animal the way he'd taught her.
