I draw a slow breath as guilt softens his gaze. But he doesn’t look away. He continues to meet my stare.
“So tell me, what have you heard, and from whom did you hear it?” I ask.
“Vaduin,” Gregor answers.
Kaelis curses under his breath. His magic spikes, and I glance over my shoulder. No cards have been summoned, but he is gripping the altar now as if physically holding himself back from running down the tunnel and finding Vaduin himself.
Gregor’s eyes shift over my shoulder, meeting Kaelis’s. “But Vaduin knows an awful fucking lot, especially about Clan Hermit, and he’s not wrong, is he?”
“Gregor—” I start to say.
Then an explosion rumbles the stone above us.
Distant screams pierce the tension in the air around us. We all look to the tunnel they echoed from.
We don’t wait. We don’t discuss. Gregor rips himself from my grasp, and I’m running as well. Kaelis races up to my side, slowing his pace, eyes darting to me.
“Are you all right?” he asks. Even after everything that just transpired, he’s worried for me.
“I’ll be fine.” I nod.
There’s no time for any other words. My boots slam against the stairs, and I nearly fall. Kaelis helps keep me upright. My muscles burn, and my head still spins. My magic feels strained, as though it were ripped from me and then smashed back into place. But all I hear are screams. All I smell is smoke.
The moment we burst forth into the main chamber, heat pummels my face.
The serenity that welcomed us earlier has been shattered. Fire rages. Smoke curls over the broken buildings like a shroud. Magic scorches the air.
“What…” I can’t even form a sentence.
“How…” Gregor is also in horror.
In the distance, Stellis fight against Worldkeepers. I see a streak of platinum-gold hair leading them.Fucking Emilia.How did she find this place? It’s been kept secret for ages.
That’s when I see another running at her side—a woman wielding a massive blade as though it’s little more than a rapier. Leigh Strongborn, Ravin’s wife. What she lacks in magic power she makes up for in brute strength and skill. One of the only non-Arcanists who can go toe-to-toe with those with magic and hold her own, or even best them.
And that weapon, with all its heft, would be enough to nearly cleave a man’s head from his neck.
I stop. Eyes wide.
They followed Gregor into the academy, through the bridge. That was their way in.I realize it in an instant as the pieces click into place, but I can’t bring myself to say it. The truth would destroy him, and he needs to fight.
I can imagine Leigh tracking the two Stellis in secret, following just behind them as they followed Gregor after he freed Silas’s family. Gregor was none the wiser. He thought he’d killed them, but he hadn’t. Not both of them. Not entirely…
Leigh followed them into the tunnel, and one man saw her—that’s why he looked as if he were reaching out to someone. Killing the man avoided suspicion. Leigh discovered the passageway into the academy, and then she led Emilia to it. I’ve been aboveground for nearly a day while Emilia could have been searching through the tunnels, using all the knowledge she seems to have gathered from scouring the city’s depths in weeks past. I had heard mention of Emilia having knowledge of a mountain stronghold, but I thought it was nothing more than nonsense she was using to calm worried citizens.
The warm lantern I picked up on the way here.They scoped out the path. Maybe some were already here when Kaelis and I arrived.Fuck.
Kaelis grabs my elbow. “We need to run.”
“We have to fight.” I look at him defiantly. “Go, if you must. I understand you need to keep your cover. But I cannot.”
“What aboutyourcover?” Kaelis counters.
Gregor looks our way, glancing between Kaelis and me. “He’s right, Clara. You need to keep yourself safe and—”
“All we have to do is fucking kill them all.” My voice sharpens to a dagger’s edge. I look at them both with bloodlust dulling the pain that still courses within me from the failed induction. There’s something wicked festering under my skin. “I am done losing places and people I love. Done hiding. We will make a stand, we will fight, and together, we will win.”
Chapter 63
