She cut him off with a decisive slice of her hand. “I don’t care about the signal. We should be in there. We should help them.”
“The plan was good. Let’s just give it time.”
“Urtzi, when on earth did you grow a sense of patience?” Ula grumbled. “We’re not leaving them in there.”
“We’re tryingnotto cause a ruckus. You know what happens if there’s a ruckus.” He looked pointedly at the quiet shadows of the ever-darkening sky.
“Then let’s not make any noise,” Ula whispered back. “We can’t leave Amarande and Luca in that castle for another minute with that psychopath. Come on—”
The silence suddenly wailed with the call of bells. Hard and fast, and exactly what they had been waiting for.
Without another word, Ula and Urtzi shot out of their shadows and toward the crevice of the ravine that led up to the weeping boulder that would be their entry to the Bellringe. Their feet were swift, yet cautious, the rocks wet from the stream upon the other side. That stream had eroded the wall to create the weak point—one Osana had found before their fevered escape from the horror of the wedding.
As they got closer, the unmistakable smell of the stables wafted toward them—this was indeed it.
“I prefer the North Star when seeking direction,” Urtzi whispered with a crinkle of his nose.
Ula slugged him softly. “Save your preferences for things that matter.”
In one last lunging climb they came upon what they were lookingfor—a hidden crevice in the wall and a large, water-logged boulder hiding the break from view.
From the ground rather than atop a horse, the boulder was much larger than Ula remembered—large enough that scrambling atop it might be more difficult than expected.
“I’ll hoist you up,” Urtzi whispered, already bending so that Ula could step into a cradle made by his long, laced fingers and palms. In answer she planted her boot sole squarely in his offered hands. “One, two, three—”
Up and over Ula went, fingers and the toes of her free boot catching, and gaining purchase as she hauled herself up to the top of the large boulder. Immediately, she spun herself around, flat on her belly, and leaned down to offer Urtzi a hand, her toes hooked into crevices for a better hold.
Urtzi grabbed on yet barely gave her any weight to tug, finding handholds and footholds with his long, gangly body that she never would’ve had the option to use. He pulled himself up and over more elegantly than she thought possible, and they came to a rest, side by side, on top of the rock.
“That wasn’t so bad,” Ula whispered, with a heaving breath.
“It’s about to get worse.”
Their attention spun around to the words, and there, standing a little too triumphantly with a sword tip pointed straight at Ula’s neck, was Dunixi.
Stars and dragon’s piss.
Cursing, Ula scrambled back. But there was little room between the blade out front and the drop off the rock’s edge and into the steep ravine beyond. Ula’s boot heels met thin mountain air as she struggled to keep her balance. Urtzi’s hand shot out to steady her, his shoulder banging into the broken castle wall that squeezed in next to the boulder.
The Eritrian smiled broadly, his skin as pale as milk.
“Did you miss me? Did you regret leaving me here? Jailed. Interrogated. Tortured. All becausemy friendsabandoned me.”
Ula swallowed hard. Too hard. She couldn’t draw her sword from her back quickly enough at this range to avoid a thrust straight to the body from Dunixi. He wasn’t great with a blade, but he could do that.
She could leap into the stream, put some distance between them, get her sword. Ula shifted her feet once again and decided to answerhim first—it would be just like him to get wrapped up in an argument if she did this right. “We were done with your plans. You wanted to torture Luca and Amarande. You wanted to—”
“Iwanted to survive!” Spittle clung to Dunixi’s thin lips. Hurt tinged his words as he began to truly yell at them. “There’s nothing wrong with that. And you left me for it. Robbed me for it. Took my rings and my ship, and—”
A flash of steel blinked in the bare torchlight.
Dunixi immediately doubled over, blood suddenly coating his uniform, spraying into the water in thick rivulets. He listed to the side, and Urtzi used his long wingspan to sink a dagger into Dunixi’s milk-white throat. Another spray of blood shot into the night as Dunixi’s light eyes snapped open in shock, the force of the thrust knocking him straight into the stream, falling like a sack of potatoes.
As he landed with a splash, a voice they recognized but didn’t expect came from the shadows. “They didn’t take anything from you. Your choices did, you two-bit lout.”
Osana stepped into the light, sword blade slick with blood at the very tip. Her face was in relief from the torches upon the perimeter wall, a smile planted there.
Ula grinned as they scrambled down from the boulder and sloshed through the stream, around Dunixi’s flailing body and toward her. “What are you doing here?”
