“General Ycken killed them before we had the chance to get them out. By that time, you were already unconscious, and he thought you were dead. We took you under the pyramid as discussed, and our friend is healing your wound so you can?—”
“No,” Olive hissed. “Let me die.”
But Tabi had already finished with her work, and where a gaping wound had gushed blood a minute ago, Olive’s smooth, golden skin didn’t show as much as a hint of a scar.
“I’m sorry.” Lory hadn’t been there when Ycken butchered the two older Flames, but it felt like her failure all the same.
Nobody spoke as Olive’s tears fell onto the dusty floor, and Lory’s heart seized with sorrow at what they had lost: not only two Flame-born—two of thelastFlame-born if theleonthor was to be believed—but a wealth of knowledge about the Flames’ history and the mechanics of the rebellion spilling over Criulias’s borders through the Amrin Mountains. Two people who had been willing to trust her and would have taken her in had not Khayrivven and Ycken come to her rescue. They hadn’t trusted Khayrivven because he needed to keep the facade of the cold captain who didn’t care how many lives he sacrificed for the king’s cause, but he’d won them over enough to go along with his plan for an escape.
Oh, Khayrivven would never forgive himself for those two deaths. She knew deep down in her bones it would destroy him.
Lory did her best not to disturb the woman’s mourning, but the sun would rise in an hour, and they needed to get Olive out of the pyramid, return to their quarters to change into fresh clothes, and sit at their table in the mess hall before the bell pealed a third time. Whatever heartbreak… it would have to wait until Olive was safely out of here.
“It’s time,” was all she said to Anees, and the phantom gave her a nod, gently helping Olive to her feet, whose tears wouldn’t stop flowing.
Tabi took Olive’s other side, easing her sideways through the narrow tunnel, while Lory illuminated their path with her fire, her own strength fading. The blood loss would bite her in the ass if she wasn’t careful. Butcarefulwas something she couldn’t afford—not when, after taking a life tonight, she could actually save one.
“Not much farther.” She followed the tunnel Khayrivven had shown her all those weeks ago. A tunnel he’d trusted herto keep to herself, and now, she was involving more people than he’d ever agreed to.
He’d told her and Hadrian about it before taking Lory on her mission that night, but Tabi and Jarek?—
The guilt would need to wait just like the grief.
One pace at a time, they made their way closer to the end of the tunnel, where roughly hewn rock hid the secret exit into the desert. Lory needed both hands to push out the door, and her fire extinguished the moment she laid her palms against the stone. A collective gasp followed, but she whispered, “I need to open the door?—”
In front of her, even in the dark, she could make out the thin groove indicating there was more to the stone than a dead end. She pushed as hard as she could. Nothing moved.
“Maybe I can help?” Jarek nearly stumbled into her as he stepped around the three women, his hand sliding along the wall, the other across Tabi’s shoulders as he felt his path forward. “I’m here.”
Lory nodded to herself, well aware he couldn’t see her in the darkness. None of the others could. They all stared unseeingly into the black wall before them.
Lory took Jarek’s hands, positioning them inside the borders of the door, and told him to shove.
With a small crunching noise, the form slid a few inches out and slipped to the side, the graying, star-flecked sky and the endless desert behind Dunai spreading before them.
The collective intake of breath would have been comical had Lory not spotted the group of men standing around something in the wet sand about thirty paces to the north.
“Get back inside.”She didn’t think as she gave the order, already stepping back into the tunnel, but her back hit Hadrian’s chest, and she stumbled to the side, holding onto the threshold.
It wasn’t much, but the movement had caught the men’s attention.
Thirty-Five
Lory
“Stay where you are!”one of the men shouted, the sound bouncing off the side of the rock, carrying it to the premises of the place and the Ward high above the ground.
Lory was of half a mind to just make a mad dash for it, her street rat instinct kicking in. Running had been her best shot at survival for years. But she couldn’t outrun this—none of them could. Not in their condition. She was still weak on her legs; so was Olive. Hadrian was a mess of bruises and scratches, and Jarek’s foot wasn’t completely healed. Tabi was drained from healing first her, thenOlive, which left Anees perhaps the only one remotely in a condition to sprint across the sand.
If they disappeared back into the tunnel now and locked the men out, there was no guarantee the door would hold, and if they came after them inside the tunnels, fighting in close quarters would give them a disadvantage, let alone what would happen if the men ran to alert someone about the secret door in the side of the rock.
“Close the door,”she commanded in her mind, but Hadrian and Jarek had already finished the same thought process, casually sliding the door back into place. Anees had left Olive inside the tunnel and stepped to Lory’s side, dagger in her hand.
“Whatever you do,” Anees said to the others, “use your magic only as a last resort, or we’ll need to dispatch them all.
All five of them.Fivegrown men armed with broadswords were coming closer at a slow, deliberate pace, their boots more stable on the wet ground than the sliding dry sand the desert usually sported.
Lory shifted her weight, bracing her feet casually apart, her hand on the hilt of her knife—a joke of a weapon compared to the polished swords of the men.
