“Not show herself the Flame will.Not caughtthe Flame will let herself get.”
Ignoring the leonthor, Lory inched forward, ready to get a better look at whoever was approaching. If the leonthor had wanted to hurt her, he’d have long done so. Apparently, he was all teeth, no bite.
“Regret the Flame will her words.”
Lory didn’t imagine the anger in the creature’s voice, yet the bitter taste of fear for Khayrivven’s life outweighed the fear of the creature’s wrath by far.
If she failed to return, the Triad would kill him, and if Lory had learned one thing over the past days, it was that the thought of the Veiled Hand dead was more than her alreadythrobbing heart could bear. The loss of Aiden during the trial was a raw wound inside her chest. There was no escaping the terror of what had happened, not even if she pretended that the banter with the mythical creature following her around in its shadow form was actually entertaining.
“Disappear the ache will in time,”the leonthor commented on her thought as if he was privy to anything going on inside her head, and for a fraction of a moment, Lory paused, postponing her attempt at making her presence known to whoever else was sneaking around the mountains.“Her life not risk she may for the sole purpose of consolation. At stake, bigger things are.”
Pressing herself deeper into the dirt, Lory held her breath, letting the footsteps pass and the voices fade until they remained an idea on the wind, but she hadn’t given up yet.
“Can you leave this mountain at all? Or are you trapped up here for good?” she asked over her shoulder in the direction she’d last spotted the shadow.
It took a while for the leonthor to respond, and when he did, the voice came from right behind Lory’s neck, a brush of hot breath against her sweaty skin, and a shudder of panic raked down her back.“Leave we never can, unless the Flame frees us.”
Considering the statement for a heartbeat, Lory fought a war between her curiosity and the need to find a way out of these seven circles of Eroth’s Veil.
“Ask us must the Flame.”It wasn’t a command, so Lory shook her head.
Whatever had happened, she wasn’t ready to deal with any of it before she convinced herself the Triad hadn’t killedKhayrivven. And for that, she needed to get out of these mountains and find her way back to the camp.
With a deep breath, Lory pushed herself up, ducking behind the bushes as she headed toward the trees behind which the voices had disappeared, hope lodging inside her chest that she’d finally find her way out.
“Not go the Flame can,”the leonthor’s voice followed her as she reached the greenery, and for the first time in two days, she didn’t find the cave behind them, but a trampled road, wide enough to host a man and a horse.
A few hundred feet ahead, a group of soldiers in brown leathers was marching downhill between trees and rocks, their weapons glinting in the afternoon light.
“Not protect we can the Flame, if she crosses the invisible line.”
“What invisible line?” Lory whispered, her eyes on the soldiers whose loyalty she couldn’t make out based on the brown of their armor. They could have been from the common Brestolyan army, or rebels disguised as Brestolyan soldiers. Either way, she didn’t plan on finding out, now that she could simply follow them.
“The end of our cage the line is. Not cross we can the line. And so the Flame must not cross either.”
Shaking her head at the shadow, Lory continued down the path, careful to remain hidden while not losing sight of the soldiers. “I’m not staying here unless you trap me. That isyou, trapping me up here, right?”
No answer. Not that Lory had expected one. Ever since she’d accepted the creature was not part of her imagination but an actual being, it hadn’t given her real answers, and theones it had given her—like the fifteen supposed Flame-born sitting around a fire at the other end of the cave—had made her doubt the creature’s judgement.
“Not abandon her people she can,”the leonthor growled into her mind, and the ground beneath Lory’s feet seemed to shake.
Struggling to keep her balance, she grabbed onto a boulder at her side, watching with terror as the path in front of her started to blend into the dark mouth of the cave she’d hoped to never see again.
“No.” With all her stubborn determination, she willed the path back into existence, but to no avail. With every passing second, the darkness in front of her swallowed her more, until she was staring, yet again, into the black mouth of what seemed to be the leonthor’s home. And from there, the mythical wingless cat-horse-stag greeted her with a pair of flashing lilac eyes.
As he stepped out of the shadows, Lory was reminded of how sharp those antlers were and how big the creature, and her knees became wobbly.
“Rest she must.”On silent paws, the leonthor padded over, nudging her arm with his pale, wet nose, the command gone from his voice as if he was just realizing that she was barely standing upright, when in reality, he must have known, being in her head and all.“To the other Flame-born carry her we can,”he offered, tilting his head to scoop her up with his antlers, but Lory stepped aside, defeat settling deep in her bones as she realized that she wouldn’t leave this place—not if the leonthor didn’t want her to.
With a sigh, she sat down right where she was, narrowly avoiding the antlers catching on her dirty, sweaty tunic. “Why is it so important to you that I join a group of strangers in a war I cannot win?”
Because no matter that the Triad had let her live, Ulder would happily have them kill any Flame in their path because of their uncontrollable magic.
“Uncontrollable her magic is, the same as theirs,”the leonthor reminded her with that annoying wise tone that nearly drove her up the obsidian walls.
Hand tucked under her cheek, Lory lay down on the hard ground, staring into the purpling sky beyond the cave mouth.“I know,”she thought at the leonthor, her mind already drifting. If only she could reach Khayrivven in a dream, the unbearable knot inside her stomach might loosen, and she might take a real breath again.
But as the cave faded and sleep enveloped her, solid black was the only thing awaiting her.
