“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I have no idea what’s going on out there.”
Enya stepped forward, drawing a forearm-length knife from her sleeve and directing it at Lory. “Don’t lie to us. There is someone in this cave. Someone who isn’t part of our community.”
How Enya knew was beyond Lory, but the insistent pounding in her chest told her that something was seriously wrong. All her senses were on high alert, and the screams adding to the thumping and slashing happening in the darkness confirmed that something was coming for them.
Four
Khayrivven
One more day had passed,and he was still alive. General Vesren Ycken hadn’t made good on his promise to slit Khayrivven’s throat after the encounter with the rebels. Guardians, these mountains were swarming with rebels. Too many Criu who believed they stood a chance out there, fighting Ulder’s troops—Ulder’s magic-wielding troops. No wonder they’d recently taken to despising all things magic.
When Khayrivven had first been sent into the mountains to kill the people of his homeland, theyhad offered him refuge. They’d recognized his origin by the olive tint of his skin and the gray of his eyes—not an uncommon combination in Criulias. But most of all, they had recognized the accent in his voice when he’d cursed in the common tongue—a lilt that was barely noticeable to the people of Sen Dunai or Naolapia, but the Criu had instantly understood Criu blood ran in his veins, and his heart beat the rhythm of the lush and wild forests south of the Amrin Mountains.
Ycken got up from the fallen tree trunk where he had rested, draining the canteen of water he’d refilled at the stream where they’d washed the blood off their hands and the sweat off their faces after slaughtering five rebels total. “Move your ass, Falcrest,” the general barked when Khayrivven paused, glancing out over the steep incline of the mountainside spreading ahead of them. Vastly familiar rocks lined a path upward until it ended in a short cliff.
He followed Ycken without complaint, even knowing that at the end of the path, they’d need to climb a vertical wall of smooth rock and hope they wouldn’t plunge to their deaths.
“We’re getting closer to the first mountain top,” he narrated, carefully flexing his left arm. The bruise blooming on his shoulder throbbed, but he hadn’t lost any range of motion—yet. If he was lucky, he’d be able to hide the injury from Ycken completely. No matter that the Master of Whispers had sent them on a mission together, he didn’t trust the Master of Steel enough to admit any weakness. “Maybe we should take a less exposed route to prevent more run-ins with therebels.” He spat the last word the way all soldiers in Ulder’s armies did.
Ycken was smart enough to take the advice, even when, as Master of Steel, he was inclined to prefer confronting opponents to sneaking around them. As Veiled Hand, Khayrivven Falcrest was used to avoiding being seen at all—not that he couldn’t fight his battles. He’d fought about as many of them as the general himself and killed more men than he could count.
“Back there.” Ycken pointed at the tree line a few hundred feet east. “We can use those to get closer.” A glance at the cliff confirmed Ycken had recognized the spot as the last one Lenya’s astral projection had picked up and delivered to them, and he didn’t need to close his eyes and confirm by pointless attempts at reaching Lory in a heartbeat-length trance yet again into a solid wall. It was the place they were looking for.
If the rebel attack hadn’t interrupted them in the night, they would have long arrived, and he’d have turned the cave atop the cliff upside down until he found the Flame-born woman.
Together, the two men strode toward the forest, hands on their weapons and a tense silence blanketing their movements the way they’d perfected during their training at Ashthorn.
Khayrivven had to hand it to Ycken; the man was as stealthy as the soldiers in the Ebon Division, his movements lithe, melting into the sway of the branches, and his eye vigilant on the shadows between the rocks and trees.
Less than fifteen minutes, and they’d made it to the base of the cliff without encountering another rebel or even a deer. Something was different here. A hint of danger and magic lingered there, announcing that he couldn’t trust his senses.
Whether Ycken felt it, too, Khayrivven couldn’t tell.
With a glance into the morning sky, Ycken sheathed his weapon and placed a hand on the slate rock in front of him. “Eyes and ears open, Falcrest,” he warned. “There might not be any rebels around here, but with both Lenya’s and your powers blocked from that cave, we need to be infinitely more careful.”
“As if I didn’t know,” Khayrivven muttered under his breath, joining the general by the wall.
He started climbing without another thought, ready to find out what had happened to Lory because, deep down, his insides were knotting and squirming with every moment he couldn’t reach her. Since the moment Lenya’s projection had faltered and vanished, Khayrivven had been virtually holding his breath, listening to the shadows and watching—always watching his surroundings for any sign of her.
They didn’t need to communicate a plan; the common army and Ashthorn had protocols for going into unknown territory, and the Master of Steel himself had instructed Khayrivven in his early days at the Ward.
The stone was almost too smooth to find a good handhold, but Lory had made it up there in her panic, surrounded by her fire and exhausted from fighting, so he wouldn’t balk at such a ridiculous obstacle as this. Within a minute, they were up, staring into the gaping mouth of an obsidian cave, and had Khayrivven not already known something dangerous was lurking here, he would have felt it now.
This place was rife with magic, with a power infinitely stronger than anything he’d felt before. But it was also familiar.It had called to him during his missions in the mountains—and he’d ignored it. He’d turned his back on the shadows that had haunted him, whispering to him, and he had fought and killed instead, ever the good soldier.
Everything for Elina.
“What is this place?” he whispered, locking down the embers crackling in his veins in response to the dense power weaving through the air.
Ycken shook his head. “Whatever it is can’t be good.” Jerking his chin at the stains of ash and soot on the ground, he padded forward, the blade he’d drawn the moment he’d crossed the top of the cliff firmly in his hand, and Khayrivven followed.
His own saber sang with the vibrations of the magic Khayrivven kept on a tight leash, and a part of him believed it would have been smart to use the flames he could summon from thin air to light up the space and examine it closer.
“Don’t even think about it,” Ycken hissed like he’d read Khayrivven’s mind. You’ll only announce our presence to whatever lives in the bowels of the mountains.”
Enough of the morning light slithered into the cave to expose three dark holes at the other end—tunnels that would lead toward theweaponLenya suspected the rebels were hiding here, or to something entirely other that Khayrivven didn’t dare think about. Aweaponthat blocked his dreamweaving and severed the bond connecting him to the tapestry of Lory’s dreams.
Whatever vicious thing it was, he’d make quick work of it and?—
