Page 106 of Prince of the Sun

“Here is what’s going to happen.” Daerios straightens, folding his hands behind his back to match the king’s posture. “You will give the order that no one is to harm us on our return journey up the mountain. As a show of good faith, your guards will lead us out of Árrion, past the Trial Gates, past any other guards you might have hiding in the trees. Once we reach the river, you’ll hand the sword—and her brother—over to us. Then, you can have you way with the girl.”

You can have your way with the girl.His back tenses as he says those words. I can only imagine how painful they must be.How foul they taste coming from his lips.Don’t say anything foolish,I pray.Play along. Play along until the very last moment.

“Have their way with you?” Michael’s question rasps behind me. I twist my head back around to look at him. “What is he talking about, Quinn?”

His words nearly break me. They yank me seven years into the past. All at once, I’m no longer a spy who dedicated her entire life to infiltrating a race of mythical beings; I’m just an older sister. An older sister whose little brother doesn’t understand something and needs her to explain. I want to run to him. To pull him into my arms and tell him it will be okay.

Instead, I say, “Don’t worry, Michael. We’re going to get you out of here.”

“But you’re coming with us… right?” His eyes are so wide, so innocent, looking just the way he did at seven years old—if that seven-year-old were pale, malnourished, and six feet tall.

Tears well in my eyes. “Everything will be okay, Mikey.”

“Enough with the pleasantries,” the Shadow King snaps, causing Michael to flinch. Fury boils in my chest. What did the Shadow Elves do to my little brother that causes him to wince at the mere sound of their voices? “I need time to consider the prince’s stipulation.”

Naturally. It’s a suspicious request. To lead a group of your enemies through the woods, where anything could go wrong? Where we could have laid a trap—or several? We could escape, or turn on his guards, or enchant a pair of urrath into eating the Shadow Elves for supper. I don’t even think that’s possible, but I certainly wouldn’t mind if it were.

“You have no other choice, Shadow King,” Daerios says. “These are the ground rules laid out by my father. If you do not follow them to the letter, when his army arrives tomorrow morning”—Daerios glances out the window—“or whatever yourversion of morning is, and his directions have not been followed to the letter, he will fight. We will all fight. There will be outright war, and I know you think you can win, but consider this: he will have every single one of the elf tribes behind him. The Wood Elves. The Wind Elves. The Wild Elves. The Water Elves and the Fire Elves. Not to mention Berendir’s father.”

The Shadow King’s eyes dart to Daerios’s best friend, and although he tries to mask it, I see the fear cloaked behind his irises.

“The General alone has probably killed more elves than your entire army combined.”

The Shadow King snorts, his mask of confidence sealing back into place. “I doubt that.”

Daerios shrugs. “You could take that gamble. Though I certainly don’t recommend it.”

For a painfully long moment, the Shadow King says nothing. He surveys us, our dirty clothes and sun-drenched faces, so out of place in this land of permanent darkness. I catch his gaze snagging on the spot where my fingers brushed against Daerios’s minutes before. I can only pray that he writes it off as an accident.

At last, the Shadow King nods. “Very well.” He turns to the same guard who brought Michael and says, in Lukkarin, “Fetch the Shadow Sword. Let’s get this negotiation over with.”

The guards usher us through the double doors. We move quickly, but not so quickly that I cannot hear the king mutter to one of his guards in Lukkarin, “Keep your eye on the prince and the Lightbearer. I think there might be something between them.”

The Shadow King sends twenty guards with us. Twenty, for a group of two elves, two untrained human girls, and one skinny, malnourished boy. And, you know what? After watching Daerios and Berendir take down those urrath, I don’t blame him.

The guards lead us through the Trial Gates with simple waves of the hand, then set off down the trail that led us here from the river. Without the need for stealth, we’re moving at nearly double the pace; by my guess, we’ll reach the river within the hour.

I hope I never have to see that foul, usurping king again.

If all goes to plan, I won’t.

I crane my neck to peer over the shoulder of the guard in front of me and spy Daerios’s fluttering cloak. They separated the five of us for the duration of this walk—Daerios at the front, then me, then Cara, then Berendir, with Michael at the end, tailed by the lead guard, who also holds the Shadow Sword.

The sword looks nothing like I imagined. I had pictured something huge and intimidating, carvings of monsters on a blade of pure obsidian. While the swordisdark in color, it’s alsosurprisingly beautiful: a guard of intricately braided steel, a thin, serrated blade with flora carved into the center. Quintessentially elvish, while still being a little terrifying.

Our hands are bound with tight manacles. Each of us has four Shadow Elves surrounding our already-restrained forms; they aren’t taking any chances.

Too bad we already have a plan.

The hour passes in strained silence, interrupted only by sporadic instructions from the head guard or the flapping of a skael’s wings through the black treetops. We’ve nearly reached the river when one of the guards assigned to my detail turns to his partner—the one standing right in front of me—and whispers in Lukkarin, “You ever had a human before?”

My back stiffens.

“No,” his partner replies. “Though I look forward to doing so after we’re rid of the others. I hear they’re tighter than elvish women. Especially the more inexperienced—”

That elf’s words are cut off when Daerios spins around and clubs him in the head with the cuffs of his manacles.

The guard drops like a brick. In an instant, the rest of the detail is on Daerios, unsheathing spears and sabers as they circle his panting figure. The prince takes a swing at a second, then a third. His eyes are wild, furious. Both elves jump out of the way before his manacles can make contact with their skulls, but the distraction has done its job; almost every guard has eyes on Daerios—and Berendir, who leaped eagerly into the middle of the bloodshed—leaving Cara and I free to get to work. This part of the plan wasn’t supposed to happen until we reached the riverside, but I suppose listening to the guards talk about raping his girlfriend forced Daerios into action a little too early.