Page 86 of Prince of the Sun

I unzip the top, revealing a tangle of clothing, food, weapons. “What am I looking for?”

“A rope.”

“Arope?” I practically screech. “That’s your big plan? To scale the whole skyscraper?”

“Not exactly.”

That’s when the first arrow whirs past our heads. It misses byless than an inch, lodging into a tree across the plaza. I scream, ducking my head against his back. One arrow is quickly followed by another, and another. Daerios dodges to the left, then the right, then the left again. He doesn’t even glance backward. I have no idea how he senses the approaching arrows, but he’s doing a fantastic job.

“Found it!” says Cara, who was also searching for rope in Berendir’s pack. When I peek over Daerios’s shoulder, I see her pull out a woven length of rope, light gold in color.

It’s less than two feet long.

“Are you mad?” I holler.

“Have you found it yet?” Daerios asks in response.

An arrow whistles past my head. “I’m a little busy trying not to get skewered.”

“Let me take care of that. Justsearch.”

Adjusting my grip on his neck, I use one hand to rifle through packets of dried food, a set of arrows, a neatly-folded stack of pants. My palm closes over coarse fibers. I yank out the golden rope. Daerios’s hand waits up by his shoulder, waving eagerly. I pass it to him and zip his pack shut.

Then I make the mistake of peeking backward.

I almost cry out. Râd is barely seven feet away. This close, he’s put aside his bow in favor of a saber, its deadly sharp blade swinging at his side. My head whips back around. We’re ten feet from the western side of the building. Daerios and Berendir plow toward the windows at full-speed. We’re trapped on both sides. We’re going to crash.

I chance one last glance back over my shoulder. Râd is almost upon us. He lifts the saber over his head.

“Daerios!” I scream.

“Hold on tight!” he yells. And as the blade falls toward us, Daerios tosses the two-foot length of golden rope toward the sky. I duck my head and squeeze my eyes shut, ready for searingpain, ready for steel to split my head open, ready to die…

One second.

Two seconds.

The pain never comes. Did Râd change his mind? I crack one eye open, expecting to find us surrounded on all sides.

Instead, we’re flying.

The plaza shrinks below us—twenty, thirty, forty feet, and growing farther away with every passing second. We’re soaring. I tighten my grip on Daerios’s neck, terrified. I’m not even capable of screaming; the breath has left my lungs entirely.

I look up to find Daerios’s hands wrapped around the golden rope, which has mysteriously grown thousands of feet in length. It seems, in fact, to reach all the way to the top of the Unity Tower.

Over the air rushing past my face, I start to ask, “How—”

“Ever-rope!” Daerios yells over his shoulder. “Stolen from my father’s supply before we left camp!”

“It grew 1,925 feet long?”

“It could grow even further, if necessary.”

Shaking my head in disbelief, I look back down at the milling guards. They grow smaller and smaller. “Why aren’t they following?”

“They can’t,” Daerios says. “They won’t have brought any ever-rope along. It’s a very rare artifact. Not part of a soldier’s standard gear.”

Adjusting my grip on his neck, I look over at Cara and Berendir. They’re already staring back, huge grins on their faces.