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I stepped back. “He’ll go with you. Are you able to take him?”
Stieg’s arms were battered, and blood dripped from open wounds. One wrist looked broken, but still he crouched. “Erik, remember what I said about my folk coming for us? We must leave. You’ve been on land too long, boy.”
Erik hesitated. He was so young. No more than four or five turns, and the fear in his eyes cracked a new wound in my chest. After a few moments, he reached his arms for Stieg.
“I’m afraid I can’t hold you,” Stieg admitted. “Your leg still hurts?”
Erik recoiled, nodding.
Stieg glanced back at me, then faced the boy. “Trust in Queen Malin. She will keep you safe.”
I gave the boy a small smile and opened my arms. He glared. How could we blame the boy? He’d been snatched off his ship, separated from his folk, and mistreated for weeks. Still, with another reassuring look from Stieg, Erik staggered to his feet and limped to me. He allowed me to lift him into my arms, and I held the back of his head, urging him to keep his face hidden.
A rage-filled roar rattled too close for comfort. Our time to leave was now.
“Go!” I shouted to the room.
Those without littles in their arms shoved through the doorway. My blood pounded in my ears. All around us, smoke thickened within the corridors in blackened ash. Injured as he was, Stieg still led at the front with Raum and Tova.
“We’ll go out through Kase’s chamber,” Raum shouted. “The tower has a path to scale down if we tread carefully.”
We didn’t question. There were no titles or ranks when it came to survival. If Raum could see through the darkness, we’d follow him.
Erik whimpered against my shoulder, but never loosened his grip on my neck. The spiral steps rounding up to the uppermost floor came swiftly, and I had to brace against the wall to keep from stumbling.
The screech of steel against steel waned. Cries softened, but at our backs shouts and chaos encroached on us in the shadows.
“We’re all right,” I whispered, holding the fae boy closer.
“Hurry.” Raum stood at the door of Kase’s chamber.
My heart ached at the sight of this place. A place where I fell deeper in love with the man, where we gave ourselves to each other and faced our fears together.
It would burn before dawn.
“I’ll go first,” Raum said. “There is rope in a crate at the bottom. I’ll bring it back up and we’ll get out of here.”
In the next breath, Raum was out the window, on his way to the hedges and wild briars below.
“Stieg, you’re bleeding too much,” Elise said, the bite of worry sharp in her voice. Gently, she placed Laila beside Hanna and Ash, then went to look at her warrior’s arm. Elise peeled back his vambrace on the left arm and winced. A ghastly wound looked as if it had been opened and healed countless times. Now the skin was festering in sickly green and milky yellow. “You’re infected.”
“I’ll heal.”
From the stairwell a deep, wet growl rumbled up the steps.
My heart froze. No one seemed to breathe as the rumble of an unseen creature drew closer. Fear strangled me in thick waves in the back of my throat. Valen. But it wasn’t the king, not really. He’d kill us without thought.
“Ash,” I snapped, setting Erik on the ground, and stepping in front of the boy. “Hanna, get behind me.”
With Tova and Dagny’s help, we formed a wall around all the littles. Tova glanced out the window and called down to Raum in as low a voice as she could. “Get moving or we’re bleeding dead.”
It was too late.
With a throaty huff, the doorway filled with the broken, bloodied frame of Valen. His eyes trained on the bloody drops from Stieg’s wound.
I swallowed a gasp when he realized there were pumping hearts in the room. His cracked lips were soaked in blood. Jagged fangs hung over his jaw, and his fingers, from black claw to wrist, were stained in red.
“Gods.” Stieg cursed on a breath. His eyes flicked to his seeping wound, to the blood drops behind him that had led the beast to our doorway.
