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I pull myself up, then crawl over to Rowan and Alindra. Varitan and the human man are whispering together again, having what sounds like some sort of disagreement. Rowan looks terrible; the bruises across his face seem even more pronounced in the low evening light, and I don’t much care for the way I can trace his cheekbones through his pale skin. Voids below, when was the last time he had anything to eat?
And Alindra. Stars, it hurts to meet her eyes. Everything I’ve done so far, every stupid path I’ve led her down, it’s been nothing but disaster. It’s my fault she’s here, in the path of my father’s rage. I open my mouth, although I’m not sure what I can possibly say to make this better, but Alindra speaks first.
“I have a plan,” she whispers.
I close my mouth. Alindra looks down and to the side, carefully away from the two of us. Rowan’s eye gleams in the thin light, and then he shifts, the rattle of his chains drowning out his voice.
“Tell us,” he replies.
Alindra’s eyes dart toward the place where Varitan and the human are arguing. “Distract him,” she whispers. “I can knock him out.”
Rowan nods, then runs the edge of his tongue over his cracked lips.
“And the human?” Rowan murmurs, under his breath.
Alindra shakes her head. No, she can only do one.
“That’s okay,” I whisper, keeping my eyes on the dirt under my feet. “We’ll get the other one.”
One human we can handle. Once my father is gone, Rowan and I can take down the human. We wouldn’t even need our magic.
I glance at Rowan and Alindra long enough to nod. Rowan gives me a nasty, feral grin. His remaining eye is unnaturally bright, almost shimmering. It’s a sign that he’s getting close to his magic. When Rowan pulls his magic from the void, his eyes burn with blue flame.
Rowan clears his throat. His chains clatter as he pulls himself to his feet, standing tall against the dying fire of the setting sun. The distraction. I close my hands into fists and narrow my eyes at the human man. He’s two steps away. Two steps, and I’ll bring my fist down on the back of his neck.
A sound rips through the forest, like an animal being tortured. Rowan freezes.
“Oh, finally!” Varitan snaps, spinning away from the human.
The noise comes again, only this time it sounds less like an animal and more like a mangled attempt at imitating an animal. Something flickers in the woods above us.
“Yes, yes,” Varitan calls. “It’s us. We hear you! You can come down now.”
My gut sinks into the dirt beneath my boots. The flickering light swells as it moves down the mountain in a clatter of hooves and human voices riding out of the trees to circle us.
One human we could handle. But now we’re facing an army.
Chapter35
Alindra
NOTHING’S GOING ON
“Hey!”
I jolt awake, shaking myself out of my exhausted stupor. A horse snorts somewhere behind me as the sounds of creaking saddles and hooves against packed earth ring through the chill night air. For a heartbeat, I think I imagined that frantic, hissed whisper.
“Hey. Lady!”
Nope. I didn’t imagine it. I turn slowly, patting the swayback mare beneath me as I do. Phaedron’s brother is watching me with his one pale, almost luminous eye. He’s wrapped in bands of oily magic from the magician who must be Phaedron’s father. We’ve been riding for hours, and I’m certain that magic is the only thing that’s kept him from falling off his horse.
I bring my hand up to scratch the base of the mare’s ear and glance at my surroundings. We’re riding through a narrow gulley, surrounded on either side by steep cliffs and the sound of running water. The twenty or so soldiers who emerged from the woods to surround us have spread out somewhat, leaving me and Phaedron’s brother riding side by side.
“Lady,” he whispers again.
“I can hear you!” I snap.
My horse tenses at the hiss of my voice. I reach down and pat her neck again. This poor thing probably hasn’t had much gentle treatment in her life. When I turn back to Phaedron’s brother, he’s grinning at me. I try to suppress my shiver. With his missing eye and the patchwork of bruises across his face, Rowan looks exactly like the monsters from the Lands Below that I was taught to hate and fear.
