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We were both doomed, no matter how you looked at it, because I was sure of one thing.
We were still in Torin’s room.
And there was no way out.
* * *
I surfacedback into consciousness in the same tight darkness.
Tavion was crushed against me, but his heart had slowed down to what I assumed was a normal rhythm. My heart, on the other hand, beat like a rabbit’s. I was naked and trapped with the male who’d locked me in a cage, while the Fae king prowled somewhere outside, waiting to kill me for my magic.
Four days ago, I didn’t think my situation could possibly get any worse, and now…well, here we were.
I had to find Ember. She was in the next wing, not that far away, when I measured the distance between us, and in as much danger as I was. “I have to…”
Tavion clapped his hand back over my mouth. “Iwillknock you out.” The words were nothing but breath and I shut up, just so I could breathe again.
Then light flooded in. “Hurry.” Torin hissed. “They’re distracted at the moment, but they’ll start searching the palace room by room, and they will begin here.”
With one hand gripping my wrist, Tavion headed for a bookshelf stuffed with books, snatching a throw off a chair. “Fucking cover yourself up.” He snapped, and I wrapped the cloth around myself, as happy as he was that I was no longer naked.
“Use the old servant’s entrance.” Torin urged, laying her hand flat on the edge of the shelf. The entire wall swung inwards, revealing the narrow opening behind. “You have an hour to make it to the east wall, the others are waiting for you in the woods beyond.”
“You’re the king’s seer. Why are you helping me?”
Torin snorted. “The king is a monster; in case you have not noticed. Do try to stay alive, Anaria, many people have died to get you out of here, and I expect many more will die before you reach your destination.”
Torin stopped me, straightened the blanket, patted my cheek, before she caught Tavion by the sleeve. “The ritual went to plan, tell the others when you meet up with them.”
“Perhaps we should let them kill her and allow this to play out.” I stumbled at Tavion’s harsh words, even as he dragged me into the darkness. “It might not be the worst outcome.”
“I’ve looked down that road, and so has the Oracle.” Torin’s whisper followed us into the corridor. “No one survives that future.” Then Tavion gripped my wrist and dragged me into the dark.
“We have to find Ember.” We’d walked for ten minutes, and I swore I wasn’t going to talk to this asshole, but I had to reach my friend. I’d lost all sense of direction, but if we were heading to the east wall, then we were heading in the opposite direction of Ember.
“Your friend is as good as dead, little thief. We’ll be lucky to escape this city alive.”
“There’s still time. She’s not dead yet.” When I stopped moving my feet, he dragged me along like a sack until I was able to get them back underneath me.
“She is.” His gaze angry narrowed. “And so are we, if we don’t get out of the palace. The eastern gate is nearly a mile away. There are four hundred guards standing between us and that door, and even I don’t know if we’ll make it out of here alive.”
“Why not?”
He yanked me up, his fingers biting into my wrist. “Because you fucked everything up. We had a plan—Torin and I—to get both of you out four days ago. Why do you think I’ve spent seventeen years in this shitehole city? To make sure tonight went perfectly to plan. But you had to fuck everything up, Anaria.”He sucked in a ragged breath.
“Not Solok, not the king…youscrewed us over, and now we are going to die.”
He tossed me away and I thumped off the wall, landed flat on my face, the wind knocked out of me. I gathered the scrap of fabric around me to cover my bare ass.
I climbed to my feet, a tiny thrum of power at my core. Diminished, but not gone completely. Did that mean I had kept some of the magic? Or had the ritual failed completely, because I was aliveandstill had magic?
“You were going to get us both out?” I squinted at his uniform. “But you’re the commander of the…all that stuff.”
“You know damn well what my title is. I worked my up through the ranks, from soldier to officer, until I am what I am today. The fucking High Commander of Tempeste.”
“You’re my…ally?”
“I am your fucking only hope, and you will do exactly what I say, when I say it. We must be outside the palace in five minutes, then we have a twenty-minute walk to the wall. During which, you will stick out like a fucking sore thumb.”
