M elina was right. These weren’t exactly tunnels, just hallways that happened to be underground, and they were far from private. We
passed too many other people to make me comfortable as we hurried down hall after hall together. Most were other slaves, which was our only saving grace. Perhaps some recognized me—I was, after all, unusual looking—but thankfully, no one stopped us. The further away we moved from the heart of the estate, the quieter the halls grew.
We stopped when we came to a juncture. “That way goes out to the stables,” Melina said, then pointed in the other direction. “And that one goes to the fields.”
“Which is farthest from the main house?” She paused. “Probably—”
My heart stopped. “Sh.”
She gave me a curious look, but I grabbed her arm and pulled both of us against the wall. “Sh,” I said again.
There it was—quiet, but if I strained my ears I could hear the voices above.
“…have gone too far… still can catch them… I’ve ordered every guard in the house—yes, every guard, I assure you…”
I resisted the urge to hiss a curse.
Melina’s eyes shot to me, wide with terror. “Do you have any idea how many guards are in this place? They’ll know we went here—”
“We don’t have time to be scared,” I said, firmly. “Only to act. Which way, Melina?”
Her eyes darted between the two halls, then she pointed. “To the fields.” We flew.
The glances we had earned from those we passed now turned to outright stares. I kept my hand firmly around Melina’s wrist, urging her forward even when fear began to falter her steps.
“Focus,” I murmured to her. “We are so close—”
We rounded a corner, and she stopped short, sending both of us stumbling.
Ahead of us was a short staircase and a door with sunlight spilling beneath it. Standing before it was a young man in a guard’s uniform. He looked to be about Melina’s age, perhaps in his late teens. Tousled dark hair fell over his forehead, low enough to frame the surprise in his eyes when he saw us.
“Melina?”
“Markus!”
Melina had gone completely still. Both of the names came in little breaths that carried too many shades to count.
A knot of unease formed in my stomach as I watched the two of them— watched the way they looked at each other. Like teenagers in love.
Gods, was there anything more unpredictably dangerous than teenagers in love?
Markus stood between us and freedom. He frowned. My stare fell to his hand, which rested at the hilt of his sword.
“You’re the one they’re looking for?” His gaze flicked to me, and something shifted in it.
“We need to get out, Markus,” Melina said, her voice small. “You can come with us, you can…”
“Get out?” His brow knotted.
I was getting a terrible feeling about this.
“Come with us.” She took a step forward, hand slightly outstretched. “You can come. They’ll never find you. They’ll never know.”
I saw it, in that moment, in the nearly invisible hardening of the muscles around his eyes. He would never do it.
Because this young man was not a slave. He was a hired guard, paid, albeit meagerly, for his services. Perhaps he liked Melina. Perhaps he even loved her, or thought he did.
But the minute Melina used the word “we,” used it to make him one of us, he was gone.
She kept walking forward. “Markus, please…” The moment she touched him, he grabbed her. But I was ready. I moved just as fast as he did.
Whatever apology he muttered was dampened by the sound of her body slamming against the wall as he tried to restrain her.
And then by the sound of steel against steel, as I lunged for him with my stolen sword. He blocked me, but it was distracted, clumsy. I was a better swordsman, and I seized upon his inexperience.
Melina let out a strangled cry. Blood spattered over me.
Markus slumped to the ground, clutching a wound on his throat, life already leaving his eyes.
The hallway was silent but for the sounds of activity above us and the pounding of blood in my ears. Melina pressed herself to the wall, her hand to her mouth, shaking.
My heart ached with pity for her. “We need to go.” “I—I—”
I took her arm, gently but firmly. “I’m sorry, but we need to go, Melina.”
She loosened a long breath, tore her eyes away from him, and turned to the door. Together, we stepped over the body of her lover and took our next steps to freedom.
 |
IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY OUTSIDE. When we ran through the door, we were met with a stunning view—the fields of crops, wheat and fruits and leafy greens, in perfect rows like streaks of paint. The sky, pink-blue, and empty. Together, Melina and I ran.
We’d make it past the crops, and then hopefully Ishqa would get here in
—
Melina’s arm was roughly yanked from my grasp. Her rough cry split
the air. Someone tried to grab me, but I struck wildly with my sword and slipped their grip, backing against the wall of a grain silo.
Before me, a guard held Melina. And beside him was Lady and Lord Zorokov, surrounded by three other guards.
I was careful not to look panicked, even though my heartbeat was out of control. We had been too loud in the tunnels. We had let too many people see us. We had been too slow. Or perhaps we had just been unlucky.
Lady Zorokov smiled at me. “I think I know you, don’t I? Tisaanah Vytezic! Such a pleasure to finally meet the legend.”
I could not take my eyes off Melina. I dropped my sword. Raised my palms.
“I’m unarmed,” I said. “Let her go.”
Lord Zorokov snorted. “Surely you cannot expect us to fall for that.”
Still, they didn’t move for me yet. I’d earned quite a reputation for collapsing Esmaris Mikov’s estate, and for my acts during the Aran civil war. They probably thought I had enough powerful magic within me to destroy this entire city with a flick of my fingers.
If only they knew how useless I really was right now.
Come on, Ishqa. Hurry.
Movement from the left—the two Fey, cornering me from another angle. “The artifact,” Iajqa said, coldly. “Where is it?”
“I don’t have it.”
My palm still burned with my lie. I prayed they would not look too closely at it.
Still, no one moved. They were afraid of me, I realized—even the Fey.
Melina let out a little sound of pain, blood now dripping down the flesh of her throat.
“She tried to stop me,” I said. “She has nothing to do with it.” I just needed time.
Hurry, Ishqa. Please, please hurry.
Lord Zorokov gave me a slow smile. “Shall we give you her foot this time? I think you already have plenty of hands.”
The surge of fury made it difficult to speak.
“I’m not here to play games,” I said, as calmly as I could manage. “Let her go, and I will consider returning to you what I’ve—”
The dark-haired Fey uttered an unfamiliar word beneath her breath, one that sounded like a curse. “That is it,” she breathed. “You do have it.”
She was looking at my hand—at the strange gold now covering it.
Shit.
“That’s ridiculous—” I started, but the words barely made it out of my mouth.
“We aren’t here to play games, either, little slave,” Zorokov snarled, and I had no time to react before Melina’s throat was open, and her body was falling to the ground in a bloody heap.
And then another guard was on me. Two. Three.
“Take her hand,” someone shouted, and pain exploded at my wrist, so intense that for a moment everything else fell away.
I clawed my way back to consciousness. Clawed my way to my magic.
Do this, Tisaanah. You’ll die here if you don’t.
I summoned every scrap of magic in me, every remaining little fragment of it. Forced it through my veins through sheer will. Gods, it hurt, like the magic was burning me from the inside out.
The guards holding me let out shouts of pain, pulling away rot-covered hands. My own right hand was useless—they had cut so deep that I glimpsed bone. When I grabbed my sword from the ground, I had to wield it left-handed.
Everything faded into a frantic smear of images. The guard falling, face black with rot. My sword plunging through another’s chest.
Something strange happened as I fought. Other images careened through me—not of my own desperate battle, but of other people that I knew were far away from here. As if, for split seconds, I was looking through someone else’s eyes.
First, I saw a copper-haired man with concerned green eyes, gazing at me. A beautiful room full of greenery and refracted sunlight. Utter, all- consuming hatred.
Gone. And then another image: a white room. Carvings on the ground, the same shapes over and over. Exhaustion. Fear. Looking down at hands that I knew very well by now, and the Stratagrams that inked the arms attached to them.
My heart stopped. I faltered. The image disappeared. Max.
That was him. I saw him. I felt him. I was him.
This realization struck me so hard that I faltered, mid-movement. A guard struck me. My back hit the ground.
No. Go back. Go back.
I tried to reach back out to my magic, but it was out of reach. The magic surrounding my sword fell away, leaving only pitiful steel that one of the guards knocked from my grasp easily.
Iajqa stalked towards me, gaze fixed upon my hand. “Take it,” she commanded.
The guard raised his sword. I tried to dodge, tried to roll away, but another man gripped my shoulders and pressed my wrist to the ground.
But just as that blade was about to come down, a streak of gold hit the earth, knocking my captor away. I blinked, and before me I saw nothing but wings spread out beneath the blazing sunset light, shielding me.
I let out a breath of relief.
Ishqa glanced over his shoulder at me, looking annoyed. “This was not the plan.”
“Later,” I rasped, and scrambled to my feet. His arms were around me, ready to fly us away, when a voice shouted, “Ishqa!”
Ishqa’s head snapped towards the blond Fey, and he went still.
“Iajqa,” he said, sounding as if he didn’t know he was speaking aloud.
She approached, her brows drawn together. “Come back,” she said. “The king would take you back. Your son is not well, he—”
“Ishqa,” I hissed. We didn’t have time for this.
My prompt seemed to snap Ishqa out of some trance, because in one breathless movement we launched into the sky. I clung to him embarrassingly tightly and watched the spectators—the slaves, the guards, the Fey, the Zorokovs—grow smaller and smaller beneath us. Melina’s body was a little, broken heap, surrounded by crimson.
“Will she follow us?” I asked.
“No. Her flying is weak now. She knows she cannot catch us.”
My stomach dropped as he dove, picking up speed. The estate was far behind us now, and we soared over miles of crops. He eyed my hand, which I cradled carefully. “You are injured.”
“It’s nothing,” I lied.
“This was not the plan.” No. No, it certainly was not.
“The wind is loud,” I said, straining my voice. “We’ll talk later.”
Another stupid, transparent lie. But Ishqa allowed me the mercy. We did not speak again.
