Jase stood at the end of the tunnel, his hand running over the smooth metal of the vault door, as if searching for a flaw. It was the first time I had noticed how perfect it was. Still shiny, not even a scratch, and it was centuries old. His hand ran along the seam next, where the frame was embedded in the granite mountain, like he was a tailor checking for the craftsmanship of a coat—a very old coat. His fingers lingered. I saw the weight on his shoulders. Protect. It was in his blood.
The ground shook again. I imagined Montegue up on the mountain setting off the charges himself. He had been robbed of the pleasure of watching me hang.
“We have to go, Jase,” I said. Though Tor’s Watch was just on the other side of that door, the route we would have to take would be much longer.
He raked his hair back and turned, his eyes meeting mine. He nodded. I knew what he was thinking. It would have to hold. The Ancients had built it to hold. But was an old vault door any match for the magic of the stars and the wrath of a king? Jase had warned that, depending on where the explosives were stored, blowing them up could mean leveling all of Tor’s Watch. There might be nothing left.
Nothing. A dynasty. A legacy. The silence was numbing. What other choice do we have? Vairlyn finally said. Dust was falling, the pantry was bare, and the king was pounding his way closer. The family agreed, disagreed, went in circles, searched for quick solutions because the persistent rumbling around us was proof that time was running out. The final hard decision was left to the Patrei, a tremendous burden to bear, but his expression remained steady. He said that there was no other choice. Ridding the king of his arsenal was our only chance.
“Bring the horses in from the outer cave,” Jase said to Titus. “It won’t be safe for them out there.”
Titus balked. “Horses in here?” “Make room,” Jase answered calmly.
Next he quashed a second bid by Paxton to go along. Paxton was already pulling at his sling to take it off. “No,” Jase said. “I’ll need you later, cousin. Not on this run.”
His answer was firm, but the way Jase said cousin, it sounded important and brought Paxton closer into the fold. Paxton nodded.
I might juggle oranges, but Jase juggled just as much in his head. People, horses, vault doors, a complicated family, me. No wonder his father had named him Patrei. But now I knew that title wasn’t a magical cure for worry. Jase seemed to hide it away where no one could see, a skilled sleight of hand, but I saw it in the tuck of his chin, his sideways glance. He was my husband, and his secrets were mine. He pushed himself to make everyone else stronger. He was willing to sacrifice his home and centuries of history to protect what mattered. Sometimes it takes just one person who won’t let evil win. The queen had been talking about Greyson Ballenger, but today, my husband was that person.
He bent over and pulled a pack over his shoulder with one hand and grabbed his launcher with the other. I wouldn’t be waltzing into Tor’s Watch alone—Jase had made that clear from the start. I might be good at finding things, but it would take all of us to blow those things up. Rahtan, Ten, Shadowmaker, no title you hold is going to make me change my mind on this one, he had growled to me under his breath as we got our gear together. And only today does an ambassador trump a Patrei, he added, and then kissed me, long and hard. We’ll see about that, pretty boy, I whispered back to him. He tried to act amused. The worry was building.
We picked up our gear and headed for the back entrance door. We sounded like an army as we marched down the tunnel. We had a team of eight. Wren and Synové were the first to volunteer. Imara, Mason, Priya, and Samuel were also going—armed with launchers. The four remaining launchers would be left behind and used by Titus, Gunner, Aram, and Aleski to guard the main vault entrance, if the moment came to open it.
As we traversed through the caves to the falls, Priya fell into step beside me. She wanted to tutor me on the layout of every room in Tor’s Watch, but
then she caught herself. “But … you probably already know them all, don’t you?”
There was no point in trying to hide the obvious anymore. “Yes, I do. Every nook and room, including your office and what hangs on your walls. It was my job, Priya.”
Her mouth hung open for only a second and then she nodded. “Well, I guess that’s a lucky thing for all of us, then, isn’t it?”
I couldn’t deny it, even if it made her uncomfortable. Very lucky.
Becoming part of a family would be perhaps one of the hardest things I had ever done.
We never emerged from behind the falls into the forest because just behind them there was another path—an isolated one—that led back over the mountain toward Cave’s End. It was a strenuous climb that sometimes required helping one another up sheer faces of rock, and handing up packs and weapons before we climbed onto a ledge ourselves. Our path kept us invisible from patrolling soldiers, though we all still wore the camouflaged cloaks they had made to rescue me.
Wren was armed with her ziethes, and Synové carried her bow and a full quiver of arrows on her back. They also had Imara’s knives that they spoke quite fondly of, like they were furry pets. Ra mézhans. My sisters. It felt good to be walking beside them again. Jase’s Kbaaki wives. The whole ordeal was almost worth it, just to hear the crazy stories they told, though I knew Synové added a good bit of embellishment.
When we reached some level ground, I noticed Synové eyeing Mason walking just ahead.
I remembered the nasty threats that had been hurled at her and Wren. “The family is treating you both well?” I asked.
“Well enough,” Wren answered. “Vairlyn is kind.”
“What about Samuel? I was surprised that Jase chose him to go along, considering his hand.”
Wren shrugged. “Samuel’s light on his feet. He knows how to be quiet and take orders, a much underappreciated quality. And his hand is strong
enough. Those launchers aren’t exactly precision weapons. Plus he’s gotten pretty good with his other hand.”
“Hmm,” Synové said, licking her tongue over her lips. “Pretty good at
what?”
Wren moaned. “Don’t start,” she warned.
“What about you and Mason?” I asked. “What’s going on there? I hear you two spent the night alone in a ruin.”
Synové shook her head as if surprised. “Listen to you!” she answered. “Asking all kinds of intimate questions! Is this what your husband did to you?”
I smiled. “Maybe so. I’ve gotten better at sharing and talking.”
She sighed. “I don’t know. As one of his other wives, I found his talking to be a bit boring. All he ever wanted to talk about was you.”
“True,” Wren agreed.
I looked directly at Synové. “You’re avoiding my question,” I said. “Well?”
She didn’t have a quick comeback. Her mischievous smile disappeared. “It’s over,” she finally answered. “Mason’s civil enough. He dutifully watched my back. But he’s about as forgiving as a drunk soldier’s tongue. You’d think my lies were a true stab in his gut. Now he has all the passion of day-old bread. We’re done. Finished. Glad to be rid of him. He wasn’t a good dancer anyway.” She shrugged like it didn’t matter. Maybe it didn’t. Many had fallen by the wayside with Synové. Like Eben and several before him. She moved on. But as we walked, I noticed anytime Mason spoke, her attention perked up, and then she grew quiet.
The blasts were louder from out here. Occasional bits of rock rained down. We speculated that the king was blasting from a spot above the vault not far from Greyson Tunnel.
“Here, give me your hand,” Jase said. He reached down from a high ledge, helping each of us up. “Keep your voices down. It’s only another ten minutes from here,” he warned. We emerged on a flatter plateau, with plenty of forest and greenery. “Stay right behind me,” Jase advised everyone, pointing to the center of the plateau, “or you’ll end up back in the greenhouse. It’s a long fall.”
From here Jase never let go of my hand, and I didn’t want him to. We’re together, and we will stay together, no matter what.
My heart hammered in my chest. The last time I had approached Tor’s Watch with Jase—
“Hold up,” I said to the others, and I pulled Jase behind a tree. “I know this is not the right time, but—”
“What is it?”
“I love you, Jase. No matter what happens up ahead. I want those to be the last words you hear from me. I love you.”
He touched my cheek. “Hey, we’re going to grow old together.
Remember?” I nodded.
“And my mother lit a candle for you this morning. That makes you the patron thief of Tor’s Watch now. Which almost makes you a saint.”
“I’ve been called a lot of things but never that.” He grimaced. “Yes, you’re right. It’s a stretch.”
I punched him in his shoulder, and he pulled me into his arms. “I love you, Kazi of Brightmist, and I promise you, these will not be my last words. Or yours.” He pressed his lips to mine, warm and full and true.
“Oh, green toads, stop, you two!” Synové hissed. “The world is about to end. There’s no time for this.”
She was right. There was never time for last words.
We lay flat on a ridge that overlooked almost all of Tor’s Watch. From here we could see Cave’s End, the main house, Raehouse, the workyard that led to Greyson Tunnel, the gardens. It was nearly a perfect bird’s-eye view. The three other houses were mostly hidden behind the granite overhang of Cave’s End. I could only see one small corner of Darkcottage. From below, I never guessed this ridge existed. It just looked like a sheer, foreboding granite backdrop to the entire fortress.
We could also see the front gates from here. Paxton was right. Now that they had something worth guarding, the soldiers stationed here had tripled.
Where was their treasure hidden? I studied the grounds, looking at where soldiers were posted.
“I counted twenty walking the walls,” Jase whispered. “Fourteen on the ground, that I can see.” He smiled. His family knew of this ridge—a potential weak spot in their security. They always had an archer posted on an interior wall above the workyard just for the purpose of watching this part of the mountain. Banques had no one posted on the interior wall. Only the outer walls were secured.
“Oh, such easy shots,” Synové moaned. The guards’ backs were mostly to us, because they were looking out past the walls for potential intruders, not ones who were practically inside already.
“Steady, girl,” Wren whispered back. “Toppling guards will only bring the whole hive down upon us.”
The plan was to search Greyson Tunnel first. I had managed to slip through it undetected more than once before, and it was the obvious choice for storage. Its back entrance, where the poisonous dogs had once been posted, lay just below us—fifty feet down sheer, sloping rock. Slide on your stomachs, Jase had instructed us. Don’t make noise when you land. He made it sound easy. I remembered my bouncing cascade down the canyon face. I had made a lot of noise.
“Ready?” Jase whispered.
I nodded. Priya went first to show us. Apparently the Ballenger brood had done this before. “But I didn’t have breasts then,” Priya complained, nervous about going down too. The folded curve of the mountain covered most of her descent from guards on the walls. Mason, Imara, and Samuel followed, always waiting for Jase’s signal to be sure the guards’ heads were turned away.
But as I watched the pacing guards, something else caught my eye beyond the walls. Through the trees, a quick shimmer of light. A sword? And then I noticed movement. In the forest past the back gates were more soldiers. A lot of them. Once I knew they were there, it became clear. They were guarding the road. Why not the front road leading into the fortress?
I looked back at Tor’s Watch, studying it more closely. In the gardens just in front of Darkcottage were four soldiers, not idly going from one
place to another, but stationed. I looked at the distribution of other guards. The workyard only had one, the front gates only two, and yet Cave’s End had four on its short stretch of fortess wall, two in the shadows of the foyer, and more stationed just beyond on the road. I suddenly pictured Montegue patting his vest, his interior pocket close to his heart where his treasure was stored. It made sense. A small, safe interior pocket.
