I felt this same trepidation the first time I walked down this tunnel and didn’t know what I would find at the other end. I pressed my ear to the passage door, listening for the smallest sound. There was none, and I eased it open.

The cellar was lit with a single lantern hanging from the wall. I stepped out of the hidden passage and looked at the top of the cellar stairs. The door was closed. I signaled Jase out, then stepped farther into the cellar. The first time I had been here, I had searched this room in complete darkness. I didn’t realize how large it was, or how high the ceilings were—and now all of it was filled with row after row of casks that reached to the rafters, and they still reeked of vinegar and wine.

It’s a beautiful thing. Imagine the possibilities.

This was what we came for, what we hoped to find, but the reality still stunned us both into silence. What Jase was thinking I wasn’t sure. Maybe he saw all the months that Beaufort had strung him along, all the false hope he had nursed for a fever cure, the king knowing his family’s weakness. Maybe he saw his home, his history, whole centuries disappearing in a single fiery cloud. Maybe he saw a vault that couldn’t withstand all this.

I saw a room bursting with dreams. Karsen Ballenger’s dreams, Vairlyn’s, Montegue’s. Different dreams that had all gone very wrong.

“Let’s get busy,” Jase finally said, and began pouring the kerosene on the floor. I pulled the fuel-soaked cording from a skin in my pack and began laying it between a row of casks, then carefully ran it through the passage door. Jase poured more kerosene partway into the tunnel. I extended the cording about another thirty feet past it.

And then I turned around. “Jase,” I whispered. “Put the kerosene down.” He spun to face the other end of the tunnel with me. A soldier stood there, his launcher aimed at us. He seemed to know he didn’t dare shoot it or we’d

all go up. Behind him our crew was pinched between six very sharp halberds.

“Come out,” the soldier called to us.

Jase didn’t move. Neither did I. “That would be a mistake on our part,” Jase answered, his gaze stone cold. “Why don’t you come in and get us?”

The soldiers’ eyes blazed with anger. “Come out of there!” he ordered. Jase remained unflustered. “No.”

“Then I’ll send someone else instead,” he called back, stepping aside.

Another man moved into his place, the same handler I had seen just days ago, the same yellow-eyed demons straining at the end of leashes he held. Their thick black fur stood on end around their necks.

“Last warning,” the handler called.

I held on to the wall, a dizzy wave of sickness hitting me, and then he let them go. The dogs raced toward us.

Jase stepped in front of me, and just before the dogs reached him, he shouted, “Vaster itza!”

The dogs stopped immediately. They whined and sat in front of him. Air shuddered through my chest.

They knew the voice of their master.

Jase leaned over, scratched their ears, then pointed at the soldiers, his gaze still ice, specifically calling them out to the dogs. “Hinta! Hinta! Hinta!” Jase stood. “Yah!” His hand flew forward with the last command.

And now the dogs were running in the other direction.

It was unexpected chaos, gruesome and bloody, soldiers stumbling backward. Whoever wasn’t targeted by the dogs was overcome in the jostling melee, one of them losing his head to Wren’s ziethe. In only seconds, all six soldiers and the handler lay dead. But the ruckus aroused the attention of the guards on the fortess wall. We heard them yelling for backups.

“Now!” I said to Synové. She stepped forward and began showering the guards atop the walls with a volley of arrows. Three fell to the ground, dead. One jumped for cover behind the workshop.

The rest of us rushed to gather up our weapons while Jase lit the tinder. There was no creeping back across the grounds now. We were running for

our lives.

“Go!” Jase ordered. “Don’t bother with the lock!” he told Mason. “Blow it out!”

“Hinta, yah!” Jase yelled again, sending the dogs after the guard behind the workshop.

The others started across the grounds heading to the vault. Jase went back into the tunnel with the flaming tinder. His face was tight, filled with emotions I could only guess at. He was about to destroy his own home. “Go, Kazi!” he called before he stooped to light the cording.

“Not without you, Patrei. We leave together.” He lit the cording and we ran.

 

 

Mason, Priya, and Samuel stood at the tunnel entrance, shooting their launchers and shouting for us to hurry, providing cover as more guards flooded in from the road through the back entrance. Dirt and grass exploded into the air near us, and Jase and I were both thrown to the ground.

“Run!” Priya yelled, and we did. We scrambled back to our feet and kept moving. Every second mattered. We weren’t sure how much time we actually had. The cording was improvised, and this was not something any of us had ever done before. How fast would it burn? A minute? Two? More explosions rattled the air, but they were shots fired by our crew. Soldiers ran for cover behind the fortress wall.

We made it to the entrance, and Jase whistled for the dogs to follow. They came bounding across the grounds toward us. He shouted more commands to them and they heeled at his side. “They won’t hurt you now, Kazi,” he said. “You don’t need to worry.” With Tor’s Watch about to explode, I had no time to worry. I would save that for later. Imara, Wren, and Synové led the way with the extra launchers from the dead guards slung over their shoulders. Partway in, Mason, Priya, and Samuel stopped to reload. Our precious ammo was already dwindling. Jase and I brought up the rear, guarding our backs, looking over our shoulders as we ran, firing several times when soldiers appeared.

Samuel slowed at the curve of the tunnel, looking for soldiers coming from the other end. Surely they had heard the explosions in Cave’s End and were coming to investigate by now. He peeked around the curve. “It’s clear!” he called, and we ran again. The tunnel seemed twice as long as when I had walked through it. Where was the intersection to the vault?

“We’re almost there,” Jase said, reading my thoughts. But just as we reached the T that led to the vault, we heard the heavy stampede of steps.

“Hurry!” Jase yelled. “The code!”

Priya and Imara ran ahead of us. It would take time to get the enormous door open. We heard her pounding the code against the door, the rumble of footsteps getting louder. The rest of us walked backward, our weapons aimed.

A squad of soldiers rounded the corner, and Jase fired, the single shot in the short tunnel nearly shattering our ears. Even the soldiers who weren’t hit were momentarily stunned. They fell to their knees, grabbing their heads, and searched for their fallen weapons.

“It’s open!” Priya called.

I turned. Gunner, Aleski, Titus, and Aram stood shoulder to shoulder with their launchers aimed.

“Go!” Jase ordered. “Go!” He waved them all past us, including the dogs, while he covered their backs. But I had counted Jase’s shots. He was out of ammo, and so was I. There wasn’t time to reload.

The others ran into the vault as more soldiers flooded in from the other direction. They had launchers.

“Down!” Gunner shouted.

I pulled Jase to the floor with me, and the tunnel flashed with light. A boom like a bolt of thunder ripped over our heads. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings, and saw the soldiers on the ground. Gunner and the rest had fired over our heads, taking them down, but we heard more pounding footsteps coming. Jase and I ran, yelling for them to close the door, diving in through the small crack before it shut. The wheel spun, and the lock clicked, but as we tried to get to our feet, we were knocked to the ground again. The vault rocked violently, the ground beneath us shaking like we were in the fist of a furious giant.