Chapter 54
Chapter
Fifty-Four
ALLIE
I spun, arrow already in my hand, as a masked figure lunged from above.
He fell down on my shoulders, throwing me off balance. My arm swung, but the tip of the arrow hit the copper mask, not his neck.
His dagger gleamed in the darkness, asking for my life.
The air moved before I did.
Nadya’s axe impaled in his stomach just as the dagger went down.
He exploded in ash, she howled in pain, clutching her arm and leaning onto me. I caught her in my arms as her axe thudded to the ground.
“Son of a foul seed,” she hissed through her teeth. “He got my shoulder.”
If the dagger had punctured to the bone, it might have shredded through tendons–or dislocated it completely. Judging from the limpness, it had.
Nadya was not fighting again today.
She struggled to even pick her axe back up.
As I helped her back to her feet, the final torch went out unceremoniously.
Complete and utter darkness pressed against us.
My heart threatened to beat out of my chest.
What was an archer without vision?
“Come here,” I whispered, the words getting lost in the slashes of steel. I slid her other arm around my shoulders. “I’m getting you to safety.”
“No, I can–”
“You can shut up to not give away our position,” I said, some of that First Daughter sting returning.
I grabbed onto her ribs to steady her, her uniform coated in a grimy layer of ash. But the blood from her wound had already reached her chest and back, smearing my fingers.
Nadya was losing too much blood.
I let my ears guide me as I widened my steps. My boots would hit the wall before we did.
Too much of her weight leaned on me, but I didn’t stop, even as I felt my muscles protesting.
Finally, my boot hit stone, the pain shooting up my leg.
I let go of her torso for a second, bloody fingers feeling around the opening.
Thuds rattled the walls around us. Beats, codes, maybe cries for help.
I didn’t know, but I knew I had to save Nadya.
The gap was large enough that we could squeeze through, one after the other, but hopefully small enough that none of the attackers bothered with it.
I stepped in first, dragging more than carrying her.
Her axe scraped the stone as we dove inside. I tightened my hold on her in warning.
Quiet.
The layer of ash was thicker here, swallowing my boots up to my ankle. We were slow, but the sound of our steps had also dulled, eaten up by the walls.
I delved in further, the air colder. More merciful.
The gap widened enough that I could support Nadya fully once more–only to block our path a second later.
I felt around with bloody, desperate fingers once more.
Another crevice, just as wide.
A maze.
I was once again jerked back to the wedding.
The arrows.
The screams.
My father’s blood coating my palms just like Nadya’s did now.
I struggled against the pain snaking its way into my heart.
Nadya was alive, her small pained groans in my ear, her heartbeat a flutter against my palm.
I couldn’t save my father, but I could save her.
She needed a safe place to rest while we fought off the attackers.
But where could we find safety in this cursed labyrinth?
The ceiling pressed lower. The stone brushed my hair, forcing us to bow. As if the passage was mocking us as we bled inside it.
More thuds echoed around us. Sharp knocks, patterns I couldn’t recognize and didn’t dare ask Nadya to decipher. Each sound felt like a betrayal to survival.
But the thuds were getting more frantic. A very human scream ghosted after us through the maze of rock, sending shooting terror up my spine.
It hadn’t sounded like Ryker, thank the gods, but someone had been wounded. Hopefully just wounded.
With my free hand, I took out the dagger. I needed a weapon in my hand to ground me.
I needed to return to the battle. But where to find safety for Nadya?
Where?
Where?
Gods, where?
My magic still thrummed through my veins, blazing and begging to burst out, but unable to.
Nadya’s breathing turned haggard, as if she was slipping away and fighting not to.
I needed light.
I pleaded for it to any god who could hear me in this gods-forsaken wound in the ground.
Then light flared up ahead.
For a moment, I thought I’d imagined it, horrified and desperate.
But it was the purple pulse which had tried to protect me before. The one I’d touched under the crypt. Even under piles of deathly ash, I recognized it.
Once, it had filled me with dread.
Now it brought hope.
Nadya didn’t react. She couldn’t see it. Perhaps a small mercy; the shock of it wouldn’t have helped now.
I silently thanked the crater and sped up toward it.
But the light rushed our way.
It didn’t stop.
It snaked under my feet and kept on going.
Just as I turned, the light swelled.
In it, I saw the outline of a masked figure hunting us.