Chapter 27
CHAPTER 27
Ahmya groaned and shifted her shoulders to alleviate the pressure on a particularly pointy stick beneath her. Her landing had seen her poked, scratched, and gouged in many places, but she thankfully hadn’t suffered anything worse.
Some of the branches had snapped under her on impact, but many were fresh enough that they’d formed a springy layer that had cushioned her fall. It was a small thing, but she’d take any luck she could get right now.
Rekosh’s roars were bestial, fraught with rage, anguish, and fear that penetrated Ahmya to the depths of her soul. Hearing him so raw and ragged broke her heart.
If not for her, he could’ve fought. Could’ve run. Could’ve been free.
She lifted her head, and her eyes widened as icy terror swept through her, colder and more penetrating than the fiercest winter wind.
Smoke curled up from the wood at the pit’s far wall, turning the vrix standing at the edge into huge, looming shadow creatures. Demons from the darkest nightmare. The first licks of flame spread upward to some of the kindling, shifting from blue green to orange.
This was the perfect time for swearing. There were so many words she could’ve uttered just then, so many curses, yet there was only one she could think of.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.”
Ahmya frantically swung her gaze around. She was near the center of the large pit, which was filled with fuel for the fire. But amidst that fuel, pieces of blackened bone jutted up. The remains of the vrix’s prior offerings , undoubtedly.
One of those bones was nearby. A rib, perhaps, from some large beast, but it didn’t matter what it was or where it had come from. All that mattered was that its end was splintered, leaving a sharp spike sticking straight up. Had she landed just a few feet to the side, that bone would have impaled her.
Ahmya’s eyes flicked up to the skeletal shrine standing over the other side of the pit.
She’d been there when Zurvashi had marched on Kaldarak, pursuing Ketahn. She’d watched Ivy, so small, so outmatched in every way, stand against the hulking, terrifying queen. And she’d watched Ivy, against all odds, not just survive the encounter but overcome her foe.
“You don’t get to win this time, either,” Ahmya whispered, wriggling her feet and spreading her legs. The rope had been tied tightly around her boots, and didn’t allow her much movement, even within her footwear, but her efforts on the knot had created some slack.
“Just when I want these damn things to come off…”
The smoke thickened, and the flames crept closer.
Her heart raced, but she fought the urge to panic, fought the instinctual drive to kick as wildly as possible. Using her movements to scoot herself toward the jutting bone, she worked the rope deliberately, alternating the motions of her feet and legs .
Finally, the rope loosened enough for her feet to pull free from her boots.
“Yes!” Quickly spreading her legs, she braced her feet as best she could atop the branches, sat up, and bent forward, lifting her arms to blindly seek the jagged bone.
She caught only fleeting glimpses of Rekosh’s dark, struggling form through the smoke. His eyes blazed hotter and brighter than the fire, and she could almost feel him moving closer, battling for every inch. At least three vrix were restraining him, including the female called Ulkari.
Pain flared in her hand as the splintered bone cut her palm. Ahmya pressed her lips together, stifling a cry, and adjusted her arms.
Smoke flowed across the pit. It stung her eyes, forcing tears into them, and assailed her throat. She struggled to suppress her coughing; she couldn’t have her shoulders shaking. Slitting her eyes, she hooked her wrist bindings over the bone and dragged them up. The point scraped across the rope.
“Damn your eyes, keep him back!” Ulkari shouted.
Pride flared in Ahmya’s chest at her mate putting up such a fight, but her pride couldn’t help him. Without some sort of distraction, he would be overwhelmed, overpowered.
Killed.
Ahmya’s heart quickened, and dread pooled in her belly.
No. I will not let that happen.
Warmth built at her feet and crawled up her legs. The flames were growing, spreading, seeking her out… Icy fear twisted around her heart. Her breaths sawed in and out, each one with a burning itch that threatened a fit of coughing.
But she kept her arms moving as smoothly as possible. Down and up, snagging the strand each time. Despite the crackling flames drawing closer, the pops of pockets of sap combusting, and the sharp bite of the bone scraping her skin, Ahmya pressed on, driven by Rekosh’s continued roaring. Little by little, she felt the threads tearing.
No one else is going to make an opportunity for him.
There’s no one else who can help.
Fire leapt up near her foot. She cried out and yanked her leg back from the searing heat, and her arms slipped. The bone splinter ripped through the rope and stabbed into her forearm, forcing another agonized cry from her lips.
You don’t have time, Ahmya. Neither does Rekosh.
Pressing her lips together and swallowing a scream, she pulled up on her arms. She felt every millimeter of the bone splinter as it slid free of her flesh. Along with the pain came the oddly vivid sensation of her own blood, warm and wet, trickling down her arm.
Gritting her teeth, she pushed her arms to either side, wiggling her wrists to strain the frayed rope.
When the bindings finally gave way and fell from her wrists, Ahmya nearly sagged in relief. She ached everywhere, her eyes were watery, her nose was runny, and her lungs were ablaze. Sweat coated her skin, which was being baked by ever-growing heat. Her head was beginning to swim from the smoke.
It would’ve been so easy to lie down, close her eyes, and sleep.
Rekosh needs me. And if he can escape to warn the others…
Swinging her arms to her front, Ahmya grabbed her boots. She tore the silk rope away from them before hastily tugging them on and turning away from Rekosh, who remained obscured by the haze.
Though the kindling had been dry, the wood was not, causing it to ignite slower and produce this thick, billowing smoke. Another bit of good luck for Ahmya.
Well, as long as smoke inhalation didn’t kill her.
Attempting to walk in the pit would only make her feet sink and potentially get her boots caught in the tangled mass of branches, so she rolled onto her belly and crawled forward, keeping her face low and turned away from the flames.
Twigs scratched at her skin and snagged her dress, but she didn’t allow herself to slow. Rekosh needed a chance, and she would find some way to give it to him. That was what drove her on. The loudening flames and blistering heat certainly helped motivate her, however.
She reached the far side of the pit, and only there did she get to her feet, steadying herself with her hands on the dirt wall. Her boots sank in the kindling.
The upper edge of the pit was nearly a foot over her head.
Ahmya jumped, raising her arms. Her fingers caught the edge. She braced a boot against the wall to help pull herself up, arms trembling with exertion, until her foot slipped in the dirt and her arms gave out. She dropped back into the pit, feet sinking a little deeper than before.
“No, no, no!” Ahmya tried to climb again, but her battered body simply couldn’t muster the strength to lift itself clear out of the pit, and she couldn’t find good footing on the dirt wall. She coughed, the smoke burning her throat and eyes.
New strategy, Ahmya. Quickly.
She turned in place and immediately threw up an arm to shield her face from the heat and brightness of the flames. This pit had become her hell, from which she wasn’t meant to escape.
But she wasn’t done yet.
Crouching, she grasped handfuls of sticks and heaved them up. More coughs ravaged her throat, embers and disturbed ash swirled in the smoke, and flames leapt as she scoured the detritus for something she could use—for anything.
Ahmya flung branches and brush aside, digging wildly. The fire was close, so, so close, that she could almost feel it licking her skin, and if she didn’t get out now …
Her hand closed around something hard and thick .
A bone.
She wrenched up on it. Flames rushed closer, fueled by the fresh air flow created by the disturbed kindling. Her flesh stung from the heat. Ahmya closed her eyes and turned her face away from a cloud of scorching embers, pulling on the bone with all her might.
She stumbled backward when it came free, catching herself against the wall.
“ Ahmya! ” Rekosh’s tormented call rose over all the other sounds, jolting right through her already shattered heart.
Ahmya spun around, took the bone in both hands, and jabbed it into the wall as hard as she could. It sank deep into the dirt.
Please work.
Holding her breath against the acrid smoke, she jumped and grasped the upper edge of the pit, this time planting her boot on the bone jutting from the wall as she pulled herself up.
She pushed up with her leg. The bone angled slightly down, but it remained in place.
Her fingers dug into the ground, caking dirt under her nails, as she dragged herself out of the pit. Yet even after her boots were clear, she had no time for any relief—and she barely had time to suck in a much-needed breath. From this vantage, she could just make out Rekosh, who continued battling his way toward the pit despite the trio of vrix holding him back.
Ahmya’s eyes darted up to Zurvashi’s skeleton, which loomed almost directly over her now. Waves of heat from the pit sizzled over her skin. There was a lot of silk on the skeletal shrine, and that wood framework throughout…
Ahmya knew what she had to do.
Without letting herself think, she lay on her belly and reached into the pit, stretching her arm as far as possible to reach for a long stick that had landed standing against the wall .
Flames crackled below her hand, their heat very quickly approaching the unbearable. Her fingertips brushed the stick.
She pushed with the toes of her boots, sliding herself another fraction of an inch forward.
Yes!
Her index finger hooked under the stick, and she tugged it up. Flames danced along its end.
Moving as gingerly as she could, Ahmya crawled back from the edge, eyes fixated on the flickering flame. She felt her heartbeat throughout her body, from head to toe. Keeping the stick as steady as possible, she climbed first onto her knees, then onto her feet.
“The creature!” a vrix shouted. “It is out!”
Ahmya couldn’t fight these enemies, couldn’t outrun them, but she could give Rekosh the precious time he needed.
In the best vrix she could manage, she called, “Ash and bone are all your queen will ever be!”
On the far side of the pit, vrix faces, still hazy through the smoke, snapped toward her.
Ogahnkai bellowed a command.
Ahmya turned toward the skeleton and held the flame to the voluminous purple cloth around its waist. The instant the fabric ignited, she wedged the end of the stick into one of the joints of the framework. The wood caught fire much more readily than the silk had.
Huge, dark forms raced around the sides of the pit.
Rekosh cried out Ahmya’s name again.
Please escape…
She spun and ran deeper into the camp, away from the vrix, away from her mate.
Please, Rekosh. Live.