Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
W ind rips at my dress as I scale the wall of the castle at breakneck speed. Panic and dread clang inside my skull like giant bells. This cannot be happening. This cannot be happening. My hair flutters behind me as I climb desperately to reach the windows of the corridor that is between the door to the secret tunnel and the one that continues towards the treasury.
Isera said that she overheard the messenger tell the Icehearts that their soldiers successfully cornered the humans from both sides the moment they stepped out of the door, and that they are now trapped there in the corridor. It can’t be true. It can’t possibly be true. How would they have found out? We were so careful. We have been planning for so long. It simply cannot be true.
But if it is, I need to try to do something to help them escape. Especially the Red Hand. If the human resistance loses the Red Hand, there is no telling what will happen.
My stomach lurches, and a gasp rips from my lungs as the smooth fabric of my dress skirt ends up between my shoe and the wall, causing me to slip.
I grip the jagged ice hard with my hands as I drop downwards.
A huff tears from my throat as my arms take the brunt of the weight. The long dress skirt tangles around my legs. Panic pulses through my veins. Gritting my teeth, I try to pull myself back up while trying to kick the flowing fabric out of the way.
Another wind whirls around the castle.
My hair and dress are swept to the side. I shake my head to get the strands of hair out of my face, but the wind at least managed to finally move the dress skirt aside.
Relief flows through my shoulders and arms as I finally regain purchase with my feet.
My heart pounds against my ribs.
For a second, I just cling to the wall like that and close my eyes while drawing in a deep steadying breath. Then I start upwards again. I don’t have any more seconds to waste. If the guards really have cornered the humans, I need to help them before it’s too late.
When I finally reach the window, I realize that it’s already open.
My heart leaps.
The Red Hand. He’s already here.
Fuck. I need to hurry.
Yanking the window fully open, I heave myself up and practically roll in through the window. My dress rustles around me, snagging on the latch. I yank the fabric free and then leap to my feet while pulling off my climbing gear and hiding it underneath my dress again.
From around the corner, the muffled sounds of a struggle can be heard. Last time I was here, there was a guard standing by this corner. He’s not there now. Which, while ultimately good for me, is a bad sign since it means that he has gotten involved in the ambush against the humans.
I dart towards the corner. My heart pounds in my chest.
Drawing myself up by the wall, I edge forward and glance around the corner.
My heart drops.
The pale ice corridor around the corner is packed with dragon shifters in silver armor. And humans. Panic clangs inside my skull as I stare at the furious battle taking place there.
Kath and Kyler are fighting back to back, both of them carrying a pair of knives. Ami and Peter are desperately trying to push back the wall of dragon shifters who are blocking the door to the emergency escape tunnel, preventing them all from just running back out. Ami’s black hair whips around her chin as she darts from side to side, trying futilely to stab at the guards with a small knife.
The rest of the humans who were there to help carry everything in the treasury are fighting with equal fury around them. But it’s a losing battle. The dragon shifters are all wearing their silver dragon scale armor while the humans are only wearing clothes made of thin fabric. And all the shifters have swords, which gives them better reach against the humans’ smaller daggers.
I whip my gaze from side to side, trying to come up with something that can help them. Some way of distracting the guards so that the humans can get the door open and get at least a small chance to escape back out through the tunnel.
But there is nothing.
I don’t have any weapons, I can’t access my magic, and there is nothing in the corridor that I can use. No side tables, no decorations, not even a wall sconce that I can rip off and chuck at the window as a distraction.
An idea flashes through my mind. It’s an absolutely stupid idea. But it’s all I’ve got.
I can use myself as a distraction. If I can get them to chase me, it might create an opening for the humans. And the guards can’t use the half-shift, so if I climb back out the window before they can get to me, I might be able to make it back down to the ground.
It’s dumb and insane and a ridiculous risk. But I have to do something.
Straightening my spine, I take a determined step around the corner.
But I only make it that one step before I freeze in place on the floor when I hear a sharp voice cut through the noise of the fight.
“Enough! I served them up to you on a silver platter, and you can’t even complete the simple task of arresting them. I refuse to be punished for your incompetence.”
Twisting tree branches explode into view across the entire corridor, snaking around the humans and trapping them in place.
My heart stops and ice washes through my veins as I stare at the woman who strides out of the fray.
Her long brown hair ripples down her back as she stalks across the ice floor. The faelights in the ceiling illuminate her gorgeous features as well as the vicious scar across her cheek and jaw.
My mind cannot process what I’m seeing.
Then those stunning pink and purple eyes snap towards me and lock straight on my face, and reality slams into me like a blow to the chest.
Lavendera.
Before her name has even finished reverberating through my skull, a branch shoots out and wraps around my waist.
I gasp in shock, snapping out of my stupor and slam my hands down on the branch now encircling my waist.
“Round them up,” Lavendera snaps to the guards as she strides down the corridor towards me.
She pushes her palms upwards in the air, and a thick nest of tree branches rises behind her, cutting both of us off from the rest of the corridor.
Alarm screams inside my head as I desperately pound against the wood and kick and wiggle. The branch tightens around my waist.
“You shouldn’t have come here,” Lavendera says as she closes the final distance between us. Her voice is hard, but her eyes are filled with sorrow.
“You sold us out!” I scream back in her face, fury and desperation lacing every word.
A wave of sadness washes over her beautiful face, and when she speaks, her voice is softer. Almost gentle. “No, I didn’t sell you out. I was never on your side to begin with.”
Her words clang inside my skull for several seconds, like the echo of a giant bell, before I finally process what she is actually telling me. I suck in an unsteady breath, my whole worldview tilting sideways again.
“You work for them.” It’s not really a question, but Lavendera answers anyway.
“Yes.”
Blood pounds in my ears as I stare at her. “For how long? Did you work for them during the Atonement Trials too?”
“Yes. My job is to make sure that the strongest magic users move on to the next trial.” A sad smile blows across her lips, and she cocks her head as she holds my gaze. As if she can’t believe that I haven’t realized this earlier. “Why do you think I killed Maximus? He cheated. We all knew it, but no one could prove it. So I had to enforce the rules on their behalf.”
And suddenly, a whole flood of things that never really made sense become crystal clear.
“You led Alistair, Isera, and Trevor to the rings,” I blurt out. “You led them there. Because they were the strongest magic users.”
“Yes. But then Trevor dropped out on his own because of his head injury. So then someone else had to win.” Another small smile tugs at her lips. “That’s why I didn’t take the ring from you when I found you at the edge of the forest.”
I feel like my soul is crumbling in on itself. Swallowing down the dread crawling up my throat, I press out, “That’s why you knew so much. About the sterilization and the magical bloodline breeding.”
“Yes.”
“No!” I scream as fury spears through me. Fighting desperately, I slam my fists down on the thick branch trapping me, trying to shatter it. “How can you even use magic? You’re wearing an iron collar too, for Mabona’s sake!”
Lavendera draws her fingers over the metal collar around her throat. “It’s not real iron. It was just a way to make sure that you wouldn’t become suspicious of me.”
“Why?” The word rips out of my throat, raw and dripping with anger and despair. “Why did you do this to us? Why are you doing this to us?”
Deep sorrow swirls in her pink and purple eyes, but she says nothing.
“How did you even know what we were planning?” I snap while still banging my fists on the wood and wiggling furiously. “You weren’t even there when I told Isera and Alistair about the plan!”
“I followed you to that blond dragon shifter on Ember Hill. Both times. The first, I could only watch from the trees in the street. But the second time, I heard your entire conversation. That cluster of branches that made you jump and that you glared at before leaving… that was me.”
“No!” I scream again as hopelessness and desperation threaten to drag me under and drown me in their cold dark depths. I pound against the branch keeping me trapped while locking eyes full of pain and disbelief on Lavendera. “You can’t do this! You can’t be one of them! You can’t?—”
My voice breaks, and a sob rips from my throat.
“After everything I have done to get to this point,” I press out, my voice desperate and broken. “After all the risks I have taken and all the miracles I have already pulled off, after all the promises that I have made to Isera and Alistair, this can’t be how it ends. Betrayed by my own people!” I stare at Lavendera as pain cuts through my chest. “By someone I thought was my friend.”
Hurt, and a sense of deep recognition, flashes across her face for a second.
Then the branch abruptly disappears from my waist.
“Go,” she says.
I stagger upright after the sudden drop, and stare at her in shock.
“I will give you a head start, because…” That profound sorrow and deep pain swirls in her eyes for a second. Then she jerks her chin towards the corridor I came from. “Just go.”
Before I can so much as open my mouth to answer, she spins on her heel and stalks back towards the fight.
The wall of branches that she raised between them and us drops down into the floor again, revealing that all the humans are now shackled and on their knees. Peter has blood trickling down the side of his face while Ami keeps her head bowed. Kath stares daggers at the guards around them, but next to her, Kyler is white with fear and looks like he’s going to throw up.
I quickly scan all their faces while I back towards the corner.
There is no sign of that telltale red demon mask that the Red Hand always wears, and I can’t see Hector’s face among the captured group either.
Which means that he is still somewhere between here and the treasury.
Indecision cleaves my chest as I race back down the other corridor. The open window that both he and I climbed in through appears on my right, and for a second, I have almost managed to convince myself to use this head start that Lavendera has given me to escape on my own. But I can’t.
If I leave, Isera and Alistair will still be trapped here. And if I don’t warn the Red Hand, he will be captured and then killed. It will gut the resistance.
I know that Draven won’t let them kill me, so even if I’m captured, I will still survive. But the Red Hand certainly won’t.
My heart hammers in my chest as I sprint down the corridor and towards the treasury.
I have to warn him.