Chapter 52
Chapter
Fifty-Two
ALLIE
T he ungodly blast hit like a furnace, stinging my cheeks, even as I tried to shield them against the porous stone.
A storm of ash kicked up in the air, swallowing the entire passage.
Eyes watering, I could barely make out the flickering glimmer of the fallen torches on the ground.
Only three of them remained, the rest snuffed out.
But I couldn’t see anyone.
Couldn’t hear.
The side of my body wedged in the gap was cold, as if the icy darkness tried to seep into my bones.
My palms scraped against the unforgiving stone as I instinctively reached for my bow and arrows. But how could mortal weapons fight the heat roaring toward us?
As sudden as it had begun, the heat vanished, even as the ash still stirred, as if waiting for its sacrifice.
Jaw clenched, my palms sleek against the bow, I chanced a look in the passage.
I almost cried out when I spotted Ryker’s flickering eyes, hidden in a gap just behind me. The rest of him had melted into the shadows. My knees almost buckled with relief. Not just because I wasn’t alone, but because it was him .
He placed a finger to his lips.
Listen.
At first, it was hard to hear anything past the heartbeat roaring in my ears. But I was The Huntress and my body would not betray me now. Not again.
In the dimness, I heard the barest sound of a scrape against stone. A step. The hiss of a weapon being drawn slowly.
We were not alone in this sacred passage.
Someone was hunting us–and I hadn’t been the only one to notice.
Taps against the rock, so low, I barely heard them, began to beat behind and in front of me the vibrations drumming through my shoulder blades.
Signals.
Orders.
A language I didn’t know
The warriors had hidden in the gaps along the tunnel and were communicating in a code I had no hope of understanding. They were talking through the stone.
A stab of fear slashed through me. Solkar’s Reach might have welcomed me in its embrace, but it hadn’t revealed all its secrets.
In this, I was still an outsider.
And it might cost me my life. Or worse–I might blunder their coded plan and get someone else injured.
Suddenly, I was transported back to the maze.
An unseen attacker.
The maze.
The olive tree and my father’s blood.
The mist devouring everything in its wake.
I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting against the memories.
I was no longer in Sanctua Sirena, on the family grounds I’d run through as a child until I could navigate through them with my eyes closed.
I was trapped under the earth, in a foreign place which seemed designed to suffocate any life foolish enough to enter it.
But I was still being hunted.
My eyes flew open.
No.
I was The Huntress.
I was the one who hunted.
The creeping steps echoed closer, but they sounded wrong. They should have been soft, engulfed by the layer of black dust which still hadn’t settled fully on the floor. Instead, they scraped against stone.
Ryker stopped tapping.
I didn’t need to understand the code to know all the warriors were readying for an attack. I strung my bow tighter, poised to shoot.
I listened for the warriors’ breaths. Felt for Ryker’s energy.
I chanced another look at his eyes.
He must have realized my predicament. Even in the darkness, I saw him nod–or felt him, I no longer knew.
I could taste the suspense on the tip of my tongue, a spring ready to snap.
He closed his eyes.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
As one, we all rushed from the crevices and inside the tunnel, weapons raised and glimmering in the faintest light from the remaining torches.
Nobody faced us.
Only ashy air awaited at the tip of my arrow.
But the steps still reverberated in the rock.
Coming our way.
“Above!” Ryker shouted.
“Solkar’s beard,” one of the warriors whispered, clearly frightened out of his mortal wits.
I was almost too afraid to look.
But I did.
My heart fell as dozens of cloaked, masked figures crept onto the ceiling.
The same ones which had accompanied Orion on the night he tried to kill me.
My throat tightened, even as the blood in my veins roared.
The first arrow flew from my bow like revenge.
It hit the first figure square in the chest, dissolving it into a cloud of dust. Its cloak and mask fell onto the floor in an unceremonious thud.
Then chaos erupted.
The figures screeched and fell from the ceiling upon us. Ryker became a blur as he slashed through the first wave, while his warriors carved a storm of ash through the few who escaped his wrath.
I shot arrow after arrow at the ones still slinking on the ceiling. Too many of them. A neverending sea of dread crawling toward us.
The passage was silent no more.
The air was alive now, with grunts and the clash of steel against steel.
As each arrow pierced another one, a cascade of grit fell on top of the warriors. Coughs joined the grunts, even as my own throat seized up in the chaos. The ash clung to my lashes, stinging my eyes.
Then one of the torches went out, sealing us further into the darkness.