Chapter Thirteen
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THE TUNNELS WERE QUIET again. Dimri moved forward, raising clouds of dust with every step he took. His eyes strained to pick out details in the near-absolute darkness, but they hadn’t reached the enemy yet. His team was behind him and moved in almost complete silence.
They’d left Jorik and Thorne with the palace guards at the entrance of the tunnels, but they’d had no choice but to return to the tunnels. They couldn’t afford to ignore that the danger wasn’t over yet.
“How many more do you think?” Vex whispered.
“There’s no way to know. Too many, if I have to guess.” Dimri paused and listened. He could hear the sounds of battle from above their heads, but he couldn’t afford to think about what was happening in the palace. “They’ll know we’re here now, so we can’t afford to let them regroup.”
“Something’s moving ahead of us,” Keth whispered.
They fell silent but didn’t stop moving. They couldn’t.
They approached carefully. The tunnel opened into one of the old storage chambers Dimri had spent a lot of time in when he was younger and new to the palace. He’d felt safe in the circular room because it had multiple exits and because people didn’t seem to know it existed.
Dimri was thinking about how he and his team should move when he heard a voice he recognized.
“I told you they knew about the tunnels. You should’ve listened to me.
” The demon spoke with authority, even though she’d only ever been a maid.
Dimri wondered what the demon she was scolding thought of that.
The spy they’d captured a few days ago had been released.
Dimri wondered who had done it and how they’d gotten to the cells.
Was there another spy in the palace, or had one of Ramiel’s demons somehow managed to find one of the tunnels that led to the cells?
It was a possibility. The tunnels snaked under the palace, covering almost all of its surface.
“You’re not the one giving orders here, Thessia,” another demon growled. “Ramiel is, and he was clear. I could tell him what you think he should have done if you want.”
Dimri exchanged glances with his team. He didn’t care much about what happened to Thessia, but they couldn’t allow any of these demons to reach out to Ramiel or one of his underlings. Ramiel was no doubt busy fighting Berith right now, but he had a second in command.
He signaled his team to get in position and leaned closer to the entrance to the room. He could see five demons there, one of which was Thessia. She had a short knife in her hand, but she didn’t look like she was about to use it. Pity. It would make Dimri’s work easier.
“We need to leave the tunnels,” Thessia said. “Before everything comes down on us.”
“No one is going anywhere,” the demon standing in front of her said. “We still need to place the explosives.”
Dimri frowned. He’d assumed that Ramiel was planning on taking over the palace if he won, but it didn’t sound like it. Instead, it sounded like he’d destroy it, no doubt after killing everyone inside.
Even if Berith won—and Dimri had to believe that he would—the explosives would be there.
That meant that he and his team had to put a stop to this before someone got hurt.
It would be dangerous, though. It sounded like the enemy soldiers still had the explosives, and they might decide to use them if they were attacked.
What would Roque do? Dimri knew the answer to that question. Roque would go in hard and fast, trusting his strength and his skill. He wouldn’t stop to plan. He wouldn’t hesitate.
Maybe it was time to try that approach. Dimri felt he’d spent enough time with him to be able to do that. He drew one of his knives out and stepped into the room without giving himself time to think about it. If he did, he’d stop, and he didn’t think that would be useful right now.
“Hello, Thessia,” he drawled. He really wanted to find out who’d let her out. If there was another spy or even just an ally, Dimri would need to root them out.
Thessia turned toward him, her yellow eyes going wide.
She seemed frozen after that, but she was the only one.
The demons with her reached for their weapons, and the one who’d been talking to her pushed her hard against the wall to get her out of the way.
Dimri doubted he was doing it to save her.
No, he seemed more bothered with trying to get to Dimri.
He charged Dimri with a roar. Normally, Dimri would have eluded the demon, maybe drawn him toward the rest of his team, but instead, he met him head-on.
He sank his knife into the demon’s throat before the demon’s sword got close enough to hurt him. The demon went down instantly, leaving a place for the other three. The one right behind the dead demon hesitated, and it cost him his life. Keth’s claws opened his chest before he could even scream.
Thessia used the distraction to run toward one of the other exits, but Dimri didn’t have to say anything for his team to act.
Vex and Senna moved to block her, with Vex grinning like a loon, which was a little scary when one didn’t know him, considering the length of his fangs. Thessia was trapped, and she knew it.
The other two demons were looking around the room, probably weighing their options.
Dimri would only give them two. “You can either die or surrender,” he said as he leaned down to take his knife out of the first demon’s throat.
He cleaned it on the demon’s shirt, but he didn’t put it back in its sheath yet.
“You’ll kill me either way,” Thessia said. She raised her weapon higher, but her arm was trembling.
She launched herself toward Dimri without warning. He should have expected it or at least planned for it, but he hadn’t, and she took him by surprise. Her knife sank into the gap between two of his ribs, even though he twisted aside. He wasn’t fast enough. Pain flared, hot and instant.
Thessia was better than he’d expected. When Dimri’s team moved to stop her, she managed to twist out of their grasp and ran toward one of the tunnels.
He grabbed her arm, but she cut him on the forearm, then on the thigh, before he let go.
She didn’t matter so much that he’d risk his life to stop her.
Vex, cut off Thessia’s escape route. She turned, but Thale was standing on her right, so she could only go left, which was where she’d come from.
Dimri was waiting for her this time. When she attempted to stab him in the heart, he grabbed her wrist with the hand he hadn’t pressed against the wound in his torso, squeezing and twisting so that her knife sank into his shoulder instead of killing him.
The pain was excruciating, but he pushed all of it away as he focused on Thessia. She was close enough for him to kill.
So he did.
The knife he’d used earlier sank into her chest as if it was butter.
Her eyes widened in shock, then went blank.
Dimri had hit her in the heart, like she’d tried to do to him.
She collapsed, and Dimri let go. He reached for the knife she’d left in his shoulder, but he was interrupted before he could take it out.
“How bad is it?” Keth asked.
“I’ll be fine.” Dimri gritted his teeth against the pain and looked around the room. The remaining two demons had been blocked and were being tied up. They wouldn’t be a problem anymore. “Find the explosives they were talking about.”
It didn’t take them long since someone had left all of them next to one of the support pillars. Senna stepped forward, a determined expression on her face. “Go. I’ll take care of these.”
Dimri wanted to argue, but he wanted to check in on Roque and take the knife out of his shoulder even more. “Vex, stay with her. Everyone else, with me, including our prisoners.” Berith would have questions for them once this mess was over.
They made their way back through the tunnels, Dimri leaning against Keth. He was losing quite a bit of blood. Roque wasn’t going to be happy when he saw him.
They didn’t make it.
An explosion rocked the ground under their feet and the walls. More dust rained over their heads, and Dimri glanced ahead at the exit of the tunnel. They’d been so close that he could feel the fresh air on his skin, dammit.
He was propelled forward. He yelped, not having expected it, but as he turned toward Keth, the ceiling came down between them.
Dimri stumbled onto something and fell out of the exit, barely catching himself on the wall.
He screamed when the movement caused the knife in his shoulder to be torn out of his flesh.
That really hurt.
Dimri’s shoulder felt like it was on fire, and his leg folded under him. He managed to press his back against the wall and slide down, breathing out only once his ass was firmly on the stone floor.
He looked back at the entrance of the tunnels, but it was gone, and with it, Dimri’s team.
* * * *
BERITH’S NEXT ATTACK was fast and desperate. Despite the blood dripping from the wound in his chest and the pain of his broken rib, he moved faster than Roque had expected him to. His sword moved up, caught Ramiel off-guard, sliced him in the chest, and made him stumble back.
Roque held his breath. Berith might be hurt, but he hadn’t been defeated yet.
“Impossible,” Ramiel snarled, but Roque could hear the doubt creeping into his voice.
They circled each other again, but something had changed.
Ramiel was not as confident as he had been before, almost as if he’d expected Berith to surrender as soon as he’d gotten hurt, maybe beg for his life.
He didn’t understand that Berith would die rather than let Ramiel anywhere near his family.