Chapter 22
Twenty-Two
“Stop.” The sorcerer swallowed audibly. “Maybe we should avoid that place.”
“Pardon?” His abrupt reversal baffled Mina. “You’re starving and exhausted, yet you don’t want to head to the one guarantee of food? Not to mention that even you must have smelled the foes that near.”
“Revenants. I know. It’s just . . .” His muscles coiled as tight as a bowstring. Had he started sweating? “There’s no bridge, and that water would boil us alive. If one place has food, others might.”
She sensed movement from all directions, didn’t have time to analyze him. Besides, her thinking about this sorcerer continued to prove faulty. “I need information. You can search elsewhere on your own, but I am going.” She’d just uttered the words when she recognized another scent, one relatively new to her. Guests at the Tree of Delight had smoked opium on occasion; the acidic smell of it trailed from the castle.
Ah. No wonder Silt hesitated. He feared a relapse; having lifted off the ground, he didn’t want to crash once more.
Pang. Empathy tightened her chest with an unexpected tenderness. She inwardly sighed, Complicated, shady sorcerer.
What if Silt Harea wanted to be better but didn’t know how? What if he regretted his vow?
She hardened herself against him, calling to mind how he’d looked as he’d threatened her brother. Of course I will murder Mirceo ? —
The rocks suddenly shifted beneath their feet. She whirled around as stones flew up into the air; revenants clawed up from the ground! “This isn’t a hill—it’s a grave!”
The massive creatures appeared lumpen, as if they’d absorbed stones under their skin. They had wild black eyes. Their mouths were slack, tongues dangling as they roared.
“We can’t fight this many without swords!” Silt grabbed her wrist, and yet again they ran.
Sprinting toward the castle, they wound among grapevines. Behind them, undead monsters that hungered to kill trampled over the rows like a wave of locusts. “They’ll trap us against that water, sorcerer.”
“Then let’s hope the castle’s owner has something up their sleeve to ward them off.”
As she sprinted, Mina willed some faceless magic practitioner to save them. “If something’s going to happen, it needs to happen now.” They were mere miles from the water’s hazy edge, and the revenants were gaining on them!
Never slowing, she scanned for anything she could use as a weapon. Rocks? Wood? Nothing but vines.
A mile separated them from the water.
A quarter of a mile. The revenants’ frenzied roars grew louder behind them.
“Silt . . .”
He slowed. “Yeah. We fight?—”
A sudden banging sounded. Mina blinked in disbelief as a rolled-up bridge unfurled from the castle out over the water, like the curled tongue of some giant reptile.
When the end landed on the nearby shore, they hastened over to the floating bridge, and Silt shoved her onto it. “Go, go, go!”
They charged over the bouncing surface. Halfway across, she realized something. “The revenants aren’t following.” Standing along the bank, they pounded their hulking chests with rage, but none stepped atop the bridge. “Another sinister threat senses yet another sinister threat and decides not to pursue.”
Silt muttered, “Welcome to Nightside.”
The bridge bounced even more, twisting in place. Mina’s steps crisscrossed as she and Silt fought for balance. She jerked a glance over her shoulder. Behind them, the unfurled bridge was furling .
Wide-eyed, Silt pushed her ahead of him. “Faster!” The sorcerer matched her speed, even when Mina dug in.
They couldn’t leap into the piping water, had only one means of escape—the castle entry. Two towering doors opened wide like a ravening mouth. . . .
“Almost there, vampire. Dive!”
She tensed when he did, and they sprang past the doors, skidding bodily across a tiled entryway. The rolled-up bridge slammed shut behind them, just missing Silt. Air gusted over them.
Then stillness.
Their breaths were loud in the echoing chamber. Lying on the floor, Mina raised her head to see stiletto boots a couple of feet away. She peered upward, taking in gartered legs.
“Welcome, weary travelers,” said a statuesque female with ebony skin, long black braids, and fuchsia eyes. She wore a red mask and a sophisticated headdress. Her golden garments covered little, the slits of her short skirt climbing all the way to her narrow waist. “I’m Entity, the Sorceri Queen of Dreams. And I’m here to make all yours come true.”