Chapter 18
The air is charged with the persistent chant of city folk.
“Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!”
“News flutters fast,” I murmur, scanning the outer wall from one of the third-floor hallways, looking out on the long courtyard that hugs the Citadel’s cluster of peaked buildings like a moat.
Sleet has turned to snow, the sky a dark smudge Bothaim’s elite battalion are tearing through. All Moltenmaws. Such bold strokes of color against the dull sky.
“MOVE BACK!” guards bellow through amplifying sticks, dragons dipping in turns to spew flames. Violent intimidation tactics meant to deter the panicked population converging on the thick wall of Bothaimian ore, desperate to get past the gates.
“Let us in! Let us in! Let us in!”
None of the ground guards move, like white-armored statues—three rows of them atop the wall.
So many I can’t possibly count the helmets that all but blend with the snow.
Then there are the organized groups down in the courtyard, packed before the Rygun-sized gates.
Over three hundred soldiers, if I were to estimate.
Too many for Clode to suffocate in one swoop were we to try to bust a way through. Unfortunately.
“That’s the only way out?”
“It is.” Roan straightens his glasses. “If I’d just kept my mouth shut—”
“This is not your fault,” Kaan growls beneath his breath, jaw set, eyes colder than I’ve seen them before. “The Tri-Council have had this coming for a while, and they know it. It’s the reason they built the wall. You shit on folk long enough, they toss it back.”
A red Moltenmaw turns, soaring in our direction like it’s about to scale the arches, putting the rider directly in our line of sight.
Shit.
We pull away from the twin windows, hiding behind a column, only to see a trio of pale-eyed Wardens moving down the hall.
Toward us.
“Void your mind and keep your head down.” Kaan gestures for us to follow him straight toward the Wardens, walking with the smooth gait of a resident Runi.
I stuff my emotions, thoughts, and anything else beneath my lake. Focus on the itch at the tips of my fingers, following with smooth, unhurried steps, hand in my pocket, poised to push off my ring at the first sign of danger.
We move past the trio, around the corner, into a shallow doorway carved to look like an arched dragon’s tail. Not even a drop of relief seeps through me as I toil over our meager options.
“We can’t stay here.” Pyrok takes a swig from his flask. “It’s only a matter of time before someone notices we’re voiding, recognizes Kaan or Roan, and then we’re all fucked, caught red-handed with the book in our possession.”
They’d have to strip my shirt to see it strapped against me, something they wouldn’t manage without having their intestines knotted into bows. But sure.
“What if we go into the underground tunnels, then smash free?” I ask, peering left and right down the lofty hallway, fingers poised against a sheathed blade. “Kaan can tell me which words to use, and I’ll try not to crush us all.”
Not the most inviting offer, but it’s important to be honest about my meager shaping skills if three other lives are about to depend on them.
“It’s almost impossible for Bulder to shift Bothaimian ore because it contains such a high percent of iron, and it veins well below the tunnels,” Roan says, moving his spectacles up and down his nose.
Probably trying to find the best viewpoint through the web of cracks.
“We’d starve down there before we found a way through, so it’s not a viable option. ”
“Probably for the best,” I say beneath my breath, mainly to myself.
I’m about to suggest we go back out through the anthe den when Roan looks sidelong at Kaan, a single brow quirked. “Remember when I almost blew up my research chamber?”
“Which time?”
I frown. “It happened more than once?”
“It’s a common occurrence,” Kaan mutters from the side of his mouth.
“I mean the time I accidentally etched—then accidentally activated—a new, previously unknown rune that melted my bench,” Roan continues, using his robe to clean his spectacles.
As if rubbing them will remove the cracks.
“Remember, it hardened into a puddle Pyrok slipped on for an entire phase before he got fed up and dragged a rug down the stairs. It was made of—”
“Bothaimian ore,” Pyrok drones, rubbing the back of his head. “That thing almost caused me a fuckin’ brain bleed. I still have a bump.”
Kaan crosses his arms, stern eyes on Roan. “You want to blow up the wall?”
Roan nods slowly, smiling so wide his entire face lights up. Like just the thought of making something go BOOM shot him full of life force and alleviated ninety percent of his problems. “Just a bit of it, though,” he corrects, holding his thumb and finger close together. “Small chunk.”
Pyrok groans, tosses back another swig, then shakes his head. “Won’t work”—Burp—“we’ve got no supplies.”
“Aside from Kaan’s weald and a parchment lark, all I need is a drop of fresh dragon blood and some melted snow to make it spread farther.” Roan looks at Kaan again. “Or something equivalent.”
Tension thickens, my gaze sliding from Kaan to Roan, back again—both watching each other, having a silent conversation I’m quick to unscramble.
Kaan’s Daga-Mórrk. His blood’s bolstered by his connection with Rygun, making it the next best thing on Roan’s ingredient list.
“Absolutely not.”
All three of them look at me.
Roan’s shoulders slump. “Why not?”
Because something deep beneath my ribs is snarling at the mere suggestion that Kaan host a rune combustive enough to blast a fucking hole in a wall of Bothaimian ore.
“I had a friend who used to etch a lot,” I force past gritted teeth, checking down the hall again to distract myself from the annoying lump of emotion welling at the base of my throat.
Something I blame on the drips of Rayne’s language infesting my system, like a terminal sorrow I wish I could ignore.
“When she mixed her blood through a tincture, she’d sometimes end up passing out.
” I let my gaze slide to Kaan, struggling to maintain his sturdy eye contact while speaking about something so …
raw. “If you faint, we’re all screwed. You most of all. ”
His eyes soften.
He steps closer, the rest of the world smudging as he dominates my space, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
I frown, straightening.
He passes me a sentence with slow, tender poise. Not that it softens the blow.
“If I don’t do it, we’re as good as dead anyway.”
We gather near a massive white urn, the tree it holds big and weepy enough to shield us from the sight of circling mercenaries—the western side eerily quiet compared to the east, farthest from the gate.
Far enough that it’s almost possible to pretend the city isn’t in a panicked uproar—begging to get into the very place we’re trying to escape—were it not for the cacophony of airborne dragons verbalizing their dominance with shrill screeches and gutsy growls.
Kaan reaches out a hand. “Pyrok, I’ll need a flask.”
Pyrok mutters beneath his breath and tugs one from his pocket, drains the remaining contents in three deep gulps, then hands it over.
Kaan pulls a blade from somewhere within his robe and drags it across his palm, slitting flesh. I feel that same wound open on my heart, something inside me growing still.
Silent.
He scoops a wad of snow into his wounded hand and makes a fist, squeezes it over the open nozzle, and drips a steady stream of diluted blood into the flask.
“If this kills him—”
“I will also perish,” Roan murmurs past lips blue from the cold, glancing at me over his crooked glasses.
Does he think I’m a monster?
“Course not.” I crack my neck, doing another perimeter scan. “But you’ll beg for death.”
Feeling Kaan’s gaze blaze across the side of my face, I catch the slightest twitch of his mouth from my peripheral.
Not sure why he finds this amusing. He’s about to get sapped. On enemy grounds.
Roan takes the flask, corking it as Kaan binds his hand with a strip of material torn from the hem of his robe, all four of us peering through the foliage—either scanning the perimeter or watching for the sky to clear.
After what feels like a small eternity, Roan hobbles across the courtyard, getting lost amidst the churn of snow.
He looks miniature compared to the wall he begins painting with broad strokes of Kaan’s blood.
Such a thin layer that it doesn’t drip out of shape.
Hopefully that means the pull won’t be too bad.
He finishes the most elaborate rune I’ve ever seen, then returns, passing the flask to Kaan before drying his bloody hands on his pants. “That should do,” he says, breathing on his bunched fists. “Lark?”
Kaan digs through the pocket of his pants, retrieving a sodden parchment square that must’ve missed the waterproofing runes.
All three males groan.
“What about a used one?” I ask, pulling out the lark Kaan sent me earlier.
Roan shakes his head. “Won’t work. I need a fresh one so I can trick it into fluttering toward Kaan’s blood.”
“He sent me this. Can’t you just pinch the return fold? I’m sure Clode won’t mind nudging it toward the rune for me.”
Roan frowns, taking the lark. “I keep forgetting you can hear the Creators in here …” He looks at me like I’m some oddity he’d love to dissect with a magnifying glass and a scalpel. “Why is that?”
Probably the same reason I was able to step past the runes that protected the book.
“Wish I knew. I’d bottle that shit and dish it out to the masses.” My eyes narrow. “How big will this hole be? Making enemies with the entire ready-mounted battalion is not my idea of a good time.”
“Just a little bigger than Kaan,” Roan clarifies, unfolds the lark, checks it, then refolds it again. “And the noise will be easily overshadowed by the dragons near the gate.”
Right …
Kaan pulls out his weald.
I stiffen, looking away.
“Are you okay, Moonbeam?”
“Never better.” I jerk my chin at Roan. “Let’s get this over with before he freezes to death and Pyrok grows too sober to think straight.”
“She’s speaking my language,” Pyrok mutters. “Plan?”
“The moment we break through, we need to make for the underground canal,” Kaan says, scanning the heavy gray sky.
“Should we get separated, the closest entrance is near the durvil fruit distillery. It’ll be easy to lose any tails down there, and they can’t check every vessel.
We’ll secure stowage west across the border. ”
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing.
Everyone follows my gaze to our left, where dense mist is billowing over the wall. It cascades down like a waterfall, pouring into the Citadel’s courtyard and puddling across the stark white ground.
“Miel Et Muíem,” Kaan murmurs. “Moving Mists in the common tongue.”
“I didn’t think they migrated this far north?”
“Not in over an eon. Could be handy coverage, but they host a hungry hive of waifs. We’ll have to be on guard if the mist takes us over.”
I shiver all the way to my toes, pretty sure that would be the perfect “fuck you, Raeve” to really top off my dae. Being hackled with messages from everyone I’ve shivved or sliced.
Kaan checks the sky again before he flicks back the lid on his weald. A small bulb of flame erupts.
Roan pinches the return fold on Kaan’s lark, then holds it against the flame. Something I struggle to watch for numerous reasons, picturing the poor lark as my beautiful little Nee.
It takes a while for the anti-flame runes to burn through, and the lark finally catches light.
Lips pinched, I nudge my iron ring into my pocket, braced for Clode’s ear-splitting chaos … surprised to find she’s already preening with a pretty song. Perhaps aware I was about to give her some much-needed love in this starched cell of corruption and control.
Roan releases the lark, which flutters around in a confused circle, wings alight. I forge a soft, playful melody so unlike this heavy feeling in my chest as I watch the poor thing burn.
“Sheil ath too … aloo ail ah. Preesh, ah, preesh!”
Clode giggles, then gently nudges the flaming lark toward the wall, batting it with airy hands. With each giddy gust, the flames burn with newfound ferocity. Like Ignos is enjoying Clode’s attention, even if she’s dashing him around like a plaything.
Tension thickens between us, my gaze drifting between the back of Kaan’s head and the flaming lark.
“Preesh, ahh Clode. Preesh eehla!”
She gives it one last playful bat, squealing in delight as the lark collides with the scrawl of blood, then turns to ash on the wind.
The rune shimmers, looking almost beautiful before it morphs into something … ugly.
It sucks into itself like puckering lips—
BANG!
The rune explodes with such gusto the sound punches my eardrums, making bells ring in my head while liquid ore spews skyward with volcanic force … then swiftly plummets. Globs of ore pelt the pavement like white splats of dragon shit.
The entire wall seems to shudder as the last of the melted remnants assault the ground, leaving messy puddles everywhere. Then, stillness.
Time stretches.
I take in the gaping hole in the wall, almost as big and wide as the gates on the other side—not a Kaan-sized hole. And certainly not an easily overshadowed bang.
Liquid ore continues to drip from the molten edges, falling in rhythm with my hammering heart while two words blare in my head:
We’re fucked.
I’m just about to shove everyone forward when Kaan drops like a felled dragon shot from the sky.