41. While she slept
41
WHILE SHE SLEPT
Later, Anahrod would be told that it went like this:
The team had been loading boxes for the last time when they’d heard a scream from the far side of the Hall of Death. Several tons of stone slammed down with a force that echoed, shook the floors. Not all of them understood, for several grim, drawn-out seconds, that the vault door had slammed shut.
Kaibren had understood, though. He ran back, likely in the hope he could somehow raise the slab again.
Meanwhile, Jaemeh was running forward, screaming, “Run! Go! Go! It’s all been reset! Do you hear me? It’s reset!”
One minute had seemed more than sufficient to cross a trapped hallway, but the timing had been meant to give a dragon time to traverse the area safely, not humans. Distances were correspondingly multiplied.
Some of them were lucky. Naeron and Claw had already been on the stairs; Ris had been waiting next to Peralon outside.
That had left Jaemeh, Gwydinion, Claw, and Kaibren in the Hall of Death. Jaemeh, Claw, and Gwydinion were all young, fit, and fast runners.
Kaibren was none of those things. For a few fateful seconds, he’d even been running the wrong way.
Everyone heard the crackling roar and the scream that followed as flame filled the entire space between the last two pillars where Kaibren had been fleeing a second before.
Kaibren burned in fire.
Momentum carried him out. His inscribed clothing protected him from some of the damage—was, in fact, the only reason he wasn’t instantly incinerated—but the clothing’s limits were overwhelmed. He was still smoldering, still steaming, as he collapsed past the raging wall of fire.
“Kaibren!” Claw had screamed.
Jaemeh caught her by the arm as she tried to run back. “We can’t. There’s no way that trap going off didn’t alert Neveranimas! We must leave right now!”
“Fuck you!” Claw swiped at him with a knife as emphasis.
He backed away, shaking his head, washing his hands of her fate.
Claw ran to Kaibren’s side, fell to her knees, sobbing. She tried to figure out what to do, where to even start.
If Kaibren said anything to her, Claw never repeated it.
“What… happened?” Ris’s voice was raw and choked.
Jaemeh didn’t stop moving. “I don’t know! Anahrod must’ve triggered something! She yelled at me to run and I…” He made a choking sound.
“Where’s Anahrod?” Sicaryon demanded.
“I don’t know!” Jaemeh yelled. “She must be back in the vault. I don’t think she made it outside.”
Gwydinion started to say something, ask something, and Ris put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. He closed his mouth.
Jaemeh’s expression had twisted, like he might cry or slam his fist into the wall. Instead, the dragonrider said, “I’ll meet you all at the safe house. I need to find Tiendremos.” And then, for the second time, he ran, this time for the thin set of stairs leading from the main entrance back to the top of the mountain.
Ris stared after him, eyes wide and murderous, her breath coming fast from shock and rage. Her sword—the one sword that had survived the lock—floated next to her, ready to strike.
But she lowered her hand, her sword returned to her side, and she turned back to the others. “Is Kaibren—?” she asked Naeron.
The man was hunched over, one hand grabbing the other wrist. He rocked back and forth twice and then forced himself to straighten.
“No pulse,” he told her.
“Claw,” Ris called out, “we have to go.”
If Claw heard, she gave no sign. She murmured a string of expletives under her breath.
“Claw!” Ris called out again.
“What do we—” Gwydinion sounded close to tears himself. He turned to Ris, to Sicaryon, finally to Naeron.
Naeron took the young man’s hand. “We go to the docks, to the safe house.”
“Lerahven!” Ris screamed, the first and only time anyone heard Ris use Claw’s real name.
It worked, though. Claw raised her head. She picked up one of Kaibren’s blackened hands, kissed it, and laid it across the man’s chest. She stalked back to the rest of them.
“Much as I hate to agree with that asshole,” Ris said, “we must leave. She’s on her way.”
“She” being Neveranimas.
“No,” Sicaryon said. “She’s not. Anahrod spent all week throwing swarms of pests against those alarms. Neveranimas won’t show up right away.” He sounded… not tired, exactly, but empty. Wiped clean of all emotion.
“But what about my sister?” Gwydinion had cried out then.
“Peralon can’t—he can’t reach her,” Ris said with a broken voice. “We have to leave. You know she wouldn’t want us to be caught.” She put a hand on Sicaryon’s arm.
Sicaryon shrugged her off. “No,” he said. “You go. I’ll wait here.”
Ris stepped up to him. “No,” she said. “You don’t get your way this time. I have the most chance of getting her back. If I have to, I know what I can use to pay her ransom.” She put her hand over his. “This one is mine.”
“Ransom?” Sicaryon didn’t bother to hide his confusion. “You mean the diamonds—?”
“No, that’s not what Neveranimas really wants. I promise I’ll get her back. And I can protect myself.”
Gwydinion thought the unspoken statement to Sicaryon was obvious: Ris could protect herself, like Sicaryon couldn’t.
Gwydinion watched them both with wide eyes. He couldn’t believe how quickly everything had fallen apart. “I’m pretty sure my sister wouldn’t want either of you hurt,” he told them.
“That’s why it should be me,” Ris agreed. She stepped close to Sicaryon and stood on her tiptoes to kiss the man on the lips. “Don’t get yourself killed. She wouldn’t want that and I… I don’t either.”
He looked surprised, then motioned to Gwydinion. “Let’s hurry to the safe house.”
The last Gwydinion saw of Ris, she was climbing up Peralon, who launched himself into the air, heading back to the steam vent.
Peralon’s dragonstone had held a single memory, but it had been so clear, so vivid, that more than once Anahrod had forgotten she didn’t know Ivarion herself. That single dragonstone memory had left her all too fond of a dragon she’d never met.
This was different. Not bizarrely so, but the details were fuzzier along the edges, the colors not as bright or crisp. It was still a memory, though. Still a dragon’s memory.
Neveranimas’s memory.
But for all that, it was a remarkably bland memory. She sat at the Council of Elders summit, listening to a dragon, Modelakast, talk about the importance of church attendance and meditation practices.
Incredibly boring. Neveranimas was listening, though, because she was regent, and it was her job. But Eannis, it was dull.
Modelakast finished her speech. Notile flew up on the main pedestal and—
The memory was interrupted. Anahrod never finished it.