Chapter 42
I’d known how stifling silence could be. How endless, and heavy, and loud silence could be. I’d been driven mad, driven to desperation locked in Marc the Sythe’s cellar for hours on end. I hadn’t realised noise could drive me to the edge of insanity faster, and far more effectively.
My arms went dead hours ago, so I couldn’t even hold my hands over my ears. Instead, I clung to Kier’s warm body, a heavy noose of exhaustion wrapped around both our throats. We couldn’t speak, couldn’t hear each other over the endless, harrowing screams.
Sometimes it was a woman screaming. Sometimes it was a man, his deep voice breaking, shattering. Then it was a boy. Then it was a baby, begging for someone, anyone, to comfort them. Then right back to the woman, howling at the top of her lungs, screaming for help.
There was no way to fight the screams like I fought Lacuna.
Nothing Valour did had any effect. There was no single source; the sound came from everywhere, all at once, tearing through the narrow cracks in the wall and the wider gap where Kier had clung to the brick, that gap the only thing that had kept us alive.
A heavy, resounding, endless thump lived inside my skull, driving into all the soft, fleshy parts of my brain with every scream. I wanted it to end. All I wanted was for it to end. But the screams never stopped, never waned, never even paused.
When I regained strength in my arms, I slapped my hands over my ears again and closed my eyes. I saw that gap in the wall behind my closed eyes, the tiniest crack between slabs of stone the only reason Kier and I were alive.
Valour echoed the image, but with a sense of bright, crackling urgency.
What? I grumbled, burrowing into Kier’s chest, my hands clamped over my ears.
She showed me the vision again, followed by an image of me throwing my palms into it, pushing on the stone until it surrendered an inch.
My breath caught, and I ripped my hands away, getting to my feet.
A way out? It would involve climbing to safety from the outside of the spire, but I was ready to do anything to escape the screams at this point.
I clung to the edge, a river of insanity waiting to swallow me, and Kier was no better.
He lifted his head as I got to my feet, his blue eyes bleak and flat, utterly lifeless.
I didn’t speak; he wouldn’t hear me. A tight, painful hope gathered inside my chest as I approached that crack in the wall, where the stone slabs hadn’t quite slotted back together right.
For a moment I marvelled at Kier’s goblin strength, to hold apart bricks so huge, but I shook my head and focused.
I’ll need your help, I told Valour.
She wound around my legs, brushing against my thighs. Judging by the way her body vibrated, she was purring, but as the woman’s scream morphed into the guttural pleading of the tortured man, I couldn’t hear my own voice let alone purring.
I jumped hard when something solid brushed my shoulder, spinning around with my heart in my throat to find Kier standing behind me, a furrow between his brows. His eyes were clearer, but still dull, still tormented and tired and broken. I wondered if mine looked the same.
I made sure he was looking, then traced my finger around the gap between bricks, and mimed pushing my hands against the block.
Kier nodded, his jaw clenching, and his hands joined mine, the two of us heaving against it.
Valour rubbed her head against my leg, her power seeping into my tired bones, giving me strength to push harder.
When it shifted, I gasped, the sound swallowed by the screaming.
My head pounded harder, until I could physically feel a muscle throbbing above my eye, but the brick had moved, so I threw all my weight against it.
Kier’s hands changed from rugged gold to broad blue, his fingers brushing mine as he lent more weight to the stone, and it shifted again.
Hope was sharp enough to cut my throat as I gasped again. Please, please let this work. I can’t stand any more of this.
Right on cue, the man’s pained roars turned to a baby’s piercing wail, the sound spiking into my skull. Kier’s body curved against my back, but he didn’t stop pushing, so I gritted my teeth and threw every last drop of strength into shoving the stone further and further out of the wall.
We pushed, and pushed, until the brick ripped itself free and tumbled down the other side. It must have hit the ocean below with a loud splash, but the screams were too loud to hear it.
I slumped against the wall, my chest heaving, sweat dripping off the end of my nose. We did it. We really fucking did it. Kier’s lips pressed to the back of my neck, and I sighed in rough relief and—wait, I could hear that. I heard myself sigh.
“Kier,” I said experimentally. I heard that too.
It was thick and woollen, my ears assaulted for too long to hear properly, but the screaming had stopped, as if we’d disrupted whatever cursed magic lay upon the spire by pushing out the brick.
Thank every last god. Any longer, and I’d have lost my mind.
Kier kissed my neck again and rasped, “Zaba. Are you alright?”
“Alright’s a stretch, but I’m alive. Do you think you could fit through that gap?” I gestured at the gaping hole the brick had left, my eyes fluttering when Kier’s arms came around me, enclosing me in warmth. No matter how hellish the spire’s torture was, I had the sanctuary of my mate’s arms.
“No, but we can widen it.” He squeezed me and let go, poking his head through the makeshift window to peer out at the world the Haar had created.
I rested my hand on his back and waited to hear the verdict.
Would we fall to a grisly death, shattered upon jagged rocks?
Were we guaranteed to drown in the ocean?
“There’s a courtyard to the left of the spire,” Kier rasped. “People have gathered. There’s…” He leaned back inside, and my heart skittered when I saw all the blood drain from his blue face. “Zaba, they’re building a pyre.”
“They’re not going to burn us,” I said with a nervous laugh. “It must be for someone else.”
His throat rose and fell. “Zaba, I’m so sorry. If I’d faced my grief instead of trying to push it down, this world wouldn’t even exist and we’d—”
“Probably be awaiting execution in Skayan because Cleodora would have found a way to power regardless,” I cut in, stroking up and down his tense back. “Face it, husband, we have shitty luck when it comes to survival. There’s always something trying to kill us.”
A corner of his mouth twitched. “But this is of my own making.”
“Then unmake it.”
He stared at the window, imagining what lay below. “If I unmake it with all these people inside, I could kill them this time. I could kill us.”
“Let’s make that plan B, then.”
“Don’t suggest jumping out the window as plan A,” he said, turning to give me a look that was almost, almost normal. The dead eyes cut right into my chest, though.
“I wasn’t going to suggest that,” I huffed, hastily rethinking my plan A. “What if we just—”
The distinct squeak of a door’s hinges made us both freeze, stares locking together before we spun to face the sound.
“That was definitely not there before,” I said, stunned, as a fucking door opened in the wall where we’d just been huddled.
Kier grabbed my arm and angled himself in front of me, resisting my attempts to put us on an even footing. That was probably smart; he was their prince, and I was their enemy. If anyone was getting thrown on the bonfire, it was probably me.
The heavy wooden door that shouldn’t exist pushed wider, and there was the serious azure face of our jailor.
The same dick who’d dragged me across the vast room downstairs, separating me from Kier.
My husband must have recognised him too, because a snarl cracked across the spire, full of warning and promised blood spill.
“Don’t cause trouble,” the grumpy bastard warned, looking at me specifically.
“Or what? You’ll toss us on a giant, burning pyre?”
Surprise flickered in his eyes. Got you, asshole. My victory lasted all of one second before I realised that was exactly what they planned. They would burn me alive for being human.
“You know, I’d expect this shit from Greenheart, but aren’t we supposed to be a little more civilised?” I muttered, wrapping my hand around Kier’s arm, refusing to be parted from him.
“We?” our bastard jailor echoed, an eyebrow lifting. “You are human.”
“No?” I gasped, looking down at myself in faux shock. “Oh my gods, since when? No one told me I was human.”
“She is your princess, and you will show her respect,” Kier growled, which hit me right beneath the thighs.
Awkward timing, but I wouldn’t say no to one last climax before my untimely death.
More accurately, the desperate battle to evade my untimely death, because no way in hell would I walk myself out to the bonfire nicely.
“Cooperate, and this will be painless,” the jailor said, like that was a positive thing. Painless death was still death.
I sighed. “Look, Bobby, I’m not going to volunteer myself to die, so why don’t you fuck off and find someone else to turn to timber?”
“My name is Savani,” he spat, his back straightening, chin cocked out.
“Sure, Bobby. Point being—if you knew someone wanted to kill you, would you walk yourself into the arms of death? Or would you do something a little crazy, a little courageous to get free?”
Valour.
She sent me images of her favourite hobby: dismembered limbs, bits of flesh with teeth marks, someone’s ass with a chunk ripped out.
No murder. And no maiming just yet. We’ll only prove these bastards right that we’re a threat.
I reached for my bond with Kier and gave it a slow stroke. Be ready.
And then I jumped to the side and sprinted for the hole in the wall.
“Stop!” Bobby yelled.
“Nah,” I called back, smirking when heavy boots slammed the stone floor of the spire. Now would be a lovely time for the ground to drop.
Kier’s soul stroked mine, and I jumped aside at the last minute, letting our dear jailor drive head-first into the wall, enough to daze him. When he wavered, Kier rushed him, grabbed his head in broad, claw-tipped hands, and—snapped his neck.
“Gods,” I breathed, staring. “I didn’t think you would kill him.”
“I don’t like the way he spoke to you,” Kier replied, deep and rumbling, like the ominous snarl of thunder before lightning.
I grabbed his hand and squeezed. “Time to go. Do you think you can call the Haar to get us out of here?”
“I can try,” he growled. I didn’t think he could speak without growling; his soul was full of protective rage.
I rushed towards the door before it could vanish again, pulling Kier down a long, winding stone staircase. The steps continued forever, but I’d suffered more than one severe climb lately that it was quite refreshing to go down stairs instead of dragging myself up them on hands and knees.
“Zaba,” Kier rumbled. “I can’t leave without my necklace.”
“I know,” I panted. Okay, so running down stairs was tiresome, too. I was just a general hater of stairs. “I need to find my pendant, too.”
It was the only thing keeping me out of Cleodora’s clutches, and since I wanted to go home with my mind intact—as intact as it could be after trauma and screaming and nearly plunging to my death twice—I needed the stone’s protection.
“I can see the bottom,” I breathed after another minute, a landing coming into view and— “Shit,” I hissed. “Guard.”
“Valour,” Kier growled.
My jaguar buzzed with excitement for a fight; I echoed my warning about only maiming despite the fact Kier just snapped that jailor’s neck, and she blurred past me with a loud purr.
The guard didn’t stand a chance; by the time he noticed the blue streak of violence headed his way, Valour slammed bodily into him and knocked his head against the brick wall.
He dropped instantly, and she turned to give us a smug look, almost prancing. See, no murder.
“Good girl,” I said breathlessly, patting her head when we reached the bottom, holding tight to Kier’s hand as the door at the bottom came into view.
“What’s the plan?” I whispered.
“I doubt reasoning with them will work,” Kier murmured. “And my brain is too…”
“Mushy,” I proposed.
“Yeah, mushy to negotiate politics right now. So we fight our way out.”
“It didn’t work so well last time,” I pointed out, eyeing the solid door, the grey substance of it reminding me it was made of fog and mist. “Kier, can you dissolve the door? I know it’s too dangerous to unmake the whole world, but what if—”
“I unmake key pieces when we need them gone,” he finished. “Yes. Zaba, move back.”
I grinned when the solid wood collapsed into fog. Kier’s brain might be mushy, and he might not have his necklace, but his innate magic was still a force to be reckoned with. I grabbed the back of his neck and kissed him hard, quickly.
“One hell of a husband,” I said against his lips, tasting his smile, then spun to face the gaping arch the doorway had left.
“Valour,” I prompted when noise indicated chaos on the other side. Goblins raced toward us, arms bulging, faces slack with shock or hardening with hostility. “Time to play.”
Her purr revved so loudly it drowned out the bark of orders on the other side of the door.