Chapter 48
Red, annihilating inferno—it was all I could see in any direction. My eyes stung, blurred, bled tears as I tightened my grip on Kier’s hand and dragged him onward through the gateway. We had to get out the other side.
I didn’t know what had gone wrong, but I could guess who was behind it. The flames were a tell-tale sign.
Kier’s harrowing scream pulsed all around us, echoing through the fog as I forged onward. He leant against me, heavy enough that I stumbled, gripping him under his arms hard enough that I’d leave handprints.
Every breath came out as a wheeze, not just because of the fire pressing in on either side, but the crushing grip on my soul where Kier’s pain expanded to consume everything.
We stumbled out the other side, and I gasped down breaths, filling my lungs with air that… still tasted of smoke. Black coils of it filled the sky in four different columns, the acrid taste curling around my tongue.
I struggled to keep my feet under me, the ground unsteady as dizziness rippled through me. Only stubbornness kept my hands around Kier. Only determination kept us both from hitting the cobbles.
“What is… that noise?” he asked in a ragged voice, leaning into me with rough, panting breaths. Now we were on the other side of the fog gateway, pain had stopped devouring his soul, but the sharp ache that remained throbbed across the bond. It might have stopped burning him but it had left scars.
I had to physically pull my attention away from my mate, from the bond, to understand what he was asking.
I hadn’t heard the sound, had only seen the empty cobbled street lined with silver-blue brick buildings and the columns of smoke.
I missed the flower trays that sat in windowsills, their stone planters shattered, dirt and petals on the ground.
I missed the scorch marks on doors, the broken windows, the graffiti smeared across a pretty terrace house down the street. TRAITOR it screamed in vivid red paint.
I didn’t know if it was an accusation of being a Greenheart supporter, or if one of the last few loyal Bluescale goblins had lived here.
Either way, it was deserted now. Actually, the whole street was empty.
What happened to Commander Loyal and the soldiers who came through the gate ahead of us?
How long had we fought our way through the gateway?
And the noise Kier asked about. I had to physically force my attention away, to make my ears listen to something other than the ringing in my head, the frequency of pain in the bond. A crowd roared, not an orderly chant or a swell of excited voices. Anger. Bloodthirst. A mob.
But were they a mob of allies who’d help us, or a group calling for Kier’s blood?
“Shit,” Kier grunted, and stepped away from my side, wobbling across the road to a streetlamp covered in graffiti and posters. It took me a moment to realise what I was looking at.
“Hey, why do you have a wanted poster and I don’t?” I asked, dragging some personality up through the depths of pain and dread. Something big was happening here, and I didn’t like the slow crawl of warning that tiptoed up my spine, whispering omens and prophecies.
Kier pulled a poster off the streetlamp and frowned at the sketch of himself in the dead centre, right above a list of his crimes. Well, Cleodora and Jyrard had certainly been busy in our absence. I wondered if there was anyone left in the entire goblin lands who wouldn’t kill us on sight.
That was what it said at the bottom of the poster, in bold lettering: KILL ON SIGHT.
“You do have one,” Kier replied in a voice I recognised instantly. Deep, guttural, full of shadows and threats and broken bones. He pulled down another poster and yep, there I was, with a matching KILL ON SIGHT order. However…
“That is not my nose,” I complained.
“This isn’t my weak chin, either,” Kier said, with the barest hint of humour. I leaned my head on his shoulder for a second, but couldn’t allow myself to drop my guard any longer.
“No artist could ever capture your bombshell beauty,” I assured him, stroking his jaw even as I scanned the street, searching for threats.
I didn’t want to draw attention with Valour and Baby, but I hated being without protection.
My back itched, but there was no one sneaking up on us. Just my own paranoia.
“Bombshell beauty?” he repeated with a rasping laugh.
I wouldn’t have replied, but the noise of the mob roared suddenly louder, and then a rich voice full of gravitas and passion rang clearly, amplified by magic. “Is that Loyal?”
“It is.” Kier straightened, resting his hand on the handle of the sword at his hip. He seemed stronger, as recovered from the fire as he was going to get. I made the tension ease from my shoulders, relaxed my body so I was ready for the inevitable fight that would find us.
I checked my weapons. And then with a shared glance, Kier and I pulled up the hoods attached to the armoured jackets we wore, and crept silently down the street in the direction of the crowd.