Chapter 64
Ro
Shouting from the ring had grown rampant, reaching all the way down here to the furthest end of the camp. The Eleven conversed briefly before exiting their tent. My skin became cold and clammy over what I’d just heard.
Not wanting to accept the sinister reality I’d just been shown, my brain racked itself, trying to think of ways to stop them. I didn’t like what came to mind, and desperately searched for another solution.
I found nothing.
My soul deflated, hope dwindling down to measly embers. It took Braxius shouting from the crowded woods behind to pull me from my drowning thoughts.
“Dae,” I whispered, remembering that I was supposed to meet him.
Because Tio was in danger.
I took off within an instant, darting through the camp. Members ran in a frenzy, shouting about escaped prisoners, paying no attention to me as I sprinted past.
My mind was a dizzying array of thoughts and possibilities, fogging my memory of the camp’s geography.
Dae had described how to find the tent that held Tio and Melody, and I recited his instructions with each pounding step.
Braxius stuck to the perimeter of the camp, and I was grateful one of us already made it out.
We would meet up west of here, where we’d hug the mountain range as we headed south.
The congested crowd blocked the clear route I needed to take. I dodged and pushed past those who got in my way, skidding to a halt when the uproar around the fighting ring suddenly ceased in a deafening way.
The crowd had fallen so quiet I could hear the crackle of a nearby torch. Only through small gaps could I see The Eleven gathered together. The ring, formerly marked by etchings in the dirt, was now marked by fallen bodies. Bodies that had become obsidian husks.
“We expect order!” one of The Eleven shouted.
I silently crept backwards. Years of stealth paid off when I slipped past the last of the corralled audience. Recognizing my surroundings, I didn’t falter as I continued.
I nearly wept with relief when I saw the fallen guards outside Tio’s tent. Dae had already been here.
“Ro!”
That sexy, over-achieving man got started on all the fun without me. I searched for him, but he wasn’t anywhere near. Until he appeared from out of nowhere. Only several yards away, he ran to me. I blinked rapidly, wondering if I’d started losing my sanity.
“This way! Run!” He didn’t stop coming toward me, even while beckoning me to move.
He must have already rescued Tio and Melody, because this man would never let me leave them behind. So I ran, fueled by my trust for him. When we reached each other, he took my hand with a grip that declared he’d never let me go. We hurried toward the front gate.
“Kasia!” he called.
A moment later, the admin woman appeared from thin air just as he had, with Melody and Tio unconscious around her. Dae dropped, scooping Tio’s body and tossing him over his shoulder. I wedged myself under Melody’s other arm, helping Kasia carry her.
I bit down my reservations as we ran toward the front where several guards would be stationed along the entrance. We were going to have to fight our way out, but with two unconscious people to carry, my ability to fight was compromised.
“Are y—”
Kasia shushed me with violent reprimand before I could question it. Our pace slowed. Dae didn’t look concerned, so I merely followed their lead. The two guards from earlier stood alert, eyes and ears honed on the commotion from inside. No one had come to inform them of what was happening.
Physically supporting Melody like this meant I had no access to my bow and arrows.
We edged closer. How had the guards not spotted us yet?
I tried my best to look calm, like Dae and I had done upon entry, but this was clearly a different scenario.
How would we explain taking two unconscious, unrecognizable people from camp into the woods at night?
My palms became slick, my throat dry with every inch we gained.
That was all we moved. Literal inches at a time.
Were these guards only able to detect big movements?
Because why in the gods names had they not stopped us?
One even glanced in our direction for a sliver of a moment, but didn’t acknowledge our presence at all.
My heartbeat was louder than anything in the forest, a daunting drum that beckoned inescapable death.
In a flurry of panic, I dropped from Melody’s side, twisting to wrench free an arrow.
It was nocked and fired before the second guard noticed.
By the time he glared at me, finally aware of my presence, my arrow speared his chest.
“What the fuck was that for?” Kasia criticized in a whisper.
I looked toward her, but saw…no one. Not her, not Melody, nor Dae or Tio.
“What the hell is happening!” I whisper-shouted into the night. Dae appeared, striding toward me. “How do you keep doing that?!”
His steadying hands gripped my arms. “We have to move. Kasia can shield us. We won’t be seen, but we need to keep quiet.”
So I wasn’t going crazy after all. “Thank the gods.”
She reappeared again so we could carry Tio and Mel, and then we were off.
I wanted to run, to put as much distance between us and the camp we left disoriented.
Until we could blend in with Windguard citizens in a populated town, I felt like a glowing beacon.
We would be the only living things in these woods, a clear target for anyone who followed.
From the way we slowed our pace, I recognized that Kasia and Dae knew sentinels were stationed nearby.
Tio groaned. The noise might as well have been a howling wolf against the soundless night. Kasia paused and scanned the trees for a hint of someone watching. I did the same, readying to drop Melody’s arm to reach for my arrow.
He groaned again, and the bushes rustled.
I saw movement in the dark, shadows lurking about, sentinels searching for the origin of the noise.
At the opposite end of our lineup, Dae spotted movement from his side of the path, too.
In a coordinated effort, Dae gently placed Tio on the ground, and once he finished, Kasia released her hand from him.
The moment she let go, her shielding fell and Dae shifted.
Wasting no time, I released Melody and poised my arrow, firing it into the woods.
A woman gasped for breath as she clumsily stumbled in the growth, cracking branches and snapping twigs on her way. A man’s scream started to paint the air to my left, but was snuffed out a second later. Dae leapt back onto the path, his feline teeth glistening with a new dark sheen.
“The next set of sentinels probably heard that. Let’s cut west, now,” Dae commanded.
Easier said than done. Tio hadn’t woken after he’d stirred, so we still had to maneuver two unconscious bodies through the uneven brush and thickets for hours. Whenever exhaustion begged me to stop, I recalled what awaited behind us—and ahead.
A peak of the mountains came into view through the canopy of trees, and I shuddered with relief. Kasia had stopped shielding us a while back, saving her power in case we needed it.
“Did they know?” I asked through wheezing breaths. “The Order, about your shielding?”
“Nope. Kept that to myself. I have some herbalist abilities. Very useful skill set when they’d started running off the wildlife up here.
A few berries are better than none, so I made myself integral to the organization.
Not high enough to warrant getting siphoned magic from others, not low enough to be considered useless. ”
“Why hide it from them?” I asked. “Don’t you want to help their cause?”
“Fuck no. These assholes kidnapped my husband, drained his magic, and because he survived it, they kept him as a prisoner. I wanted to get them out, tried thinking of ways to do it, but…”
She didn’t have to finish for me to understand. She was one woman against the entire Order.
“They deserve to burn for what they’ve done.” I glanced down at Melody, her head bobbing between us, her golden ponytail bouncing with every step. Still no signs she’d wake soon. A brief thought of Nora crossed my mind, of how she might single-handedly raze The Order for harming her sister twice.
Kasia sighed. “They won’t. They’re too powerful already. From what I’ve gathered, they’ll be making their move soon.”
“To do what?” Dae asked.
“I don’t know. It won’t be pretty, though.
I doubt they’ll leave much of Windguard left to tell the tale.
A populus of magicless civilians? Bugs beneath their boots.
Any they keep will be slaves like my husband, no doubt.
I’m going to get him off this cursed continent.
We’ll sail across the ocean to Duski, a place where magic wielders and magicless alike live together freely.
” Kasia halted abruptly. “I need to rest.”
I definitely wasn’t opposed to that idea.
We adjusted Melody, laying her head in my lap.
My muscles screamed in relief, and I wondered if I’d even be able to get up again.
Braxius had tracked us down and stashed himself in my hood.
He crawled out and stretched his little wings, landing on a branch above and chomping on a leaf.
Dae placed Tio against a tree, then sat at my side, pulling me in by the back of my neck to press a kiss to my temple.
“I was worried about you,” he said. “You were late.” We hadn’t gotten a chance to speak about how everything went down. But there were things I wasn’t willing to share.
“Do you think they’ll wake up? What do you think happened?” I stroked Melody’s bangs away from her forehead. Remembering the way Tio’s eyes brightened when he spoke about her made my own well with tears.
I needed him to be okay, and he needed her to be.