Chapter Seventeen #4
The fort before her grew in her mind, the armored guards falling into place as if she were tracing a constellation on a cloudy night. Even if she couldn’t see them, she knew where the stars were.
Karvek looked at her, a satisfied look creeping across his face, and Iryana quickly diverted her gaze.
At his insistence, Iryana continued, explaining where the breaks in the patrols would be, the moments to take advantage of. Karvek and his captain listened closely.
When she finished, Karvek gave the captain the order to distribute the plan to the rest of the soldiers. She thought that was it, but once they were alone, he pointed to an area of the castle on his map.
“What’s the best way to get here? Unnoticed.”
Iryana leaned forward carefully, Karvek’s gaze even sharper than before, even more demanding.
“All the easy ways are the most guarded. But if we scale the wall…” she trailed off, running her fingers through the paths. “If we climb up here and move across this upper wall, we can get through the guards. This section should be lightly guarded based on the other shifts.”
But that was always the most theoretical part.
They had to guess how the guards moved when they were out of sight.
Still… climbing the wall would be a lot easier in just the trousers and tunic she wore.
Iryana wondered if Karvek had known they’d have to scale their way in and if that was why they were unarmored.
“Let’s go then.” He headed toward the opening she’d pointed out.
Taking a calming breath and hoping she hadn’t made any mistakes, Iryana followed, just like before.
“Here.” Karvek headed right to the edge of the trees, a decent sprint from the base of the wall, and crouched behind a dense mass of peashrubs.
Iryana joined him, her heart flying.
It was just the two of them, their magic, and the forest. She could feel the stillness between them, the expectation in the way Karvek stared out toward the fortress.
He looked like a man about to be given command, despite not being dressed for battle.
Beneath his cloak, Karvek wore a near-black, short-sleeved wool tunic, showing the golden-brown of the shirt he wore underneath.
The standing band collar circled his neck, and the gray-embroidered sleeves covered his forearms. It was fine as anything else the ketsan wore.
She’d be calling him general soon.
A strange feeling simmered in her belly, and Iryana forced herself to look away from Karvek, focusing on the task at hand.
They were right across from one of the corner towers, the closest they could get to a blind spot in the guards’ rotations that was just opening up.
They darted across the open clearing, gray cloaks trailing behind them, just as the guard above them stepped away. Then they were below the tower that stuck out from the wall. She ignored the deep gouges in the wood, the black blood crusted into the cracks.
Iryana hurried to the corner, where the ends of the stacked logs jutted out, providing just enough purchase for the ends of her fingers and tips of her boots.
It was no harder than the cliffs she scaled outside the Dovaki post, but she had a lot of practice.
She worried briefly whether Karvek could climb it, but when she looked down, she found him following easily enough.
His long limbs let him eat the distance quickly, muscles visibly working beneath the dark tunic and brown shirt. What he lacked in grace, Karvek made up for with power. Not wanting to slow him down, Iryana turned her gaze skyward again, finding the next handhold.
The easy part of the climb ended when Iryana reached the base of the top floor of the tower, which extended over the wall and the ground beneath.
Iryana slowly wrapped her arms around the supporting beam above her, letting her legs fall from their perch until she was suspended over the ground.
With a grunt, Iryana slowly scooted her hands toward the outer wall of the overhang.
Her arm muscles burned from holding up her entire body weight, but she managed to make it to the corner and find a spot to wedge her foot in. She was exhausted and sore, her entire body protesting the rest of the climb.
Iryana looked back toward the wall where Karvek was preparing to slide along the support beams. His gray-blue eyes were like molten metal.
“Not having second thoughts, are you?” he said in a low voice. The words were teasing, but the tone was not.
“I wouldn’t let you down,” she vowed, her resolve strengthening.
She could do this. She had to do this.
It was slow going, but they eventually made it to the roof of the tower. Iryana pulled herself up until she was lying prone across the tower, entirely out of sight from anyone in the fortress.
Karvek crouched beside her, pulling in deep breaths, but the exertion didn’t seem to have dulled any of his intensity.
She looked up to see angry clouds looming over them and blocking out the stars.
Earlier, the clouds had looked like they would pass with little fuss, but now they looked ready to drown them.
She almost pointed them out to Karvek, but he was staring so intently over the ridge of the roof that the words died in her throat.
In a rushed panic, Iryana pulled herself up to the peak of the roof and looked over. There were more guards lingering around the center yards and paths than there should have been. Far more guards. The path she had identified would not work.
She’d made a mistake—she’d misread the maps Karvek had shown her.
Her whole body tensed, throat tightening, but she couldn’t allow that. She had to focus. After a few deep breaths, she traced back through the maps in her mind, and she realized that no, she hadn’t missed anything. Something must have changed.
Rain began to fall.
“There must be something going on. Some reason to add more guards,” Iryana whispered quickly, trying to convince him as much as herself that it wasn’t her fault. “There will be another opening tomorrow night; should we wait until—”
“No. It has to be tonight.”
Panic and doubt seized her, but she told him, “I’ll think of something.”
Iryana started breathing quicker, her mind racing.
She couldn’t fail already; she just couldn’t.
She tracked the guards, trying to find some kind of pattern that linked back to the painstakingly assembled rotations and paths she’d charted, but most of them were just standing around.
It was as if the increased guards had been last minute, like they didn’t have a plan beyond more. It was the wrong kind of chaos.
Her eyes fell on the small stable yard inside the wall. But the right kind of chaos…
“Get ready to move,” Iryana whispered, and then slipped over the other side of the roof and onto the walk.
Grabbing one of the lit torches, Iryana scurried over and chucked it toward the back of the stables. She ducked against the wall, hoping no one would get hurt, just as the whinnying and stomping of hooves rang out against the walls of the keep.
Karvek gave her a nod from where he crouched. The rain was coming down heavily now, and his drenched hood sagged around his face.
With the guards rushing off to see what had disturbed the horses, Iryana followed Karvek across the walkway.
They would only have a short time before the guards returned, and Iryana found herself glancing nervously down toward the stables.
When they reached the corner, where the walkway was closest to the main keep, they stopped.
Karvek climbed onto the edge and reached for the roof.
Iryana felt a thrill of anticipation rise up her spine. They were almost there.
Karvek turned to her, and she could only just make out his expression, but it wasn’t what she expected. “Head back to the camp now,” he ordered, pulling himself up. “I’m doing the rest alone.”
She stared at him. That was it—that was all he wanted from her? She had managed to do her part; she had succeeded. So why did she feel so disappointed?
Iryana opened her mouth to argue, but his eyes had that hard glint to them she knew was a warning.
After everything, he was going to deny her seeing his plan play out?
She was sure he had accounted for everything, that he had both her best interest and that of the plan in mind.
He was thorough like that. But after so long working together so closely—talking the way they had late into the night—she had hoped that he could open up more to her at the end. She had put her trust in him after all.
Iryana nodded her agreement and leaned back against the wall, trying to calm herself as Karvek disappeared over the roof and into the rain. The cold was seeping through her cloak, the water splashing onto her boots and chilling her toes.
She knew she should head back, but she hesitated. What if he ran into trouble? If he failed, she would be back where she started, trying to impress a team that didn’t want her. Two weeks of effort wasted.
She had to make sure he didn’t fail.
Not allowing a moment to doubt herself, Iryana climbed onto the roof and began crawling in the direction Karvek had gone. He needn’t know she was following him, unless she had to help.