Chapter 31 Alar #2
Climbing equipment. There were people outside our window, using cables to rappel from above.
I moved fast, grabbing my handgun from the desk drawer and reaching for Kailin. "Wake up. Assassins are coming."
She stirred slowly, the sleeping draught making her groggy and confused. "Wha—?"
"Up. Now." I hauled her to her feet, pressing her knife into her hand. She'd left her handgun in the drawer of her desk. There was no time to get it now.
"Alar, what—"
The window exploded inward.
Glass shattered across the floor as four figures in dark clothing crashed through.
Their faces were covered, only their eyes visible through black masks, but they weren't Shedun.
They didn't have the black kohl painted around their eyes.
In the aurora light, I caught the glint of steel—knives, not guns.
Thank Elurion for small mercies.
One of them headed straight for Kailin. The other three came at me.
Training took over. I raised my weapon, but they were already too close, inside the gun's effective range, before I could get a clean shot.
Then they were on me.
I used the gun as a club, cracking it against the temple of the first attacker. He staggered, and I kicked him in the chest, sending him sprawling into a desk. Books and papers scattered. Kailin's charcoals and sketchbooks tumbled to the floor.
The second attacker slashed at me with his knife. I twisted away, feeling the blade whistle past my ribs. Too close. The room was too small for this kind of fight, too much furniture in the way, no space to maneuver properly.
Behind me, I heard Kailin's sharp intake of breath and the clash of steel on steel. She was fighting, but the sleeping draught was probably making her sluggish. I wanted to look, wanted to make sure she was all right, but I couldn't take my eyes off the three men trying to kill me.
One of them grabbed my wrist, trying to force the gun from my hand. I drove my knee into his gut, felt him fold, and broke free. But the upturned desk was between Kailin and me, the attackers herding me away from her.
The first one recovered, rejoining the fight.
They were trained and competent enough to be dangerous. Not Shedun warriors.
Elusitor converts?
A blade caught my shoulder, slicing through my nightshirt into flesh. Pain flared hot, but I didn't let it distract me. I used the momentum to spin, slamming my elbow into my attacker's face. Something crunched. He stumbled back.
Furniture crashed as we fought. A chair splintered when one of them slammed into it. Kailin's easel went over with a clatter, her half-finished painting of the mountains destroyed beneath someone's boot.
I couldn't think about that. Couldn't think about anything except survive, strike, and defend.
One of them got behind me, arm snaking around my throat. I grabbed his wrist, twisted, and used his own momentum to flip him over my shoulder. He hit the floor hard but rolled away before I could follow.
That's when I heard Kailin cry out.
I risked a glance.
She'd wounded her attacker, blood was darkening his sleeve, but she was struggling, fighting on instinct and stubbornness alone.
Her attacker dodged her blade and grabbed her wrist, twisting until her knife clattered to the floor. Then his arm was around her throat from behind, squeezing.
A chokehold.
Kailin's eyes went wide with panic, her fingers clawing at his arm. But he was bigger, stronger, and he had the position. I saw the intent in his body language, the way he was positioning his grip.
He was going to snap her neck.
Everything slowed down, time stretching like sap.
I brought my gun up. The angle was terrible, Kailin partly blocking my shot, her attacker's head barely visible behind hers. Just the slightest bit off and I'd hit her instead.
But if I didn't shoot, she'd be dead in seconds.
I could make the shot. I had to.
Breathe, aim, the moment between heartbeats when the body is still.
I fired.
The sound was impossibly loud. The bullet found its mark—through the attacker's temple, clean and final. He dropped like a puppet whose strings had been cut, taking Kailin down with him.
The door crashed open, the bolt ripping free from the frame.
Morek burst through first, moving with that inhuman speed of his. He was a blur, crossing the room before my eyes could track him. One of my attackers went down, Morek having disarmed him and broken his arm.
Codric and Shovia were right behind him. They tackled another attacker together, bearing him to the ground in a tangle of limbs. Shovia had her knife at his throat before he could recover.
The hall monitor appeared in the doorway, weapon drawn, eyes wide at the carnage.
The fourth attacker, the one I'd wounded earlier, made a break for the window. He grabbed the cable they'd used to descend from above and launched himself out into the night.
I started after him, but Morek caught my arm. "Let him go. Go take care of Kailin."
I stumbled across the destroyed room, where Kailin sat on the floor, the dead attacker sprawled beside her. She was shaking, blood spattered over her nightclothes.
"Are you hurt?" I dropped to my knees beside her, running my hands over her arms, her shoulders, checking for wounds. "Kailin, talk to me."
"I'm—not hurt." Her voice was thin, breathy. "He didn't—you shot him before—"
"I know. I know." I pulled her into my arms, holding her tight while she trembled. "You're safe. You're safe now."
Footsteps pounded in the hallway. More security arrived, alerted by the shot and the screaming. They flooded into the room with weapons drawn, taking in the scene with professional scrutiny.
Then Ravel was there. His eyes swept the room—the broken window, the scattered furniture, the bodies, the blood. They settled on Kailin and me, and something shifted in his expression.
Fury.
He was furious, but I didn't know whether it was at the assassins for trying to kill Kailin or me for not doing a good enough job of protecting her.
"Get a medic," he ordered. "Now. And secure those two prisoners before they bleed out. I want them alive for questioning."
The security team took over for Codric and Shovia, binding the attacker they'd tackled to the ground. Morek's guy was unconscious, so he couldn't give the team any trouble.
That left the dead one. The man I'd shot to save Kailin's life.
Ravel crouched beside the body, pulling down the mask.
The face staring sightlessly at the ceiling was young, mid-twenties, and looked Elucian.
He had the rough hands of a laborer, and I wondered what his job was at the Citadel.
Ravel patted his pockets and pulled out a small packet with the remnants of a brown, sticky substance.
He brought it to his nose, sniffed, and grimaced.
"This smells like the drugs the Shedun ingest before attacking," Ravel said. "If he uses this crap, he must be a convert."
Kailin's trembling intensified, and I held her tighter to me.
How much more of this could she handle?
Perhaps instead of refusing my family's request to come home, I should use it to get her out of here. Nothing was worth her life. Not becoming a rider, not what I'd come here to do, and not that damn prophecy.
I could deal with my parents' reaction to her.
"There were four of them," Codric said from where he stood near the shattered window. "One escaped."
"He's not going to make it far." Ravel looked at me and then Kailin. "They were obviously after Kailin. How did you two manage to fight them off?"
I shifted my grip on her. "I felt that something was wrong, then I heard them at the window. They were using ropes to rappel from the platform above us."
"Your instincts saved your lives." Ravel regarded me with newfound appreciation. "Elucia is in your debt, Alar. I'm in your debt."
I wanted to ask what he'd meant by that when a medic pushed through the crowd. "Anyone hurt?"
"Not seriously," Morek said.
The woman looked at my shoulder. "This looks like it needs stitching."
I'd forgotten about my wound. "I'll live. Please check Kailin first."
I didn't want to let go of her, but I forced myself to ease back. The medic examined her, checking her throat where purple bruises were already forming, her wrists where she'd been grabbed, and her scalp for any head trauma.
"It's mostly superficial," the medic announced. "The bruising will hurt for a few days, and you'll be sore, but nothing serious. You're very lucky, Cadet Strom."
Kailin nodded mutely.
The medic turned to me next, hissing when she got a better look at the knife wound on my shoulder. "You'll need to come to the infirmary with me."
"I'm not leaving Kailin."
"You don't have to. Both of you need to be checked thoroughly." She looked around the destroyed room and shook her head. "You can't stay here anyway. You'll be spending the night in the infirmary."
Ravel nodded. "Go. I'll handle the scene here."
Shovia offered Kailin a hand up. "Come on. Let's get you and your boyfriend taken care of."
Morek retrieved my weapon from where I'd dropped it and handed it back to me, then gathered Kailin's as well. "We are coming with you, and we will be right outside the infirmary. No one's getting near you again tonight."
Codric looked out the broken window, examining the metal rope system. "That's military-grade equipment."
"We'll discuss it all later," Ravel said.
The walk through the halls felt surreal. Word had spread fast, and cadets in various states of undress lined the corridors, whispering and staring as we passed. Security had cordoned off our section, but beyond that, it was chaos.
"The Hero of Elucia was nearly assassinated again, this time in her own room," someone murmured. "Are we even safe here?"
"I heard there were six of them," someone else said.
"No, eight. Maybe more."
"It was Elusitor's converts. They must be everywhere."
The rumors would only grow in proportion, and by morning, half the Citadel would believe we'd fought off an entire Shedun swarm, including their worm.
Kailin leaned heavily on my good side, with Shovia propping her on the other side. I kept my arm around her waist, partly supporting her and partly needing the contact to prove that she was still alive.
It was a miracle that we'd survived the attack. I had no idea how Kailin had managed to hold off her attacker for so long. He was bigger, stronger, and she was under the effects of the sleeping draught.
Elu must have been watching over her.
When we got to the infirmary, it was a relief to find the place bright and clean. The medic directed us to adjacent beds that were separated only by a privacy curtain. She set to work on my shoulder, while another medic examined Kailin more thoroughly.
The stitches hurt, but I'd had worse. I focused more on the sounds from the other side of the curtain than on what was being done to me.
"You did well tonight," the medic said as she tied off the last stitch. "Not many first-year cadets could have handled four attackers."
"We had help from our friends." I thought of Morek's impossible speed, Codric and Shovia's immediate action, the way they'd all rushed in without hesitation.
"Kailin is very lucky to have you." She secured the bandage. "Keep this clean and dry. Come back in a week to have the stitches removed."
When she pulled back the curtain, I found Kailin sitting on the edge of her bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Her throat was bandaged, her wrists wrapped. She looked small and vulnerable and on the verge of collapse.
I crossed over to her bed, sat beside her, and took her hand. "How are you holding up?"
"Not so good. I feel disconnected." She looked at our joined hands. "The sleeping draught is still in my system. I can feel it pulling at me, but I'm too wired to sleep. Too much adrenaline."
"It will fade."
Her eyes lifted to mine, and I saw fear there. Real, deep fear. "They came for us in our room. We aren't safe there."
I had no reassuring words for that because she was right. The Citadel was supposed to be the safest place in Elucia, protected by dragons and the elite warriors of the Dragon Force. But Elusitor's converts could be anywhere, wearing familiar faces and waiting for the right moment to strike.
"We're here, and we are alive," I said. "That's what matters. We can think of what this means for us in the future, tomorrow."
"You saved my life. If you hadn't shot him..." She swallowed hard, wincing at the pain in her bruised throat. "He was going to kill me."
"I know."
"You made an impossible shot. You could have hit me."
"I didn't."
"But you could have." Her grip on my hand tightened. "You took that risk because it was the only way. Because if you didn't, I'd be dead. That was incredibly brave of you. I don't know if I would have been able to do the same."
I cupped her face gently, mindful of the bruises. "I know you would have done the same. I will always choose the chance to save you over the certainty of losing you, and you will do the same for me."
As tears spilled down her cheeks, I gathered her carefully into my arms, letting her cry against my uninjured shoulder. The medic had left us alone, giving us privacy, though I could hear her moving in the other room.
Ravel arrived a few moments later. "You two are being moved to a secure location."
"What about the rest of our quintet?" Kailin asked. "We wouldn't have made it without them."
Ravel nodded. "They will be moved as well. The five of you need to stay together."
"The prophecy," Kailin said softly. "That's why they want us dead. Someone knows about the prophecy."
Ravel looked skeptical. "I doubt it. They came after you, not the others. They wanted to eliminate the Hero of Elucia."