CHAPTER 17
DAVINA
One month ago
“I THINK YOU MIGHT BE RIGHT.” I turned at the sound of Kwabena’s voice. A wistful smile curved his lips as his fingers absently twirled one of his braided locks.
Both his and Zephyr’s eyes were squinted in thought as they studied the lines. The captain took a couple of steps back, letting his gaze travel over the entire wall. I held my breath, waiting, hoping . . .
Kwabena stepped closer, tapping on a rectangle to the left of what I had identified as these very pyramids.
“This could be the temple of the Goddess of the Sun in the outskirts of Kantria. It also has catacombs with various altars and praying rooms.”
The confirmation sent a jolt through my chest.
Finally, some progress.
Barely keeping the kick out of my step, I approached the crooked triangle hovering near the ceiling. “That one is marked,” I said, nodding at the circle surrounding it. “Any idea of what it could be?”
I did not dare breathe too deeply, barely moved an inch as the Kobrants studied the markings, their relative positions to each other, the odd diagrams—
“Keftara.” Zephyr’s voice sliced through the air.
The whole pyramid stopped and listened for a second. Not even the crackling flames dared to break the moment.
We have something to go forward. Possibly even the location of the stash itself.
Excitement bubbled in my chest.
“Also known as The Tallest Mountain,” he added.
“Or . . .” His head moved and I looked up.
Green eyes met mine. They shone strangely in the wavering light.
If that look was a song, it’d be that moment in which the crescendo peaks.
It was harder to shape into words. He didn’t look away, though, didn’t shy from my unwavering stare when, like that climactic moment in which the song comes to an end, he finished, “The Broken Mountain.”
Yes.
I didn’t waste time. Ruffling through my bag, I took out the journal and charcoal and flipped to the first white page.
“This looks like it moves.” Kwabena’s voice echoed around the room.
I looked up from my first scribbled line. He’d drifted to the large bust near the entrance. Armand stood a few feet away and turned towards him too.
“Could one of you—?”
A thunderous crack swallowed the rest of his words. The whole chamber groaned.
Then came the roar. A deep, ancient sound that seemed to come from the very bones of the pyramid. Deafening, primal, splitting the air like the wrath of a long-buried king, outraged by our intrusion.
Then the shaking began, and terror unlike I’d ever known flooded my gut.
I whipped around, map forgotten as a jagged fracture ran up the wall behind Armand and Kwabena, dust raining all around them. Small pebbles began to roll down, followed by large chunks of rock.
Armand’s wide eyes met mine across the crumbling chamber. “It’s coming down!”
“Run!” My voice broke on the command.
Gaze not straying from Armand and Kwabena’s retreating backs, I took off.
Two strides were all I managed to steal before a massive stone column crashed right in front of me.
I screamed, phasing and retreating a step at the same time.
My heartbeat thundered as I fought to assess my surroundings.
Even squinting I could barely see anything through the floating dust but . . .
No.
Barring the only exit was now a mountain of stones.
I’m going to be entombed.
“No!” I lunged instinctually, ready to phase, and skidded to a halt mere inches away from the edge of a massive fissure that had appeared on the ground. A rough hand closed around my bicep and pulled me backwards, away from the opening.
My chest heaved through a gasp, lungs fighting for air that was too thick with dust and suspended particles.
“We’re cut off,” Zephyr said over the deafening cacophony. “We need to find another way out.”
But there was no other way.
We’re going to die here.
My chest tightened when I couldn’t see Kwabena or Armand beyond the mountain of rock.
I could only hope they’d made it out before the wall came down.
My eyes frantically scanned the room, looking for something—anything—that might get me out.
There was enough light now to see around thanks to the cracks forming on the outer wall—
Wait.
That’s it.
I could not phase through countless feet of stone, but I could through a single wall. Relief flooded my veins, then vanished as quickly as it’d appeared.
Zephyr couldn’t phase.
Can I leave him behind?
I knew the answer even before the question had fully formed.
“That wall,” I panted. “Zephyr, can you—”
He was already moving, letting go of my arm.
Eyes narrowed, he looked around us. Both of his arms rose in front of him as he used psychokinesis to sweep one of the massive boulders from the floor.
It rose like a puppet in a storm, the surrounding debris peltering its surface before he hurtled it at the wall.
The crash was deafening.
Stone groaned as the pyramid fought back.
But more cracks appeared on the wall, spreading through the stone. Sunbeams filtered through them like bolts of lightning, bright and blinding. More rocks rained down behind us, closer this time. An invisible noose was tightening over my throat.
“Again! Harder!”
On the third hit, with a noise that rivalled the crack of thunder, a gaping wound split open in the wall. The dust had yet to settle when I bolted for it.
Light and air and . . .
A dizzying drop, and the endless stretch of coppery sand far, far below.
No.
We were dozens of feet above ground, if not a hundred. Up here, the dry desertic wind slipped through the opening, howling like a warning that joined the dooming song of the collapsing, ancient monument. I could barely hear it past the roar in my ears.
Behind us, more of the ceiling gave way, large chunks smashing into the floor, shattering the desk and the ancient tomes it held. A small part of me, the miniscule one that wasn’t panicking, mourned the knowledge that would be lost to this. To us.
The map.
But the most pressing instinct was survival.
My jaw ached as I scanned for options, discarding them as soon as they came in. None of us had anything that—
Yes.
Zephyr did. If he was able to move a large enough boulder, he might be able to lower himself safely to the ground, but both of us . . . Horror crushed my chest under its tight fist.
If he decides to leave me behind . . .
Movement at the corner of my eye caught my attention, and I turned in time to see the captain pulling on something. Ropes. The ropes of the massive canvas that had hid the map. The white, thick fabric trailed behind him as Zephyr dragged it closer.
Noting the strain in his arms and shoulders, I rushed to help. I had no idea what was in his mind. I didn’t care; anything was better than sitting ducks waiting to die entombed. I was out of ideas, and Zephyr’s determined, focused frown was acute enough to be infectious.
“How can I help?” I shouted, already gathering some of the thick ropes in my arms. The fabric was huge, heavy, and stiff with age but still, somehow, mostly intact.
“Fold,” he yelled, not looking at me. His focus was entirely on the white material.
“What are you—”
“Fold, Lachlan.” The tone in which he’d said it left no room for arguments, so I began gathering and folding the massive sheet.
A moment later, he said, “We have to jump.”
My hands froze on the rough fabric, searching his face. No trace of mirth. “You’ve lost your mind.”
His eyes claimed mine, steady and unyielding amidst the chaos. “It’s the only way.”
I shook my head, eyes wide as I watched Zephyr tightly wrapping the last corner of fabric and holding it all shut with his fingers, then beginning to coil the thick ropes around his arms, looping the ends into his vest.
“You can’t be serious. You’ll die.”
“We won’t,” he said, chest puffing out. Stepping around the haphazardly folded fabric and nearing the precipice, he turned, extending a hand towards me.
I didn’t take it—couldn’t take it.
This is madness.
“I’m not letting you die on my watch, Lachlan.”
As if on cue, the ground trembled again, a bone-rattling groan that slithered down my spine and iced my blood. More debris crashed in the chamber behind me, forcing me to step closer to the edge and to Zephyr to avoid being smashed right along.
Before I knew what was happening, the captain reached for me, looping an arm around my waist and pressing me to his front.
I gasped, but when my gaze fell prey to his, everything went quiet. He was so warm under my palms, so solid. Maybe it could work. I saw no other options, and time was running out.
“Do you trust me?”
“Absolutely not.”
His smirk was so unexpected, so ridiculously out of place, it loosened some of the tension in my chest. “Smart woman. I need you to hold onto me. My arms have to be free for this to work.”
Out of reflex, I looped them over his shoulders, crossing them behind his neck and ignoring the feeling of my body pressing against his. I felt his satisfied hum all the way to my toes.
“Ready?”
I stared at him. Then at the roaring wind and the stones cascading from the chamber.
At the dizzying fall to the golden sand below.
My body screamed at me to run, to fight, to hide, to find another way.
I couldn’t believe I was placing my survival in the hands of a man who’d been nothing but a thorn on my side.
But there just wasn’t another way.
So I nodded, just once, then held onto him like my life depended on it—I guess it did.
There was no other warning before Captain Zephyr Kentar of the King’s Army jumped.
The wind tore the air from my lungs the instant we left the edge. My face buried in his neck of its own accord, and I couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, only hold on as Zephyr sharply pulled on the ropes of the canvas, their length uncoiling from his arms.
Pleasepleaseplease—
The fabric snapped open in a crude parachute . . . and caught the wind with a violent jolt, wrenching my shoulders when I stubbornly held the captain tighter.
I peered over the rim of Zephyr’s shoulder, and the view had my stomach lurching. We dropped fast. Faster than I hoped, but slower than gravity demanded. The canvas trembled and bucked above us, but it held on, trapping the whistling wind in its seams, if only barely.
Please let it be enough.
In a blink, the dunes were rushing up to meet us, rising like a golden tide.
We crashed, landing on the sand in a tumbling heap that saw my hold on Zephyr broken.
The world tilted and rolled as I skid down the dune, heat and grit burning across my skin.
A pained grunt left me when my shoulder hit something hard, then my hip.
My lungs failed to draw air as I continued to roll and tumble.
Until, finally, I came to a halt at the bottom of the sand mount.
I gasped, fighting for breath.
Absolutely everything hurt.
But I’m alive.
“Lachlan!”
My eyes opened, then watered as I furiously blinked against the sand. Craning my neck carefully to the side, I spotted Zephyr half walking-half crawling toward me. A mess of ropes and fabric trailed him, and I realized he’d not yet freed himself from the improvised parachute.
“Are you all right?” Panic laced his every word as he fell to his knees at my side.
We were both panting heavily, and my lungs burned at every turn as heat and sand tried to claw their way out of my chest.
“Yeah,” I croaked.
Everything hurt, yes, but nothing to the point of serious injuries.
His eyes tracked the rise and fall of my chest, then trailed the length of my limbs, searching for broken bones. Only once he seemed satisfied I was whole enough, he slumped to the ground at my side with a loud groan. For a moment, there seemed to be a hundred words on his tongue.
But all he said was, “Good.”