CHAPTER 46
DAVINA
One day ago
DAWN WAS ONLY JUST STARTING TO brUISE THE HORIZON WHEN THE FAMILIAR OPENING APPEARED BEFORE ME.
Hiking the crater wall in the darkness had been as dreadful as I’d imagined, one bad foothold away from cartwheeling down the crater wall, but waiting until daylight hadn’t been an option, so I’d donned my loyal boots, and the thickest pair of gloves I owned, and got on with it.
Goes without saying that there’s not a whole lot left of said gloves.
I reached the temple in the first lavender wash of morning and dropped through the broken colonnade.
Sliding along the sloped stones, I ducked through the gap from the day before.
Tendrils of light filtered through the holes above, just enough to keep me from snapping an ankle as I retraced my steps.
My pulse drummed a staccato when I entered the vault. I hadn’t truly had the chance to see it as I’d hid it from Zephyr’s eyes. That single, frantic glance had hinted at racks of glassware, vases, piles of notebooks and files, polished copper coils. . .
But holy shit.
The sheer magnitude of Sircelen’s biggest secret—his legacy—was so much more than a stash.
A way to create sap itself.
That was how the doctor had managed to siphon so much of the magical substance to Kaelthorn’s cell without an obvious dent in the reservoir stock. Because it had never come from it.
I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.
This all but proved that the goal of the Kobrant faction of the Sapless had nothing to do with destroying the world’s sap. And—
A truth landed like a boulder in my gut: if either nation claimed this . . .
Good Gods. I didn’t dare finish the thought.
My skin was taut, fear and trepidation coiling around my windpipe like a vise. This was so much more complicated than anything I could have imagined. So outside of my abilities, I didn’t even . . . Fuck.
The one thing I was certain of was that it couldn’t fall in the wrong hands. Not with the Evergreen Mahogany trees running dry across the entirety of Septune.
Only, there was no way I’d be able to move all the equipment on my own in a week, and I highly doubted I had anything more than a couple hours.
Then do most of them.
If I stole the notebooks but left the rest of the equipment behind, it might be enough to one day recreate it, while also rendering this one useless. A terrible plan, but it was all I—
“It was a good attempt.”
Every muscle locked at the sound of the familiar voice. My blood froze.
No.
“It ends in checkmate, I’m afraid.”
I scanned the roof, floor, shadows, and walls. Every inch of ground, every rust-streaked crevice.
Nothing.
My heart thrashed inside my chest.
“Sneaky, cunning, treacherous Lachlan.”
The air in front of me shimmered, right in the center of the room, and Captain Zephyr Kentar stepped out of nothing, hands in his pockets, smirk knife-sharp. Gone was the lazy tilt I’d stupidly come to crave. What remained was a winner’s smile.
No, no.
I refused to believe what I was seeing. My mind struggled to catch up with the calculating part of my brain. My knees threatened to buckle.
But of course.
Invisibility. I’d filed the fact away on day one, certain it was a useless skill for this mission given the nature of our collaboration.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
“Don’t look so appalled,” the captain of the King’s Army drawled. “You were a tough opponent, I will give you that. Took me most of the night to decipher your little magic show, but here we are.”
He knew.
He somehow knew, and I was doomed.
I had thought myself so clever while, all along, I had been the one falling into his trap. Panic clawed up my throat. My breath came in short, quick puffs as my predicament settled, a drowning weight pushing me down, down, down.
I wracked my brain for a way out, but I was out of options, pressed between a rock and a hard place. I had to get rid of him If Zephyr didn’t sell me to the King’s Army, he would reveal my treachery to Ludwig—
Hold on.
He had no way to know I had been about to betray the Republic, as well as Kobra.
To him I was a centurion breaking a treaty, as was expected, not a would-be Sapless conspirator.
We’d both known the odds of ending here and now were staggeringly high.
Ending on opposite sides of the war that had been silently waged by our continents for a century.
And I’d prepared for this. All my life, all my successes, converged in this very moment. I had one last chance. A fucked up one, but a chance to fight had always been enough for me.
The thought hadn’t fully formed before muscle memory yanked my pistol from the cross-draw holster—
Metal never kissed my palm. With the flick of two fingers, the weapon flew into the captain’s outstretched hand.
He tutted his tongue. “A menace indeed.”
Movement caught my attention from the edges of my vision. Two burly men entered the cave from openings on either side I hadn’t been watching. My stomach fell. The newcomers’ attention was on me as they approached their captain.
Uncertainty trickled in.
One to one, surprise or not, I might have made it out alive. Zephyr was strong, but I’d defeated him once before, in a sparring ring that felt like it’d happened years ago. I could have done it again.
If only he hadn’t been ahead of me in every single aspect, damn him. I wasn’t delusional enough to believe I could take the three of them on my own. If there were just three.
“There’s more of them in the tunnels,” he confirmed, once again reading my every thought. Green eyes flicked past my shoulder, and I knew without looking that a fourth operative blocked the only exit I knew. “You’ve been outmaneuvered and outnumbered.”
My fist clenched tightly as I struggled to assess every angle, searching for a crack in Zephyr’s immaculate plan.
Surrendering was not an option. I could fight, but I was aware enough of my limitations to know there was nothing I could do against at least four Kobrant soldiers, not even if I had a hundred years of training.
I forced my shoulders back, lifting my chin. Our eyes collided. “Now what?”
Zephyr’s gaze drifted over the gleaming equipment. “That depends on you. Surrender peacefully and I’ll get you a fair trial.”
A fair trial. As if.
A fair trial would not be in the cards for me, and we both knew it. If I wasn’t tortured for information in the war that was surely about to come over what lay in this vault, I’d be put to death for what I was. For the forbidden skill inked on my skull.
A reality warper would never be left to walk free.
A chill threaded my spine, but I kept my chin high. “You get the prize.” I waved to the equipment around us, burying the urge to wince. To thrash.
How right had Leonidas Alkaterre been not to trust me. I’d led his enemy right into Kaelthorn’s cell’s biggest, most precious secret. Might as well have destroyed Sircelen’s legacy.
It was a titanic effort to keep the shaking from my voice. “Isn’t that enough?”
“No.” The cavern seemed to shrink around the breadth of the captain’s shoulders. “You’re out of moves,” he said, voice low, “and too smart to die here.”
He was right about one thing: I was out of moves. Maybe . . . just maybe, I could make a run for it. If I timed it right. Where, I didn’t know. And it would mean all of Sircelen’s work would fall into the King of Kobra’s hands.
But what choice did I have?
Time. I need time.
And so, I did what I did best. “Careful, Kentar. Last time you underestimated me, I wiped the floor with your ass.”
Zephyr’s gaze pinned me, not falling for it. “There’s no way out.”
I bit my tongue, drawing blood.
We’ll see about that.
“Don’t even—”
I bolted. No time to think, or plan, I dove straight for the wall right behind me.
Shouts rose around me for a fraction of a second, a gunshot, then all noise vanished when stone swallowed me in its cool darkness as I phased through.
I held onto my skill, focusing on pushing one foot in front of the other.
There was no room to form prayers, of having done the calculations right during my short exploration.
If they weren’t, if I didn’t get out before I had to let go, I would materialize in the middle of the wall, and every molecule in my body would yield to the stone’s much greater strength.
It was better than succumbing to Captain Zephyr Kentar, but not by much.
As if on cue, light flared and I exploded into a narrow tunnel, boots skidding on dust. I almost sagged against the other side, but as loud screams and voices echoed behind me, I knew it wasn’t time for relief.
Knowing I’d bought myself seconds—if that—I didn’t slow down, taking a turn down the first passageway, then another, and another.
I lost every sense of direction. Lost every chance to win, and the only option left was to run.
I refused to let everything I’d learnt in the past few weeks be for nothing. I’d uncovered darkness in the world, and a timid, newfound desire to learn and to fight it ran through my veins, propelling every step.
Fight for a better world.
For Sircelen’s vision, yes, but also for what might have been becoming my own.
But in order to uncover the truth I’d been too blinded to see, and in order to fight, I had to be alive.
I turned another corner . . . and came to a screeching halt.
Somehow, impossibly, there he was. A ruthlessness I had never seen before threaded through the tilt of his mouth. One that made it instantly obvious why he was the captain of the King’s Army.
“Give up,” Zephyr threatened. “There’s nowhere you can run where I won’t find you.”
I didn’t counter his claim. There was no point.
Without warning, I charged, only for him to vanish in front of my eyes. I turned around, bracing for impact that never came.
“Give up,” he snarled again, somewhere to my right. I spun again, only to find the corridor empty. “You lose.” His voice came from the direction of the main chamber this time.
My heart pounded. An idea started to form.
Too risky, the trained part of my brain warned.
But I had no other choice. I sharpened my senses. I could do it. I would.
A shift in the air gave him away. He lunged, and I didn’t hesitate. I dodged, throwing myself sideways and slamming into the wall. The impact sent a shockwave through the stone.
The shockwave that I needed. A shockwave that my vibrokinesis instructor and I figured out how to use for maximum damage, almost a decade ago. So destructive I’d never before dared to use it. Until now.
I pushed the full force of my power into the rough surface beneath my fingers. It was instinct. Every defensive drill I’d ever endured crashing into this moment. Just one thought, and the vibration multiplied tenfold.
“Lachlan, no!” Zephyr’s voice came from somewhere to my right, cracked by terror.
I had no time to savor it.
No time to decipher the pang that hit my chest.
One second, a gunshot echoed around the narrow corridor.
In the next, the tunnel was coming down on us.