Chapter Thirty-Six Bladestone Prison #3
Voices ahead had her leaping back into the shelter of the stairwell. She couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Reya peered around the corner carefully to see two men on watch before an unmarked door at the end of a long, narrow hall with no other doors.
The only way for her to come at the guards would be head-on. That was a problem.
A long, unearthly scream came from the end of the hall. It was masculine, but she couldn’t scent anything familiar. She could only scent blood and pain and… sulfur?
The guards were unaffected, as though they had been hearing the screams for hours.
This was, in all likelihood, the entry to the high-security cells, designed as it was to force her to reveal herself.
Attacking two guards might not sound the alarm right away, but it wouldn’t take long. Her goal had been to remain unseen for as long as possible.
Because she had the same problem the Order of Light had a year ago: the signal fires.
As soon as it became clear the prison had been breached, those fires would burn bright across the mountains, alerting other garrisons.
When that happened, she would have, if her information was current, less than two hours before reinforcements arrived.
Then they would be trapped, and even the God Power might not save them.
Killing these guards would be a gamble. Caelan, Thance, and Omira might not be in there at all. And she might risk starting the countdown for nothing. But if they were and she left them in there to be tortured…
The next scream decided for her. Reya ignited as she took the corner at a run, releasing a flash of light meant not to destroy, only to blind.
She needed at least one of them alive to answer questions.
It startled the guards, who were still shielding their eyes when she reached them and swept out a leg, knocking one man to the ground.
Reya didn’t give the other guard time to reorient before she slammed the pin into his eye.
He staggered with a scream that choked off into a gag when she landed a swift blow to his throat.
She brought him down hard by the neck into her awaiting knee, plunging the pin in deep, and unsheathed his short sword as he collapsed to the floor.
The other man scrambled to his feet and began sprinting down the hall toward the stairs.
Reya ran after him, tackling him to the floor and cursing over the crash of metal armor on stone.
He drove his elbow back into her jaw, and she tasted blood.
She slammed a fist into his head and vaulted back onto her feet, blocking the stairs.
His blade met her own, though the hall was narrow enough that fighting was difficult.
The short sword wasn’t Etellinian steel, but she swung it as well as any other weapon, and he was just a prison guard chosen for this post for his brawn and not his skill.
In five swings, she had her sword tip to his larynx, backing him up against the wall.
“You will burn for this, bloodling,” the guard snarled.
“Three Sages were brought here. Twins and a dark-haired male. Are they behind that door?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Lie. Reya kneed him in the groin, forcing him to hunch farther on the blade point. “Let’s see if I can refresh your memory. Golden eyes. Build like an All-God.” It was subtle, but she saw the recognition in his eyes. “Or I can kill you and see if your comrade is feeling more talkative.”
He looked between Reya’s face, the sword, and his partner gasping on the ground, still clutching his eye.
Then he scanned the hall, looking for solutions.
When he found none, his throat bobbed over the blade’s edge, and a trail of red ran down the polished steel.
“He’ll be dead by the time you find him.
And you’ll never make it out of here alive—”
Reya drove the sword through his neck and into the wall behind him. He made a wet, choked noise, and blood dripped from the corners of his mouth as she leaned in to say in his ear, “When you meet your god, thank her that I did not have the time to show you the meaning of pain.”
Reya let his body fall to the floor and went to dispatch the other guard.
She had what she needed. With little fanfare, she drove her sword up under his breastplate into his gut.
She left the sword there as she armed herself with his dagger and yanked the bloody snake’s tail from his eye, smearing it on her white shift.
“If you open that door,” he managed to say, his voice a wet, barely audible rasp, “all of you will die.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
He shook his head once, slowly, wheezing. “Others have tried. You will not live to see the dawn.”
Reya drew the sword from his gut slowly, watching his blood pool beneath him. A ring of white light encircled her pupils as her violet Ire raced down her arms and legs. The God Power surged until she was bathed in an aura that set her white shift glowing.
The truth of Reyanwyn of the Mountain laid bare. A gift and a curse, both hers to carry.
“I am the dawn.” She blew the door to smithereens.