17. Only a Couple of Wrong Turns #3
Of course he dropped me. Why wouldn't he? One moment he pressed against me as if I mattered. And the next, he’s literally dropping me into darkness. The metaphor wasn't lost on me, even flat on my back in what I hoped was just a puddle.
His large body dangled from the opening, pulling the grate closed again. I rolled out of the way as he gracefully dropped to his feet. Probably did a little aerial spin on the way down just for flourish.
“You okay?” he asked, lit from the grate above.
As my eyes adjusted to the semi-darkness, my tongue throbbed. It was a tunnel with beams of light entering the space from above at even intervals in each direction. Other grates, I assumed. I could make out his hand offering to pull me up, but ignored it.
“I’m fine,” I growled as I tasted blood and scrambled to my feet.
“This way,” he murmured.
“What is this place?” I asked, shaking off my irritation while following him and unsuccessfully trying to avoid splashing through the questionable liquid.
My emotions were all over the place. Get a grip, Wren. You’re underground, possibly in sewage, being chased by slavers—and you're worried about whether a man who kicks people unconscious for a living finds you appealing. Priorities, woman.
“They’re tunnels that run under the city for when they have flash floods. It doesn’t happen often, but when it rains, the soil is too dry for the water to permeate the ground,” he explained. “If I remember the way, one of these will take us right outside the west wall.”
“How do you know that?”
“I used the same tunnels when I had to get in and out of the city five years ago.”
“When you killed their king,” I whispered, just casually bringing up regicide in underground tunnels. As one does. “But how did you know about them back then?”
“There was some sort of informant, someone who knew the layout of the city and especially these tunnels. I received a hand-drawn map when I was preparing for the job.”
“But I didn’t think Volanti were allowed in the city.”
“They weren’t. I don’t know how we got it, but whoever drew it put a small astrological symbol of the sun above the symbol of Juno on the lower corner of the map.”
Latching onto the details, I flipped them around like puzzle pieces.
“Juno…means queen.” My mind kept chugging, letting the questions spill out. Because if I stopped, I'd have to acknowledge our current predicament. And the weird alleyway moment. And his abrupt retreat as if I’d suddenly developed a contagious rash.
“Yes, as in Solis, the sun, to Queen Vesna. It was pretty obvious the informant wasn’t one of us, but someone who betrayed their own kingdom.”
“Why would they put that on a corner of the map? It seems like an odd place for it.”
It niggled at my brain, that detail. Like when you worry you've left a candle burning, but can't remember if you actually did or if you're just being paranoid.
“What does that have to do with anything?” he sighed, his tone sharpening with impatience. “We're trying to escape, not solve five-year-old mysteries. It doesn't really matter. The map worked.”
I fell silent, heat creeping up my neck. He was right, of course. But my racing thoughts didn't care about proper timing.
We traveled through the tunnels, making only a couple of wrong turns before seeing a small metal gate ahead. Outside the gate, large boulders and shrubbery blocked the opening from being seen from the desert beyond.
“That gate wasn’t here last time.”
“They probably put it in because of you.”
In the light from the tunnel opening, I could see his smirk.
There was a chain and lock around the latch. He pulled at the lock and then reached for his daggers…that were no longer attached to his waist.
“Damn.” He looked around the tunnel until he spied an elongated rock outside the gate. “Can you reach that?” he asked, pointing it out. “My arm will never fit.”
I got down and reached between the metal bars.
“Are you upset that you lost your green dagger?” I asked as the very tip of my finger grazed the rock. I pushed my body against the metal, straining to reach it.
He huffed a small laugh. “It won’t be gone long. It always seems to find its way back to me.”
“Wait, really? How does that work?”
“I have no idea.”
“So you have a magical boomerang dagger and you just…never mentioned this?” I asked, the tip of my finger finally rolled the rock toward us.
“Do you have any other enchanted accessories I should know about? Dancing boots? An invisible cloak?” I grabbed it and pulled it through the narrow opening before handing it to him.
“Stand back.”
He slammed the rock against the cast-iron lock. In one swing, both the rock and the shank broke. Opening the gate, he slid through the gap in the boulders. He stopped and scanned what lay in front of us.
“We’ll have to keep to the coverage of the outcropping and head along the wall,” he whispered before crouching down and moving out. I followed, but only made it three steps before I froze.
In what was becoming a concerning pattern, a knife was at my throat.