The defensors’ shock was rich and satisfying. Lu didn’t wait for her eyes to adjust—she swiped the mortar with their remaining healing plant, Cleanse Root, off the table. Ben had prepared it should Lu need something strong, but the skin-mending Healica had been enough.
Gunnar would need Cleanse Root, though. Lu grabbed the pitcher with their antidote water as well, a few swallows that would help clear him of the prison’s magic.
Lu barreled through the door, flinging Jakes back.
“There!” a defensor cried.
“No—that spot, the corner—”
Lu bounded across the hall, weaving through the confusion, a blur of shadow in a world of shadow. She grabbed the door to Gunnar’s cell and pulled, hard. The lock broke with a pop.
Her veins tingled, her muscles surged—the Powersage? Was it a part of her now? Had she and Ben, against the impossible odds of their situation, made a magic plant permanent? She couldn’t bear the answer with its ramifications and blessings, not now.
A day, maybe two, had passed since Gunnar’s last whipping. The monxes had healed him enough to keep him alive, but he was in no state to escape, let alone fight as Lu needed him to.
She shoved the prepared Cleanse Root and water at him, expecting to have to force him to take it—but he snatched both and downed the contents.
In the darkness, he growled. “Grab Ben. Get low.”
She dove back into the hall, taking out one of the defensors with the point of her elbow. The man’s yelp drew awareness, but Lu dropped to her knees and rolled across the floor into her cell. She wrapped her arms around a set of legs and heaved—Ben.
He crashed to the ground. Beside him, a defensor stumbled blindly. “Ben—wait—”
Jakes drew closer, a looming swath of blackness against the dark. Lu shoved herself up, punched him in the temple, and dropped back down as his body fell.
Next to her, Ben swayed. “Did you—is he—”
“He’ll live,” she said, though she wasn’t certain. Her strength was new and unfamiliar.
A defensor managed to light a torch. Or—no. The light came from Gunnar, who held a flame in his palm. The golden brilliance made all attention swivel to where he stood, out of his cell, a beast of flame and ash whose eyes said one thing: retribution.
10
VEX WATCHED INhorror—and awe; god, she was so like Lu—as Kari lifted both her guns, fired, and ran at the prison’s gate.
“Give her cover!” Edda started shooting into the dust fog caused by the explosion. Other raiders obeyed as Kari gained speed, leaped through the remains of the gate, and was lost from sight in the prison’s courtyard.
“Go!” Nate shouted, and the raiders descended on the prison in a mad dash.
Beyond the gate, the bullets stopped coming, agonizing screams splitting the air. Vex ducked through behind Nayeli. Where the raiders expected to dive into battle, they stopped at the edge of a courtyard, gaping at ten Argridian soldiers—now eight, now seven—who Kari was methodically taking down.
Three of Nate’s raiders finished off an equal number ofArgridians while Kari used one soldier’s body as a shield. She stole his sword and supplemented it with her knives, spinning as she slashed at the next-closest guard. He fell, and she ducked under another’s sword to skewer the final one in the chest.
When ten bodies lay around them and the warning bell still tolled, Kari stopped, the blood on her skin gone black in the night. A darker spot on her side might have been her own wound, but she looked over the crowd.
“The groups bound for the lowest levels—remember your Narcotium Creeper if you grow disoriented. You have extra doses should you encounter any prisoners too far gone from the Bright Mint. Nate—to the guard station.”
Nate nodded dumbly. Vex and Edda eyed each other.
Kari was a Senior Councilmember. A politician, a lady. But right now, she was Kari the Wave. She was the reason the revolution had ended in victory for Grace Loray. She was relentless, a warrior—and had lost more to this than Vex could comprehend.
Nate and six of his raiders broke off, three of them taking Croxy to drive them into a battle-blind rage while the other three put Budwig Beans in their ears. The Tuncians had only had that many plants with them, and each plant contained two beans that let people communicate. Nate and his people would change the hallways and doors throughout the prison as needed.
One of Nate’s other raiders had a corresponding Budwig,as did Nayeli and Vex. Nayeli had used her influence as a Tuncian representative to refuse to let anyone use Budwig unless she led a group. Vex could taste the anxiety coming off her. She needed todo something, and Vex had made her demand to let him lead the last group for the same reason.
Nate vanished into the prison. Nayeli, Vex, and the Emerdian fished out their Budwig Beans. Shouts came from within—more guards—but the narrow prison halls would bottleneck the fighting.
The rest of the raiders waited to split into groups that would search the prison. Nate had to get to the guard station first—two minutes, he’d told them. They’d have to hold off any Argridian defensors who came at them in the courtyard, but for the moment, they had a reprieve.
