Smoke wafted off Gunnar’s skin. His bare chest gleamed, his clan mark carved and deadly. Through tangles of his blond hair, he looked at the nearest defensor, and Lu felt a shock of fear where she had only felt numb for days.
Gunnar spoke in his language, inhaled until his chest puffed, and exhaled fire.
The defensors screamed. One dropped, his body aflame as Gunnar swung his inferno across the stones. A knot of heat punched over Lu’s head and choked in the smoke. One defensor crawled back up the hall; two more were already dead. Gunnar forced the flames, twisted his hands and stomped hard on the floor to surge fire out, up, hotter,more.
The iron of the cell bars started to melt. The stones glowed red.
A break appeared through the orange and gray. Gunnar’s eyes flashed like blue flame from Ben to Jakes’s unconscious body on the floor.
“Let’s go!” he shouted, and stomped up the hall, making a tunnel of clarity in the blaze.
Lu hefted Ben to his feet. He gaped at the inferno chewing apart what had once been their cot, as she dragged him out of the cell.
They reached the end of the hall. The fire popped and charged, finding new fuel in the mortar between the bricks, the wooden lining along the ceiling.
Ben grabbed Gunnar’s arm, stopping him in the doorway. “Gunnar—please!”
Gunnar clenched his fists and the flames snuffed out. Lu staggered, but the lull didn’t linger—Gunnar shoved ahead and the three of them raced into black halls. Smoke followed in choking billows as though they were running from hell itself.
They took a turn, and Ben snatched Lu’s arm. “Wait—”
Gunnar swung around, a flame in his hand shooting light into the hall. Ben gasped for breath and Lu couldn’t tell whether the look on his face was pain or horror or disbelief.
The energy of the fight pumped through her veins. They had gotten out of those cells. They had gottenout.
“Benat,” Gunnar tried. “Are you—”
“The defensors.” Ben looked up at him, a war in his concern. “Should we go back for them? They could be dead.”
“They were Argridians,” Lu snapped. “This is what they deserve.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open, horror widening his eyes.
Lu watched him from a distance, ash embedded in her nose as she took a bracing breath. She should feel the same pain for the defensors who had only been following orders and might have burned to death—but all she felt was rage. At the soldiers. At Ben, for defending them, these cruel, stupid Argridians—
Her own thoughts alarmed her so purely that she gasped.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Ben, I—”
Ben’s eyebrows dented and he started to speak, but she held up a hand.
“Please don’t.” Agony filled her chest. She welcomed it, to know she could still feel it. Empathy.Pain.“I’m sorry. This is war; I am a soldier.”
The words slipped out, instinct, truth. Lu’s soul hollowed.
I’ll always be a soldier. No peace. No reprieve.
It’s what I deserve.
“We should go,” Gunnar said over the continuing alarm.
Ben pushed up the hall, his face severe until Lu lost it in the darkness.
She started to follow, but Gunnar stepped into her path. “You saved us,” he said. “But that gives you no right to be heartless. We all have suffered.”
We all haven’t caused suffering. Lu nodded.
Gunnar shot off, taking his flame with him, leaving Lu in blackness and smoke.
