The Emerdians had cooked Bright Mint into the stones of the prison, enhancing the effects, driving Gunnar mad.
The Mechts prepared Eye of the Sun with their sacred bear’s blood.
Lu stowed this information as Vex twisted against her.
“There’s one last hall!” he shouted at the crowd, and Lu didn’t question how he knew. “Keep going—straight ahead—that door!”
Their group shoved through and a hall of cells stretched on. Arms wove through the bars; people begged for release. Raiders shot to pick the locks while others kicked through the iron.
People shoved out in cries of joy. “The Pious God has freed us!” an older woman wept. “He has saved us!”
The woman’s declaration was so repulsive that Lu didn’t notice the other prisoners until a small form hooked her waist.
“Thank you” came a high voice.
Children. Families. Innocents who Elazar had deemed raiders.
Vex brought his hand up to cup her chin. “Lu. Hey—Lu, look at me—”
Lu rocked back as the little boy rushed past. He was the right height, the proper build, with dark hair and vibrant eyes, and Lu heard the distant sound of her own voice saying, “Teo?”
“Teo isn’t here,” Vex told her. “He’s in Port Mesi-Teab. He’s safe, I promise.”
These children weren’t, though. Because of Argrid. Because of the cause Lu had unknowingly aided.
This was why she didn’t deserve peace. This was why Grace Loray was suffering again, still—but she would fixit. Even if she never got that peace. She would make this island right.
The torchlight thrashed. Lu wobbled, Vex’s weight too much for her. She dropped down the wall and he twisted, swinging around to kneel in front of her as children scrambled to escape and the world broke.
“Adeluna,” Vex said. His voice was gentle, so unlike Milo that Lu grabbed his shoulders to make sure he was there, in front of her.
The tolling prison bell increased its cadence. They needed to leave.
Someone was saying that.We need to leave.One of the raiders, ushering people out. Vex waved them off.Give her time—we’ll be right behind you—
Gunnar glanced to the side, then spun. “Where’s Ben?”
Vex pushed to his feet. “What? Ben!”
Up the hall, torches showed someone slamming another person into a wall—
“Stop!” Gunnar took off, Vex and Lu clawing to keep up.
The rush of the fight, the surge of prisoners into the hall, the heave of raiders acting as one body to help these people—Ben hadn’t realized how much he needed this. Hope, action,progress.The last time he could remember feeling this consumed had been with his uncle at the University, with Inquisitors buzzing around him as they studied magic and advanced their understanding.
The delirium, the weeks of torture, had cooked his heart and soul down as he’d cooked plants with Lu—distilling, evaporating the extraneous, until all that remained was a shell of a boy who had spent most of his life alone.
The energy hummed in Ben’s veins as he flew from cell to cell. He reached the last one in this hall, but hands within were already fast at work picking the lock.
A wisp of a man stomped out, flicking a braid of dirtied, white-blond hair over his shoulder. Three other people followed him, large, burly men with gnarled pale hair.
“It’s about damn time,” the man said in a shockingly deep voice for someone so slender. He arched his back, stretching. “Nathaniel sure took his sweet time coming—”
One of the burly figures nudged the man. “Pierce.”
Pierce stopped. He looked at Ben and his narrow face pinched.
“Argridian,” he spat. A blink, and his hand was around Ben’s throat. “This a trick? You here to make us beg the Pious God for salvation? You here to make us belt out hymns? You disgust me, warping the doctrine like that, likeheathens—”
