My lips curled into a snarl, and I pressed the tip of my knife harder into his chest.
He gave me a bitter smile. “Go ahead. It’s harder than it looks.”
Mother . . . what do I do?
“I will go with you for now,” I said through clenched teeth. “But Iwillcome back for my brother and sister.”
He was silent for a moment, looking between my eyes. “I’m glad at leasttheyhave earned your loyalty.”
My cheeks burned as he backed away. He led the way out of what must have been Renwell’s office. Unease trickled between my shoulder blades at the empty tunnels of the Den. Would I never truly escape this gods-damned hole?
“Nikella should’ve been here,” Aiden murmured and picked up the pace.
We ran through the Den, breaking into a sprint when the sounds of fighting reached us.
War raged through the training yard. Shadow-Wolves poured through the open gate while strange warriors covered in paint and blood tried to cut them off at the chokepoint.
Nikella led the charge, her black hair flying, slinging her spear like a bolt of lightning. The warriors—Dags from the look of them—roared and tore through the oncoming shadows. A few bone-rattlers were stealing sunstone weapons from the racks and tossing them to empty-handed warriors.
I snatched as many sunstone knives as I could while Aiden hefted a sunstone-headed spear. With one hard look at each other, we leapt into the fray, battling our way to Nikella.
Bodies shoved against me from all sides. Something sliced across my arm, and I frantically stabbed at anyone wearing a mask or black cloth.
“Nikella!” Aiden shouted, cutting down a Wolf who had felled a Dag. “Bombs?”
She impaled a Wolf. “None!”
Aiden swore.
A fist crashed into my jaw, and I fell. My vision rippled and blurred as pain ricocheted through my body. Boots trampled me. My hands were empty. Defenseless. I’d never trained to fight in such chaos.
I crawled out of the bloody tangle. Gods, we were never going to escape. Renwell had won. He would slaughter every man and woman in here and drag me back to the palace, anyway. Hand me over to Korvin for my disobedience.
My mind stilled.Korvin.
I flew back through the tunnels, my ribs and jaw aching from the many blows. The acrid smell of burnt flesh sent my stomach hurtling toward my throat. I clamped my hand over my mouth and kept running, trying to ignore the twisted black lumps that littered the way to Korvin’s torture chamber.
Chunks of the rock walls and ceiling had crashed to the floor—probably from all the explosions. But the barrel of fireseeds I’d remembered seeing before was still intact amid the rubble. I grabbed it and charged back to the battle.
I breathed a sigh of relief to see Aiden and Nikella still fighting, but our forces were dwindling.
I skirted the twisted mass of bodies and climbed one of the guard lookouts by the gate, plucking a torch as I went. I steppedout onto the gate post, teetering on one boot. None of the Wolves shoving their way in looked up.
Holy Four, forgive me.
I flung the fireseeds over the Wolves, and after one thudding heartbeat, hurled the torch into their midst.
Flames rushed toward my face, and I threw myself backward, crashing onto the wooden platform. Panicked shouts rose. Over them all, I heard Aiden’s roar.
“Push through! For Maz! For Rellmira!”
More shouts punched the air alongside the sputtering flames.
I hauled myself to my feet just as Aiden fought his way through the gate, a pack of bloodthirsty Dags at his back.
His gaze darted up to me. “Move, Kiera!”
I scrambled to join them, dancing around piles of blazing fireseeds and Wolf bodies. We stampeded toward the Docks with a dozen Wolves on our heels.
