Maz ducked another swipe and wrenched the knife from the Wolf’s hand, then drove it deep into his gut.
The Wolf stiffened, gasping and choking on moldy water. Even in the throes of death, he didn’t speak a word. He was trained not to. All of them were.
My heart felt like a stone in my chest as the body slipped into the shadowy depths. Maz and I clenched our ill-gotten knives, a grim look passing between us. Renwell would be out for blood.
“That was my gods-damned favorite axe,” Maz grumbled as we swam back to Kiera and the boat.
She was still standing, the chains in her hands trembling. Had she never seen death before? Ah, the boy she told me about. Julian. If what she told me were true, he had died differently than this, but death stained the mind in a way that could never be scrubbed out. The more violent the death, the darker the stain.
I had a few that rivaled the Longest Night.
Kiera stared at me as if she could see the blackened fabric of my mind. The renewed fear in her eyes churned my gut, and I looked away.
Wordlessly, we settled into the boat. Maz picked up the oars again and rowed hard for the cave mouth. The passage to the sea was so narrow, the oars scraped against the rock in some places. A few times, I braced my hands on the slimy, moss-covered wallsand pushed us along. The water grew choppier, the drumbeat of the sea building.
Then we were free.
The moon had disappeared behind the cliffs, a sure sign that dawn was coming. But the sun had yet to peek through the dark, angry clouds piled on the eastern horizon. A little boat with a boy holding a lantern bobbed not far away on the raucous sea. A smile tugged at my lips. Ruru.
As Maz rowed us closer, I pulled in a deep breath fragrant with salt and rain, sending a silent prayer of thanks to the Four. I could never truly breathe in close quarters. It’d taken years to smooth the jagged edges of panic that sank into me whenever I was enclosed.
I glanced back at the cave. It was almost impossible to see, especially in the dark, as one of the many shadowy gashes in the cliff face. Maz and I had discovered it by accident.
After months of observing the Shadow-Wolf’s movements, we determined they must have another way in and out. We were lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a prisoner transport coming out of the cave and being loaded onto a ship. They hadn’t noticed our own small boat with the lights doused before they’d sailed away. North.
“All right?” Ruru called softly.
“All right,” Maz grunted, drifting our boat as close as he could to Ruru’s.
Ruru grinned when he caught sight of me. “Skelly owes me two coppers.”
I raised one eyebrow. “He thought I wouldn’t escape?”
“He didn’t think youorMaz would come out alive.”
“Such a hopeful ray of sunshine,” Maz grumbled. He jerked his head at Kiera. “He should dish out double for a third live one.”
Ruru’s eyes widened, looking like the coppers he loved so much. “Who’s she?”
“Kiera,” she answered with the hint of a smile, “and you must be the other half of the daring rescue party. Ruru?”
His fifteen-year-old chest swelled in an unnerving imitation of Maz. “That’s me! Do you need a hand?” He offered his.
She hesitated for a moment, then flung her chains to the bottom of the boat and took Ruru’s open palm. She half-crawled, half-jumped into the fishing boat.
Maz looked at me. “Sink it?”
I nodded. We raised our sunstone knives high above our heads and drove them into the bottom of the boat. They cut through the wood like butter. We stabbed and sawed for a few more moments until the hole was big enough to drink in great gulps of sea water.
It would be better if the boat were completely wrecked; then perhaps Renwell would think a storm had swallowed us. But this was the best we could do.
I stared at the knife in my hand—the inky black stone and the occasional sparkle of dead stars. The representation of so much death and destruction. But so gods-damned useful in a pinch.
With a growl, I flung the knife into the sea.
Maz grimaced, clutching his knife. “Must I?”
“We’re dead if we’re caught with them. We have to fit in.”
