But he was right about one thing—considering the chaotic scene taking place all around them, they needed to get the fuck out of there. At the very least, for Kid’s sake. And he sure wasn’t trusting Aerysn alone with him. He curbed his rage, though his mind crowded with confusion.
A tentacle snatched for them, but Aerysn, moving impressively fast—even from what Treycore had seen—glided around it, seemingly effortlessly.
They rose high over the arena, and Treycore watched as the Morarkes demolished the colosseum. Higherlings scrambled through the air all around, evacuating as quickly as they could manage. Some were snatched before they could escape, but the lucky ones, like them, made it out.
He looked out into the city of Parasonia, where even more Morarkes tore through the streets, raiding the neighboring buildings.
This was war.
Janka’s war.
Despite the scale of the attack, Treycore knew Janka would want survivors. He would want immortals to go to the ends of all the realms, shouting from the rooftops that the end was coming, heralded by a new leader…
And he hoped to the Almighty that Kinzer would make it out of there alive. There weren’t many he could trust anymore, but he trusted Kinzer.
***
Kinzer blocked attacks from one of the higherlings who came at his and Quintz’s team. From what he could catch in his periphery through his own combat, he could tell Quintz and Kelley were holding their own just fine.
Kinzer finally managed to get a jab in that slid into his attacker’s chest. He pushed it in deep, then pulled out swiftly so the higherling collapsed to the ground. He stooped down, stole the immortal’s sword, and rose, glancing around the battlefield and noticing several of Quintz’s operatives engaged in their own scuffles in the arena. There were too many to be a coincidence, Kinzer was sure. He suspected someone had exposed Quintz’s operatives, exposed them to Janka, and they were being weeded out along with several of the major immortal nobility present at the event.
Janka was a lot of things, but uncalculating wasn’t one of them. He must’ve known that Quintz’s operatives would be present, and that there could be no better opportunity to take down not only some of the greatest immortal threats against him, but the Council as well as the Leader’s most remarkable emissaries.
Kinzer stabbed in the back the higherling laying blows against Quintz’s sword before he and Quintz went for the one attacking Kelley, who fled when he realized he was outnumbered. Kinzer started to chase after him when Quintz grabbed Kinzer’s shoulder. “No. We have to get out of here now. We’ve been made. The others will have to catch up. There’s no way we can take all this on ourselves.”
“To the exit point,” Kelley told them before lunging into the air and flapping her wings, soaring up alongside the colosseum stands.
“Here we go,” Quintz said. He raced toward Kinzer, flapping his wings. He hooked his arms under Kinzer’s and hoisted him into the air, lifting off the ground.
Kinzer felt like dead weight. Like the one who might wind up costing Quintz his own life because of the battle that played out.
As they soared through the air alongside the hundreds of other immortals fleeing the scene, Kinzer looked back, watching the devastation as Morarkes ripped immortals from the air, crushing them in their tentacles and pulling them into the gnashing teeth of their bellies.
Disturbing as the sight of the Morarkes was, it was worse watching the betrayal of so many immortals acting out their cruelty and vengeance on one another. Taking a side. The wrong side.
As they flew over the colosseum, they looked over the city of Desavore, and he could see it wasn’t just the colosseum that was under attack, but the entire city. Unlike immortals, these creatures could not perceive beauty or greatness, nor understand what it meant to live or die. They followed their orders to destroy without regard.
Quintz dove between two buildings and through the opening of another that was made to permit immortals access for fly-through. They rounded a corner into an alley. Kelley landed beside a building, in front of a large metal-studded door. Quintz set Kinzer down beside Kelley before landing on his own feet. Kelley retrieved a key from beneath one of the straps she wore as Quintz retrieved a remote from a small pouch attached to the waistband of his frader.
“Wait, wait,” Kinzer said. “We were attacked. Deliberately. Someone from your team told Janka what you were up to. We go in there, one of Janka’s men could be waiting for us.”
“Yes, I was paying attention as well,” Quintz said as he fidgeted with the remote.
“And?” Kinzer said, irritated because Quintz seemed to know more than he was sharing.
“I go in first, and I can use this to remotely change the PTD location to another hideout in Hell.”
“What if they’ve done something to the machine?”
“It’s possible but unlikely. If someone tampers with it, the portal closes. I’m the only one who has the intel on how to use it.”
Kinzer hoped he was right.
“Once I step through the portal, I can change the destination to another place I have keyed into the system. It’s a hideout only I have access to. I had this as a failsafe in case something like this ever happened. Can’t trust fucking anyone anymore.”
“So no one knows this place we’re going to?” Kinzer checked.
“They only knew we were coming to this particular station now,” Quintz assured him as Kelley approached the door.
