Cindral chokes, his eyes widening. His luminth blade flickers and weakens, fading entirely as he staggers back. His face turns pale, but his eyes still burn with familiar spite as I step closer. “He’s not going to care that you’re gone, you know. Nobody will, Cindral. And especially not me.”
Shaping my luminth into a single, long blade, I swing it cleanly across his throat.
His expression freezes in shocked disbelief. Blood—scarlet, and bright, and nothing like the highborn blood he always wanted so desperately—trickles from the cut. His body slowly collapses into the snow.
For a heartbeat, there’s only my ragged breathing as I stare at his body.
“Lyra.”
At the sound of my name, I turn. Darian’s still bound, wrists tied behind him with standard rope that’s already stiffening in the cold. His eyes are wide and fixed on me, pupils blown. He sways.
Sprinting to him, I drop to my knees, my fingers already working on the knots. They’re as tight as Cindral always insisted, and I curse under my breath, pouring a thin line of luminth over the rope to burn carefully through the fibers without touching his skin.
Darian slumps forward, into my arms. His breathing is rough in my ear, but he’s warm and breathing and alive, so I’ll take it. His gaze flicks to the dead scouts, the dead Lightbringers, then back to me.
His beautiful, amethyst eyes are hazy. “You shouldn’t have come.”
“No time,” I cut in, voice tight. I reach for his arm. “I’m taking you back to Eres. Can you stand?”
He tries, but his legs buckle, his body sluggish as he grimaces, leaning into me. His weight is more than I expected, solid and reassuringly warm even through cold leather. “Sorry.”
“They quilled you,” I mutter, anger flaring again as I take a step, testing his balance.
Darian’s mouth twists. “It’s… blurry. Like drowning.”
“I know.” Pulling him up, we stagger toward the tree line where my horse waits. I keep one arm around Darian’s waist, supporting him, and the other ready to cast if needed. Every snap of a branch makes my heart kick harder.
I fumble the blanket from the horse with numb fingers. The animal snorts, sensing my tension, but stays steady.
“Up,” I tell Darian, and eye the distance between him and the saddle. It’s not particularly small.
When he tries, he slides straight off. Swearing under my breath, I heft him up, resorting to shoving him like a sack of supplies until he’s slumped forward against the pommel, his arms draped as if he’s too tired to hold himself upright.
He’s still. Too still. “Darian?”
I swing up behind him, wrapping one arm around his middle to keep him steady. Anxiety beats in my already rapid heart when he doesn’t answer. My horse shifts, uneasy with the extra weight and the scent of blood. His ears prick, and I pause with my hands on his neck.
Sound.
Not just any sound. The tramping, heavy sound of boots, echoing in unison. It comes from behind us, and I pat the horse’s neck once more, swallowing. It’s the familiar sound of a Lightbringer infantry march. And we’re directly in front of it.
Get us home.
Lightbringers at our back, and an angry Kaelen ahead. Darian sags against me, unconsciousness pulling at him. His head lolls as I tighten my grip around him, keeping him anchored. “Stay with me.”
I will exchange one unconscious dreamwalker for one less angry Darkwielder prince.
Hopefully he’ll be too distracted by Darian to pay much attention to me at all.
Kaelen
Freedom feels like a physical thing I can touch as Eres and Ifinallybatter down the third bar of this godforsaken cage so we can squeeze through. Sweat trickles down my back.
For a witch raised in Solvandyr discipline, Lyra has certainly learned the art of making prisons. Pushing Eres out first, I climb out after him. The loss of my erevas feels like missing a limb. I can’t remember ever being quilled in my life. “We have to go. Where’s the antidote?”
“In the healing quarters.” Eres slings his cloak around his neck, his feet already moving for the door. “It’s been a long time.”
Hours, we’ve been locked in here. And even the banging against my door and our shouts brought no help, as if she’d blocked the sound as well as our exit.
