Elias snorted. “Neither of you know what true cold feels like.”
Dane ignored them both and hurried back out the door. His unease returned the moment he stepped back out into the quiet, driving his pulse faster, his anxiety higher.
Sir Conall. He needed to find Sir Conall. He knew he did.
It was all he knew.
Skirting around the outer edge of the commons, he mounted the short flight of stairs leading to the next level, just above the barracks, that housed the officers’ quarters. Sir Conall’s door loomed in the distance. A light stirred in the window.
Relief flooded his heart. Good. Sir Conall was there. Soon they could speak, and the older man could tell him if he was being paranoid or not. Perhaps he even had a bad feeling, too.
But just as his hand hovered over the doorknob, just as he was about to barge into the knight’s quarters uninvited, a sudden thought shot through his mind. Sharp. Commanding.
Wait.
Dane froze.
From just behind the iron-banded door, a muffled shout sounded. Something heavy crashed to the floor. The light in the window went dark.
Dane forgot how to breathe. Voices. He heard voices—two men. Neither he recognized by sound alone. But there was one thing about them he recognized: their accents.
They were both Drakmori.
The voices grew louder. The doorknob turned.
Without thinking, Dane ducked into the nearby alley running between Sir Conall’s quarters and that of the next commanding officer just as the door creaked open and the two men slipped out into the night, as soundless as shadows.
Their steps retreated. Off in the near distance, he heard another shout.
Slowly, cautiously, he crept from the alley, his heart hammering at his ribs. Another rumble of thunder growled, louder that time. Atop the wall, just above the Gate of Exiles, he spied a torch flickering in the night as if it were being waved back and forth.
The air around him seemed to drop by several degrees.
He shivered.
You should run, a part of him whispered as he hesitated outside the still-open door leading into the deep shadows of Sir Conall’s room. The cowardly part. The part that wished he were still a farmer back in Leinor, tending fields alongside his brother.
Something is happening. There’s still time to run and save yourself.
Swallowing down his fear, he slipped past the door. His boots immediately caught on something slick underfoot, nearly pitching him to the floor. A metallic tang soaked the air. A tang he was all too familiar with.
Blood.
“Wilsham?” a voice rasped from the darkness. Weak. Nearly inaudible.
Sir Conall.
“I’m here, sir,” he whispered back, nudging the door closed until only a single sliver of moonlight illuminated his path. He still found the knight easily enough where the Drakmori had left him—crumpled on the floor in a useless heap. The man had clearly been caught either in the middle of removing his armor or putting it on. His breastplate still rested on his armor stand. His sword lay nearby, still sheathed.
The obvious question lingered on the tip of his tongue.What happened?He didn’t bother asking it, though. He could see good and well what had happened.
The Drakmori had stabbed him in the lower gut.
Hand pressed against his wound, Sir Conall pushed himself up onto an elbow and barked out a quiet laugh. “You sent me Wilsham,” he murmured as if to himself, sounding amused.
A scream shrieked in the distance. A faint tinge of smoke wafted through the air.
Dane frowned and cast a glance back toward the door. “You need a medic, sir—”
