Twenty seconds before the doors would close again, and the elevator would be on the move. Sonara’s heartbeat hammered in her throat.
Hold it, Markam,she prayed, even to the goddesses, for they were sitting beasts in this metal box, and what good could one sword do against ten soldiers with Wanderer guns?
Markam grunted behind her, so softly she almost didn’t catch it.
Goddesses, it was near impossible how much power he’d used today. She’d always known him to be strong, but he’d never had a true mission, never put his mind to something like this.
The female guard tilted her head, as if she’d caught the sound of his grunt, but still saw nothing inside the elevator. She stepped forward, eyes narrowing, not two breaths from Sonara’s face.
Hold the illusion,Sonara begged Markam. Her hand squeezed over Lazaris’ pommel. She didn’t dare breathe.
“I think…” The woman stepped forward, her rifle almost touching Sonara’s chest. “There’s something off about—”
Markam gasped, and the illusion broke as his strength gave all the way out.
“FIRE!”the woman yelled.
Sonara lashed out with Lazaris, the masterful blade shoving the rifle to the side just as the woman fired.
Behind her, Sonara heard Markam yelp as the bullet hit home.
Sonara lunged just out of the doorway and sliced the woman’s hand clean off.
Blood sprayed as Lazaris split right through bone. The gun fell with it, and Sonara used the momentary lapse to wrap her arm around the woman’s throat, yanking her backwards and using her body as a shield as her own soldiers fired in retaliation.
Three red bullets slammed against the woman’s chest as the doors slid shut.
Her body was a dead weight in Sonara’s arms.
“You…”
Sonara turned to find Karr wide-eyed, pressed against the elevator wall like a child in the face of a monster.
“You cut off her hand.”
Sonara shrugged as she let the woman crumple at her feet, alive but unconscious. “Better a hand than a head.”
He just blinked as the elevator dropped another floor.
Adingsounded out, and Sonara readied herself for a final wave of attacks—this time, without Markam’s power.
He was slumped on the floor, unconscious, drool already pooling onto his chest.But Azariah looked down at him as if she were looking at a beautifully chiseled statue, instead of roadkill left to rot beneath the desert suns.
“He… he saved me,” she said. “He dove in front of me and took the bullet.”
He’d never done that for her, Sonara realized. She nodded, surprised to find relief that the princess was still by her side, a comrade in arms. Perhaps evena friend.“Get your power ready, Princess. We’re going to need it.”
Azariah flexed her hands and turned to face the doors.
They slid open soundlessly.
But instead of nine guards waiting for them, there was only one.
The towering Wanderer woman who had stood beside Karr at the Gathering and screamed when Sonara drove her blade through his chest.
“Jameson,” Karr blurted out, stepping away from the elevator wall.
Sonara eyed the scene quickly. The woman stood in a small hallway, a locked door about ten paces behind her; the entrance to the storage bay, where Sonara felt thatpulltowards the energy source.
