“Where does it go?”
“Out.”
That could mean anything. A cell in another court. A battlefield. The bottom of a ravine.
He pushed me into the maze, and the runes in the stone flared. Soft white light pulsed beneath our feet, moving like veins under skin. The hedges were massive, woven so tightly I couldn’t see through them.
As we neared the center, the ground fell away, and the hedges shifted into a new path. After a few turns, we stumbled out.
I braced myself against the numbing wind and clutched my throbbing hand.
Giant evergreens lined a sprawling forest. I lookedaround. Skalgard was a smudge of rock in the distance, the city barely visible against the snow-blanketed landscape. My entire life had been spent within those walls.
Twenty-five years. I’d never been outside them. The sky felt too big, the horizon too far. Wrong. All of it wrong. My entire world was in that city. Rheya. Kavi. The infirmary. Every street and hiding place.
I was out here. Free.
But Rheya wasn’t.
My chest tightened. “How did we get all the way here?”
“Portal,” he muttered.
“A rune can transport people this far?”
“The magic required is enormous,” he admitted, glancing at the distant city. “The runes have to be fed staggering amounts of power to work.”
“And you happened to know the location of this one?”
He grunted. “I’ve had a century to prepare for this day.”
“I need to go back. My sister?—”
He planted himself in front of me. “No. You’ll die before you take ten steps past the gate.”
“I have to look for her.”
“And how will you do that? They’ll skewer you on sight, human.”
I ran around him, but I bumped into a wall of muscle. His arm shot out, catching me before I hit the ground. The heat of him burned through the thin fabric of my dress and a horrible dread spread through me. I could feel the raw strength coiling in his grasp.
I seethed. “Let. Me.Go.”
“No.”
My stomach dropped.
I shoved against him with my good hand, but he didn’t budge.
“Listen to me, human. We’re fugitives. They’ll scour this land for us.” He leaned in close, his face inches from mine. “They will mount our heads on spikes outside the palace gates.”
A pang stabbed in my chest. “What about my sister? She doesn’t have anyone but me!”
“Dead martyrs help no one.”
The vision of Rheya chained in some dungeon cleaved straight through my rage. He was right. I couldn’t help her if I was dead.
His grip eased. “Come.”
