“You could have died!” The words tore out of me, raw and furious. “That ceiling came down and you—your wings—” I couldn’t even finish the sentence, couldn’t articulate the terror that had flooded through me when I’d felt those impacts hammering against his body.
“I’m fine.”
“You are not fine!” I was yelling now, shoving at him harder even as dust rained down around us. “You’re bleeding. You can barely move. What the actual fuck were you thinking?”
My hands were already reaching to assess the damage. His back, his wings, the places where I’d heard stone impact with sickening force.
“I was thinking—” He winced as my fingers found a particularly brutal injury along his shoulder blade. “That you didn’t need a cave dropped on your head.”
“So you decided to take it instead?” The words came out shrill, panic disguised as rage. “You thought the smart move was to play human shield?”
“Fae shield, technically?—”
“I swear to the gods, Varyth?—”
“IF YOU EVER DO THAT AGAIN, I WILL KILL YOU MYSELF.”
The roar came from across the rubble-strewn chamber, and I twisted just in time to see Fenric standing over Lincatheron with an expression of pure, incandescent rage. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
“I was doing my job,” Lincatheron’s tone was lethally calm, “that you’re third in command and the only Lunari here. If something happens to you?—”
“I don’t give a shit about chain of command.” Fenric stalked toward him through the debris, obsidian coating his hands like he was debating whether to use it on Lincatheron himself. “You could have been killed.”
“So could you.” Lincatheron’s wings folded tight against his back, his posture rigid with that infuriating military composure. “And unlike me, you’re actually irreplaceable.”
“Irreplaceable.” Fenric’s laugh was razor-edged and bitter. “You arrogant?—”
“It’s tactical reality.” But something flickered in Lincatheron’s expression that looked almost like desperation buried under layers of command training. “You know the structure. You know what happens if?—”
“You threw yourself over me like I’m made of fucking porcelain when you’re the one who nearly died three months ago and still has nightmares about?—”
“Why are those of us who followed basic instinct.” Varyth tried to stand, his legs not quite cooperating. “Now the ones being yelled at?”
“Shut up.” I grabbed his arm, hauling him upright with more force than gentleness. “You don’t get an opinion when you’re bleeding from six different places.”
“Seven.”
“I’m going to make it eight if you don’t shut up.”
“AS TOUCHING AS THIS ALL IS,” Cindrissian’s voice rose above our arguing, sharp enough to make everyone freeze. He materialised from the shadows near what used to be the exit, now blocked by roughly a tonne of collapsed stone. “We are currently trapped in an unstable cave system with hostile forces likely converging on our position.” His crimson eyes swept over us, taking in injuries and fury with equal dispassion. “So perhaps we could save the emotional reckoning for when we’re not about to be buried alive or captured.”
Silence fell, broken only by laboured breathing and the ominous creak of settling stone.
“The explosion collapsed the main passage,” Lincatheron said, already shifting back into general-mode, though his gaze flickered toward Fenric for half a second. “Options?”
Fenric stalked toward the rubble, radiating fury, obsidian crawling along his arms as he assessed the blocked tunnel. “I can clear it. But it’ll take time we don’t have, and the noise will bring every soldier in the mountain down on us.”
“There’s another way out.” Varyth swayed slightly, and I tightened my grip on his arm before he could pretend he was fine. “Southwest passage. Leads to an old mining shaft that opens onto the eastern slope.”
“How do you know that?” I demanded.
His smile was grim. “They spent two days dragging me through these tunnels. I paid attention.”
“Can you walk?”
“Can I—” He started to pull away from my support, presumably to prove a point, and immediately staggered. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“Liar.” But I didn’t let go.
