It was Paxon speaking, I realized when my vision focused onto him where he was hovering above me, protecting me. I saw a curtain of black hair shift in the smoke and knew he’d been speaking to Olympia, sending my cousin after our grandmother who’d been much closer to the blast.
“Pax–” I coughed up dust, stone slicing the inside of my throat until I tasted the metallic tang of blood.
“Come with me, Milo,” Paxon was screaming now. Clearly, I hadn’t heard him when he’d been speaking before. He cried out with all the urgency of someone trying to help someone who hadn’t responded before. “This way. We have to get you out of here.”
“Grandmother–” I rasped.
“Olympia will get her. You can’t be here, Milo. You’re the Heir.”
The Heir.Right.
I stumbled to my feet, ignored the sharp pain in my right elbow, and slipped on a loose stone as I followed Paxon toward where the stairs were supposed to be.
Another explosion rocked the Deck and people screamed as more smoke filled the air and obscured the way forward. I coughed and batted my left hand in front of my face to clear my field of vision any way I could. It didn’t work but at least I was doingsomething.I needed to do something.
I hesitated at the base of the stairs and glanced back into the haze of the thick smoke. People were in there somewhere, suffocating and trapped, maybe blown to bits, certainly in need of medical care, but Paxon was pulling me on and the logical part of my brain was urging me to go with him. If Nascha had been struck by the blast, if she didn’t make it, I was the Heir.
Hating myself for my cowardice, I turned and rushed up the stairs at my cousin’s side. Nick and Cleo met us at the top, wide-eyed and stunned like everyone else. Without a word from Paxon or I, they took the lead and started clearing the way back up to the First. Guardians rushed down while we climbed up, hopefully off to help those trapped below. As the smoke cleared, so did my mind.
Put everyone on high alert,I sent the thought to Isla as Pax and I made our way up to the Second Ring.Explosions at the trial. Smoke everywhere. People are trapped. Lock down the Houses.
I coughed into my shirt again and saw red. My vision blurred and I swayed on the last step up to the Second. Pax saw and gripped my sleeve to keep me upright, cursing. Ahead, Nick and Cleo halted, heads swiveling in all directions to assess for threats, as Paxon pressed his face close to mine.
“Sir?” he called out, sternly. “We have to keep moving. We have to get back to the House. Can you go on?”
My vision turned black before fading back in through pin pricks of light, but I nodded.
Explosions?Isla’s frantic voice filled my mind.What in the Geist’s name happened, Milo?
Tell you later.
I coughed again and groaned at the sensation of gritty jagged stones slicing through my esophagus from the inside. How had I breathed in so many of them in such a short amount of time?
“Fuck,” Nick hissed ahead. He ripped off a hastily applied bandage on his left shoulder that was already soaked through with blood. Cleo watched him with a frown. How had I not noticed the injury before?
I blinked again and my vision blurred.
“Almost there, Sir,” Pax said encouragingly from my side, though I heard the panic entering his voice all the same. “One more ring.”
I swayed.
“Harlowe,” I croaked. “Take me to Harlowe. I’m not going to make it up.”
Pax’s gaze found mine and his lips slanted into a frown. But then, a moment later, he was nodding and taking half my weight as he dragged me off in the direction of the minor house.
Jude was already there, standing tall, completely untouched by the blast, and ordering the gates closed. He glanced up from the scholars running through the front door into the house to find us stumbling toward him. His gaze met mine and hardened but he stepped forward to push the gate open himself, not saying a word as he stormed back into his house, leading us in behind him.
“Get Aurora,” he snapped at someone unseen in one of the corridors we passed. Then he led us to a room with several desksand couches off to the side of the main entryway. He muttered the whole way and, though I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I thought I could make out the words, “Fucking bombs.”
Jude saw us deposited on a few couches in the sitting room and stood in front of us with his arms crossed until a woman with long brown hair and big blue eyes appeared with a medical bag. She knelt beside me first.
“Him,” I grunted, nodding in Nick’s direction.
Her wide eyes swiveled from me to my cousin but she didn’t argue as she slid over to investigate Nick’s poorly bandaged shoulder. Jude was staring at the trail of blood my cousin had left on his pristine marble, lip curled in disgust.
“You and I both know this wasn’t Cosmo’s doing,” Jude grumbled a moment later and his eyes snapped back to mine.
I sighed but nodded in agreement.
