Gaelen was the last to leave the chamber where the women had been held. Parts of the ceiling of this level were disintegrating. Walls were crumbling. The second door in the short corridor—the one he had not checked because it was closed and warded—now lay in the center of the hallway amid a pile of rubble. As he ran by, a noise made his heart rise up in his throat. A tiny cry. The squall of an infant.
All but a handful of warriors had already left. Only thedahl’reisenremained, deliberately hanging back to spare empathic Fey women the pain of their presence.
“Farel!” Gaelen called. “With me!” He pivoted sharply and dove for the hole where the door had been. The opening led to a hallway. Its ceiling—much lower than the cavernous garden room where they’d discovered the women—was still intact, though not for much longer.
The squall of a child sounded again, followed by anxious shushing and soothing murmurs. A woman. Speaking the Elden tongue, telling the child to be quiet, hissing at someone else, “Hurry! Before someone comes!” Gaelen exchanged the red Fey’cha in his hand for black. Fey did not kill women, not if they had any other choice, but he would be spitted and scorched before he let any Eld—woman or not—run off with an innocent child.
He glanced back to see the hard glitter in Farel’s eyes… and the white-knuckled fingers clenched around a black Fey’cha.
Together, they ran in swift silence down the corridor.
The infant lay in a sling around Melliandra’s chest, his brilliant blue eyes watching her with solemn calm as she tied the final knot in the sling holding another baby strapped to theshei’dalinNicolene’s chest. The pair of them each carried two infants strapped in crisscrossing slings across their chests. The four infants were the youngest of the children from the High Mage’s secret nursery, all blue-eyed, all young enough to be Shia’s child. Which child had actually been born to the gentle, loving woman who’d given Melliandra her name, Melliandra didn’t exactly know.
It didn’t matter. To her, they were all Shia’s child, and she was determined to save them.
An explosion rocked the nursery. A fine shower of grit rained down from the ceiling. Time was running out. The battle that had killed the High Mage was still raging—and drawing closer.
Melliandra tried not to look at the other children in the nursery as she and Nicolene gathered their bags of supplies and prepared to depart with their precious burdens.
Four infants. They could save only four. Twenty more children of varying ages lay in cradles or stood clutching the bars of their cribs. She and Nicolene had agreed they would take only as many babies as they could comfortably carry, but one child in particular—a little girl with a cap of wavy brown hair and solemn eyes—made Melliandra ache to change that plan. That child didn’t cry or reach for them, as some of the others did. She just stood in her crib, small, baby-plump hands holding the rails, watching them with those unblinking blue eyes—not the pale brilliant blue Shia’s eyes had been but a deeper, richer blue, like the sky Melliandra imagined each night in her dreams. Blue sky eyes, the color of freedom.
She couldn’t take her, of course. The toddler was too old, too heavy. They couldn’t carry the infants and her as well. And if they let her walk, she would slow them down so much, recapture would be all but certain.
Melliandra hardened her heart. She’d known she couldn’t save them all. Save as many as she could but leave the rest: That was the plan. It was a good plan, but she hadn’t known how hard it would be. Leaving these children here to die—or worse, to live as slaves of the Mages—hurt more than any wound ever had. The children—their eyes so old in faces so young—deserved so much better.
“I’m sorry,” she told them. “I’m so sorry.”
As if they understood, several of the children began to cry. The sound alarmed Melliandra. This place had been one of the High Mage’s most closely guarded secrets. Boura Fell might be falling down around their ears, but other Mages, seeking power of their own, would want to take his treasures for themselves. The crying would lead those Mages straight to them.
“Ssh,” she whispered. “Hush, babies. Hush.”
“Las, ajianas, las,”Nicolene of the Fey soothed.
“We need to go,” Melliandra said. “Now.” Before the crying brought someone to investigate.
A whiff of an unfamiliar scent raised the hairs on the back of Melliandra’s neck. She froze, falling silent. Ears strained. There, beneath the squall of the children, she heard it: a whisper of sound, footsteps in the hall leading to this room.
Someone was coming.
She grabbed theshei’dalin’swrist in a steely grip, but the other woman had already sensed something, too. Nicolene pressed a hand to her heart, her face pale as milk. The girl child began to whimper.
“Dahl’reisen,”the Fey breathed.
The dread in the woman’s eyes told Melliandra all she needed to know. Whoever was approaching was foe, not friend. A threat to their plans of escape. She jerked her head towards the door at the back of the room, the High Mage’s secret escape route theshei’dalinhad pulled from theumagiattendant’s mind.
They had nearly reached the door when two men rounded the corner. Clad in black leather, and bristling with weapons, the men gripped unsheathed blades in their hands. Melliandra recognized the look in their icy eyes: the promise of death.
Before Melliandra could act, Nicolene gave a cry and flung out her hands. Green sparks shot from her fingertips. The room rocked and shuddered, and the ground beneath the two men gave way.“Gana!” she barked. Run!
Shock kept Melliandra frozen in place. She’d heard theumagiwhisper about Nicolene’s fierceness, but she’d thought the Mages had raped and beaten it out of her.
Nicolene scowled.“Va!” she commanded. Go! And with a slash of her hand, an invisible force shoved Melliandra towards the escape route.“Dai ema!” Now!
“Kem’falla, parei!” The men’s magic had stopped their fall. They soared up, out of the hole in the ground.“Bas shabei mareskia. Bas veli ku’evarir.” Mareskiawas the word for friends. We are friends. We’ve come to rescue you.
“Fossia!” Nicolene screamed.“Dahl’reisen fossia!”Lies!Dahl’reisenlies! She flung her hands towards the ceiling. More bright green magic shot from her fingers, plunging into the rock above thedahl’reisen.With a shriek, she yanked, and the ceiling came down on their heads.
Nicolene screamed and fell to her knees as if the ceiling had fallen on her as well as the warriors, but she managed to pull herself back to her feet and stumble towards Melliandra.
