He took another step back, face paler than the snow-covered hills around us.
“No, Lyrae, that’s not what…”
“I don’t owe either of you a fucking thing, least of all a promise not to kill you. Now get me through that, and maybe, just maybe, at the end of all this, you’ll both be alive to collect your reward.” I grinned, my face so frozen I wondered if it might crack.
“But I wouldn’t fucking count on it.”
My gloved finger pointed straight at the nightmare we still had to breach.
A towering wall of shadow and fume, black as coal smoke and equally thick, stinking of dark magic and sulphur, the ward was the inside of a thunderstorm come alive, seething with some foul energy, flashes of lightning and fire, the rotten stench that grew stronger whenever the wind changed.
“The longer we stand here, the sooner someone is bound to spot us and this little adventure is over before it begins.” I shifted my shoulders until the heavy pack lay comfortably along my back. “If either of you knew what you were doing, we’d be moving, instead of flapping your lips, asking for assurances.”
“She’s right.” Ryland jammed his sword back into the sheath. “We’re heading there.” He nodded toward a shallow grassy dip in the earth between two jagged stone pillars. “The land drops about thirty feet, and there’s a path cut through the rock, a narrow opening where the old ward was naturally thin. But now…”
He tipped his head back, his narrowed gaze drifting upand up and up, that muscle in his stubble-covered jaw clenching in such a familiar way, he might as well have said the words aloud.
He couldn’t do it.
He’d either outright lied about his abilities…or this ward situation was worse than he’d expected. Either way, my expectations were definitely being met so far by the great Ryland Storme.
“Now let’s hope we reach the end before the magic suffocates us.” He reached inside his coat and pulled out a strip of cloth, wound the fabric around his mouth and nose, Varian following suit.
“For the smell,” he explained, his voice muffled. “Once we get inside that, the stench will choke you. It’ll be almost impossible to breathe.”
Well, damn. All I’d brought was one clean shirt. I ripped the fabric down the center and wound it tightly around my lower face, doubling the layers over my mouth, and the smell lessened.A little.“Lead on. I’ll take up the rear.”
“And have you at our backs?” Ryland shook his head, his eyes mere slits above the mouth covering. “I don’t think so. I’m first, then you, Var will take the last position.” He pulled a knife from his boot and handed it to Varian, not a shred of humor in his eyes. “Just to be safe.”
Then he turned on his heel and headed for the dip in the ground, cape flapping behind him.
“Fine.” I called, shoulders already aching beneath the weight of my pack. “Have it your way.” I went to follow when something closed around my wrist and I yanked away.
“Let’s get something straight,” Varian murmured; his voice as smooth as silk as he pulled me close. “All those accusations…none of that happened. Your sister and I were fuckingfriends, and it wasn’t me who turned her in. As a matter of fact…”
I yanked out of his hold. “If you think I’d believe one lying word that crossed your lips, you are wrong. A very important someone saw you two go into the Citadelle together. You walked free a few hours later.WithoutAriel.”
“Ry, tell her.” He turned to his friend, already twenty feet ahead of us.
“He’s not lying,” Ryland glared over his shoulder, hair whipping around his face. “Varian didn’t turn her in, they both got scooped up by the Fae King’s guards. Whatever conspiracy theory you’ve cooked up in your head is just that…a theory.”
“You seriously want me to believe the Fae King let this asshole walk free while he kept Ari?”
Varian shrugged. “Believe me or not, that’s exactly what happened. Ariel and I went to…we were there, sure. But she’s the one who convinced me to pinch some magic sword, supposedly worth a fortune.” His eyes flickered away, a sure sign he was hiding something and I snorted.
“I’m telling the truth,” he protested as we slogged through the tall grass.
“Ari came to me with the job, and we got all the way to the king’s royal chamber when his personal guard swept out of nowhere. They dragged Ariel in one direction and the rest of us in the other. A few hours later, they dropped me and everyone else outside the front gates with our hands tied behind our backs. I tried to go back and find her, but you know how the Citadelle was. A fucking fortress.”
“Nice story. Too bad none of it’s true.” I hissed past clenched teeth.
But my head was spinning.
The Oracle had used my sister’s capture to control me, to use me, to mark me.
Ariel’s death was the fulcrum my entire life balanced upon, the seismic event that hurtled me straight into a world of shadows where I spent fifty years pinched between monsters and kings and Old Gods, like a rat in a trap.
But…could my sister’s capture have been a setup, from the beginning?
