“I want you to climb to the first balcony.” Anees pointed at a wooden structure lining the top of the first floor. “Bonus points if you don’t break off any loose boards.” When someonegrumbled under their breath, she added, “This is a class for stealth and stalking, people. Remaining unnoticed while moving to places impossible for others to reach is the whole point of the training, so don’t whine; move your asses.”
If Anees had seemed like she didn’t know how to stop talking in the brig, she had the tone of a general nailed down now. Not that she hadn’t been just as direct when they’d first met. Only then, Anees seemed to have rooted for Lory. Now, she appeared to be about as interested in the ashlings’ survival as Falcrest himself, who had yet again snuck up to stand beside Thal, who, to his credit, flinched only a little when the captain cleared his throat.
“What are you waiting for?” Anees clapped her hands, and Ronan, Eira, and a lean yellow, with the sides of his head shorn and a crooked braid running from his forehead to his neck, whose name Lory remembered to be Solen, started climbing. Ronan took the left, hooking his fingers into a gap between two boards and pulling himself up, the same path Lory would have chosen, while Eira took a running leap at the windowsill, nearly falling through the glassless frame and earning a laugh from a few yellows who seemed to find her choice entertaining. It wasn’t a bad idea, but with that much speed, it was hard to be precise with a landing. Lory knew that from her own experience—scaling the sides of houses to stake out her victims.
By the time Lory tore her gaze away from Ronan and Eira, Solen was already halfway up, fighting to free their shirt from where it had caught on a piece of metal sticking out of the wall.
“Ronan has probably been training for years to become so efficient,” Thal commented, leaning away from Falcrest, who wound through the line, cutting through in front of him and Lory before prowling to the front to stand with Anees.
“He does look like he knows what he’s doing,” Lory answered absently, her gaze following the captain rather than her fellow ashlings’ successful ascent to the balcony.
Eira came in second, and Solen third, their shirts torn at the side, but no blood visible on the expanse of light-brown skin visible where the fabric split on the breeze moving the stuffy air.
“You three take the next level,” Anees called, not giving them a minute to catch their breath, “and you three take the balcony.”
Ronan, Eira, and Solen set into motion, more hesitant than with the first level—the fall was deeper from up there, and the footholds and crevices to wedge their fingers in were fewer.
Ricca was one of the three new climbers, her hands sure and efficient as she hauled herself up the same path Ronan had chosen. With her shorter frame, she needed to take a few extra steps, though, and as she reached for the edge of the balcony, her chin-length hair swinging into her face, Lory held her breath, hoping she wouldn’t fall and break a limb or her neck. No matter how Ricca lashed out at her at every opportunity, wishing harm upon her wouldn’t be seen kindly by Eroth when she was called beyond his Veil in what could be minutes, judging by the way the others were struggling tomake it up the second stage of their ascent. She wouldn’t do anything that could jeopardize being reunited with her twin brother in death.
She had barely finished her thought when a high-pitched scream, followed by a thud and crack, summoned her attention to Eira’s form on the ground.
Brycon was at her side in an instant, checking her vitals, his shoulders visibly sagging with relief when she moved with a whimper.
“Broken arm or broken leg?” Anees asked as the woman scrambled into a sitting position, a grimace defining her features.
“Both?” It sounded like a question, but Eira’s voice was too raw with pain to let on whether she was joking, despite the grin she forced onto her features.
With a few efficient strides, Falcrest was there, probing the side of Eira’s leg where her pants were torn and blood was leaking onto the sand. He took one look at her arm and straightened, waving over another ashling. “Take her to the infirmary.”
Falcrest’s gaze flicked to Lory just for a heartbeat, as if checking she was still there—still alive. As if he cared. Shuddering, Lory pulled up a sneer. Perhaps they didn’t let her carry a knife or a sword, but that didn’t mean she had no other weapons in her arsenal. Her wit and her words, and most of all, the satisfaction of finding Falcrest’s eyes widen for a fraction of a moment—just enough to know he’d noticed the open hostility.
As Brycon and the other ashling helped Eira to her feet, Lory’s eyes didn’t follow them but Ronan and Solen, whohad both frozen where they were holding onto the facade for dear life.
“Come on, don’t give up. Climb,” she muttered, even if there was no way they’d hear her. She’d been where they were, stuck in petrification after seeing someone fall—only that person hadn’t gotten away with a few broken bones.
“Next,” Anees ordered, and the initial excitement that had been running through the group seemed to drain.
Lory couldn’t tell how it happened: One moment, she was in the back half of the line; the next, she’d been shoved to the front, Thal, and Jarek beside her. Anees was already ordering Ronan and Solen to climb all the way to the roof when Lory took a deep breath and stepped up to the sun-bleached wood.
“Don’t fall, Gutter Gem,” Falcrest said as she walked past him, and for a moment, their eyes met, challenge sparking behind those gray disks, his mouth tilting up at the sides as he looked her over like he doubted she would make it even to the balcony.
“If I do, it will be on your head,” she told him with a sickly-sweet smile, and her stomach did a funny flutter when a hint of real amusement crossed his face.
Guardians damn her, how could that make him even more beautiful?
The yard faded around them as he leaned in, whispering, “Then my handsome face will be the last thing you see—lucky you.”
The flutter instantly turned into a lump of searing coals. “No matter how much you want to, don’t catch me.” Storingher grin safely away, Lory continued walking, already reaching for the first board.
She could have sworn Falcrest’s eyes were burning into the back of her skull as she pulled herself up along the left side of the facade, setting one testing foot after the other while her hands found those small gaps between boards where she could safely hang her weight. To her right, Tabi was climbing around the window, her pace faster than Lory’s but her path more a zig-zag than a clear upward line.
Thal was struggling with a loose board he’d set his foot on a few feet below the balcony and was now dangling from the railing, grunting as he hauled himself up. Behind them, the next group of people was already making their way toward the roof, and Lory continued, step by slow step, until the roof was within reach, Ronan’s umber face appearing over the edge.
“Almost there,” he cheered her on, and to Lory’s surprise, it didn’t sound like he was mocking her, just a friendly face who knew what it took to make it all the way there.
Setting her foot on a narrow ledge and grabbing the edge of the roof, with a final pull, Lory was there, remaining on her hands and knees for a few moments before standing beside the others and watching her fellow ashlings slip over the edge one by one.
Tabi and Thal were already there, and Ricca followed suit, Frost coming in next.
