“Ashling Bellmont is frequently brought in to put his powers to good use,” was all Falcrest said, waving Lory into the windowless chamber when she hesitated to follow. “Once you develop anything of value, we’ll use your talents, too, Vednis. Promise.” He winked—actually winked, but apart from that, his face remained stony.
Ignoring him, Lory mused with a glance at the corridor ahead. “We’re on level two now, aren’t we?” She’d countedthe stairs and the doors and the hallways spreading left and right, and they had definitely climbed down more than one level. “What’s on level two?”
When Lory stepped into the room, the gray walls closing in at the mere thought of being stuck down there with two of the most dangerous people Lory knew, Falcrest greeted her with a smirk and a near-burning flash of his steely eyes. “Level two? That’s the dungeons.”
Eleven
Four smooth stone walls,one of them hosting a thick steel door, two simple, wooden chairs in a corner, next to a cupboard that didn’t give away what it might contain—the room was obviously not for sleeping, and it was obviously not a cell, too large and welcoming with the pair of flickering torches burning left and right of the entrance.
Falcrest was standing at the center of the room, Frost’s dagger still clutched in his fist, while with the other hand, he was fiddling with the top button of his uniform. Lory hadn’t paid attention earlier, but he was wearing a black jacket atop his usual clothes that looked like it would make anyone suffocate in the heat of the desert sun. That he wasn’t breaking asweat could have been because he hadn’t actually done much fighting, and down in this room, the temperature was perhaps the lowest Lory had ever experienced.
“Why are we here?” Lory stopped next to Frost, shivering the slightest bit at the thought of who might be locked up in the cells of Ashthorn’s dungeons.
The fact that Frost didn’t seem at all concerned shouldn’t have alarmed her that much, but something—call it instincts—told her he’d seen this room before.
Falcrest straightened, running his free hand through his hair, leaving it mesmerizingly tousled. “You’ve had three weeks of training—Steel, Veiled, and Knowledge. You’ve learned from our Medica Hand and worked with phantoms. Both of you have made progress in your own individual way, but it’s not enough for who you are and why you are here.” He paused, giving a significant glance to Frost, who nodded briefly as if he’d heard that speech before. “You are both here by the mercy of the Triad of Ash, and the Masters of Steel, Veils, and Whispers expect you to do your part, or you’ll lose your second chance—and your lives.”
Lead collected in Lory’s stomach as Falcrest’s eyes found hers.
“No games, no mistakes, not one single wrong step.” The clear warning in his tone was familiar, yet it didn’t sound like the threats he’d made before or the taunts and mocking. “I want the two of you to prove yourselves in a mission soon, and for that, I need to know each of you can handle yourselves.”
With those words, he tossed the dagger back at Frost, and while the ice-wielder was still catching it, Falcrest stalkedout the door, turning on the threshold only to shoot them a grin. “Find a way out of here by tonight, and I’ll consider you ready.” With those words, he closed the door, a lock clicking into place.
The hollow thud rang in Lory’s ears as she stared at Frost’s pale face.
“Did he just lock us in here?” She darted to the door so fast she almost tripped over her own feet, tearing at the doorknob in vain. “Bastard.” Her heart raced in her chest as panic flooded her system. “Guardians-damned prick.”
Smacking her palm flat against the cold steel, Lory whipped her head around to Frost, who still stood, waiting for her to calm down.
“You knew this was going to happen?” She was in his face with her finger so fast she couldn’t even consider that one movement of his blade would have been enough to slice into her stomach, but Frost merely stared down at her with unbothered, deep blue eyes. “You’re working with him, aren’t you? This was all a trick to get me down into this room to … to…” she couldn’t find the words.
“Fucking shut your mouth, Vednis.” Frost’s tone was equally harsh as it was soft, a mere whisper so at odds with the hardness in his eyes. “I need to think.”
He shoved her aside with a broad hand, sheathing his dagger at his hip while he scanned the room.
Mouth hanging open, Lory followed his gaze across the walls, to the chairs, then the cupboard, where Frost darted, ripping the doors open and rummaging through its mostly empty shelves, and it dawned on her that this wasn’t the firsttime this happened to Frost, that perhaps, she had misjudged him, and he was as trapped as she was and it would be smarter to work together, no matter how uncomfortable the thought made her. But trust was something to be earned—even by someone she’d saved from certain death before. She still had no idea where he stood in this academy, what his goals were, or if he even wanted to be here; even working together to get out of here, she’d need to be careful.
“Falcrest has brought you down here before,” she mused, joining him by the cupboard, reluctantly sheathing her own dagger to have both hands free, and kneeling next to him to search the lower shelves inside the clunky piece of furniture. “He’s locked you up before, hasn’t he?”
“It’s what people usually do to criminals like us. The only difference is, in this case, we can find our way out.”
His matter-of-fact tone hit her straight in the heart.
“Criminals? I don’t know what they say about me, but I only stole tosurvive.” Pulling out an empty box, Lory frowned at Frost. “If Falcrest wants to know if I can handle myself, all he needs to do is look at my history. I’ve fucking survived by myself my entire life.”
She conveniently left Evven out of her little tale because Falcrest already knew about her twin brother; Frost didn’t need to know, too. Neither his pity nor his dismissal of her pain would lead to any good.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself, and make yourself useful.” Frost shoved a stack of parchment back into the cupboard and flung the door on his side shut, already moving on to the chairs. “If this is anything like the other times, we’llhave approximately five minutes before it will become very uncomfortable in this room very fast.”
Naturally, that didn’t help Lory’s already nonexistent confidence that things were going to be all right.
Falcrest had fucking locked them in a room and left them to themselves.
Get yourself together,the voice at the back of Lory’s mind ordered.If you want to get out of here, you’d better start calming down and putting that head of yours to use.
With a slow, steadying breath, Lory rose to her feet. “All right. What are we looking for? A key? A riddle? A hidden exit?”
Frost paused to look her over, acknowledging her change of tone with a brief nod. “Any of those three. But considering we’re underground and there are no windows we can climb through, it’s either a key or a hidden exit.” He picked up a chair, turning it in all directions before smashing it into the wall and watching the splinters fly everywhere. “Look in the other chair.” He was already on his knees, running his hands over the pulverized wood, shaking his head as he found nothing.
