Jarek’s feet went still, knees bent and soles flat like he was standing on solid ground, and when he jumped up and swung his leg over the bridge, Lory recognized the invisible floor for a spot of hardened air he’d formed with his power.
“Are you all right down there, Thal?” Instead of creeping to safety, Jarek leaned down, making those patterns with his hand again while he held onto the bridge with the other, and Thal’s curse echoed from below as rocks and dust flew up in a spray.
Lory covered her eyes with her forearm just in time to prevent splinters from taking her sight, but a sharp pain on her cheek told her a rock had made it past.
This was bad. If Thal got something in his eyes and lost his hold down there?—
“Fucking Veiled test.” Lory only lowered her arm when Thal’s voice sounded from beside her feet and the dirt and gravel stopped assaulting her. “Really, Lory, what were you thinking?”
She hadn’t been. So fast not even Frost’s ice magic could contain her, she dropped to her knees and grabbed Thal’s wrists, helping him the final few feet over the edge until he rolled onto his back and groaned and sighed all at once.
“You shouldn’t have interfered,” he panted, patting his chest and his stomach down in a search for injuries. “Falcrest will have your head.”
“Jarek interfered.” It was a lame excuse, but enough to allow her to push potential punishments aside for the moment.
Whipping her head around, she searched the bridge for Jarek, who was crawling along the unstable stump of rock that remained of the bridge.
Neither Falcrest nor Aiden reached down to help Jarek onto the roof as he dragged himself forward, obviously drained from using so much of his magic. Inch by inch, he made progress while all Lory could do was watch and wish her own powers were as useful as his or Frost’s or even Thal’s. Perhaps, the water wielder could summon the humidity from the air and sling a rope of fluid to secure Jarek if he wasn’t so exhausted right now. But her own magic—all her damned fucking flames could do was burn and hurt and destroy.
No wonder Ulder wanted all Flame-born dead.
From across the gap, Falcrest’s eyes found hers, wide and full of an emotion she had never seen on him before,and she would have let herself believe it was an illusion, had Thal’s voice not penetrated the haze in her mind, shaking her awake.
“You’re burning, Lory.”
Seventeen
Lory hadn’t expectedto see the dungeons of Ashthorn Ward so soon—or at all. After going up in flames in front of the entire group of blues, Dunveil, Brunn, and General Ycken, she’d made her peace with leaving this world to cross Eroth’s Veil and see her twin brother again.
Everything had happened so fast. Shouts from the balcony bounced off the limestone, Thal’s panicked murmurs, Falcrest’s command to stay where she was. Frost’s magic had wrapped around her hands, squashing the flames spreading over her palms. Then Falcrest had shown up at her side, saber drawn and tip pointed at her neck, and she’d known that was the end.
How he’d made it across the gap she hadn’t even bothered to figure out; time had become a jumble of uncontrollableemotions, and Khayrivven’s cold expression filled every frantic heartbeat of it. That mouth, now a hard line, had kissed her a few days ago, and those eyes, now flat and distant, had ignited for her, yet he’d thrown her in the dungeons under the vigilant scrutiny of Ycken and Dunveil, and let her rot for what felt like an eternity.
There were no windows down here, so there was no way to tell how many days had passed, but judging by the gnawing hunger in her stomach and her increasing dizziness, at least two. One more day without water, and no one would need to bother putting a knife in her heart or an axe through her neck. She’d die like thousands of other Dunaii, and when they discarded her body, no one would be able to tell she hadn’t run out of food and water—nothing more than a street rat after all.
Lory curled up in the corner on the packed dirt floor, wrapping her arms around her torso and staring at the same torch she’d been staring at since she woke. The cell was perhaps ten by ten feet, large enough to host a bunch of criminals if anyone wanted them to kill each other. Thick steel bars framed it on three sides while the back wall was solid, black stone. The cells left and right were empty, and when she’d spoken into the darkness behind the reach of the three torches lined up in front of her own little cage, no one had answered.
After the initial hours, she’d tried to summon her magic, drawing upon the anger and frustration of losing control like that, but where an inferno had raged in her chest before, cold darkness was the only thing left.
With a sigh, Lory pulled her knees closer to her chest to preserve what little warmth was left in her body. Maybe, ifshe could fall asleep, she’d escape this place for a few hours; if she was lucky, she would pass smoothly without waking up, and Evven would greet her behind Eroth’s Veil.
Before her eyes, the flame kept flickering and flickering like a restless dancer bowing and flexing in golden tongues.
“Lory,” his voice dripped from the fire, liquid silk shimmering in the ever-changing light. “Wake up.”
With a groan, Lory rolled over, forcing her arms to carry her weight as she pushed herself into a sitting position.
Falcrest stepped out of the shadows, tall and beautiful and utterly terrifying as he studied her from the other side of the bars, gray gaze sliding over her form in uncanny assessment.
“Are you here to kill me?” They were nothing more than a croak, but he cringed at her words anyway, placing a hand on the bars while the other one remained casually by his hip, ready to draw his sword at a moment’s notice.
“Not yet.”
Like a dark bell, the meaning of his words settled in her stomach, weighing her down like lead.
“So, youwillkill me?”
With a sigh, Falcrest bowed his head. “This is beyond me, Lory. I’ve done all I could. What will happen to you is in the Triad’s hands.”
