The lock is heavy iron, made the same as my shackles. Shaw’s lesson in lock picking was short and rudimentary, and while I’d made progress, all locks are not the same.Work slowly. Feel the mechanism inside. Once you know it, you’ll know how it can be undone.
Nonsense. The lock feels just as foreign to me as the rest of this Covinus-forsaken continent.
“What’s your name?” I ask the man. He is young, his face unlined and perhaps handsome, if he hadn’t been starved near to death. His brown hair is matted and drapes over his shoulders and his clothing hangs in tatters off his emaciated frame. The exposed skin of his limbs is mottled with angry burns, as if someone held him over an open flame. But his cheekbones are high and beautiful, and his slightly upturned eyes shine brightly with something I recognize. Hope. Defiance.
And pride.
“Asa,” he replies softly, watching as I struggle. His eyes dart to the direction the guards ran, waiting for them to reappear at any moment. The same thought plagues me. I can only hope Shaw’s skills are enough to keep them at bay.
“Asa,” I keep my voice calm, speaking in a Similan tone. Polite and smooth. “I need you to make sure everyone is ready to move as soon as I spring this lock. We’re going to go west, but we must move quietly.”
I tell Asa the same directions Shaw gave me, the ones that lead to a complex cave system that wends its way beneath these mountains. Even if we are separated, if Asa can find the mouth of the cave Shaw spoke of, they will all be able to disappear from the warlord’s grasp.
Asa stares at me, torn, but after a moment he nods. He whispers a message quickly to those around him and I watch as it’s relayed around the cage. Suddenly, there is no more wailing. No more crying. Everyone stands silent and alert, as if the words themselves have brought them to life.
Hurry, Mirren.Shaw’s voice says, deep and reverberating.Once you know it, it can be undone.I close my eyes and listen. I push away the sounds of the camp, of breathing and fear, and just feel. I keep my eyes shut until the lock is familiar, until I know the sounds of it, the smell of it, the small give of it when I push at its mechanism.
I feel, more than hear, a small click and a breath whooshes out of me.
I toss it to the side, savoring the dull thud of it against the ground. The same sound my shackles made. Freedom.
Yanking the gate open, I press my finger to my mouth.Quietly. So quietly.
I motion Asa forward and the group surges toward me. Terror keeps them silent as they file through the gate. A mother clutches her daughter’s hand, blinking at the open space around them as if it will swallow them up. I wonder the last time they were able to move freely and anger washes over me.
When the last person is out, I close the gate softly. I don’t look at the bodies that still remain, the ones who will never get a chance, instead moving to the front of the crowd, to find Asa. A boy, no more than four, clings to his neck and Asa grips him tightly as I approach. “What is your name?” he asks. People all around him wait for his command. He is their leader, I realize. And with the way he gathered each of them to him, helping them out of the cage as if every one of them matters deeply to him, they are lucky to have him.
“Mirren.”
“Mirren,” he repeats and in his heavily accented voice, it sounds like ‘Murr-inn’. “Thank you, Mirren.”
I smile shyly. “Don’t thank me yet. We still have to make it to the caves.”
He nods gravely, his eyes shining. “Even if we die now, I will forever owe you my thanks. Because my people will die free beneath the sky, instead of caged and shackled.”
I don’t know what to say to this or how to overcome the lump that’s formed in my throat, so I just nod.
Because I think of Easton and wish desperately that he, too, could know the open sky before it’s too late.
* * *
Shaw
I bring my dagger down hard on the first soldier’s temple. He drops immediately and I allow myself one quick glance to make sure Mirren has escaped.
Satisfied she’s made it to the other side of the camp, I dance backward, positioning myself between the tree and the shed. There are seven soldiers left. A rabid grin lights my face as two of them run forward. I palm another dagger, one in each hand and slice out with the blades. I catch the first across his weapon hand and the other at his knees. I spin as their howls ring in the night, throwing two more blades at the soldiers behind them.
The daggers land true and they fall, blades sprouting from their stomachs. The remaining three pick their way through the bodies of their comrades, their eyes glowing with a rage I know well. But they haven’t been taught to hone that wild anger, to wield it like a broad sword, and so theirs crumple against mine. I unleash myself, sweeping my feet around and knocking the legs out from one before springing up to power my fist against another’s solar plexus.
He gasps for air, but I don’t stop. Don’t think, just feel the fire burn its way out of the abyss. The next one comes at me, a long sword in his hand. A powerful weapon, but too heavy for tight combat. I use it against him, ducking beneath the blade and slicing at his wrist. He howls in agony, dropping the sword. My heart clenches. Too much noise. I need to end this quickly.
A blow to the head silences his wails. I yank my last dagger from my hip and hurl it at the remaining soldier. Blood sprays in powered spurts from where it protrudes in his leg. I finish him off with a knock to the skull.
I survey the carnage around me, my breaths powered in my lungs. My blood runs like acid through my body and I take a moment to soothe the gaping emptiness inside me. To remind myself that I’m more than just a savage weapon, fueled by hatred. That a soul, however ravaged, still lives within me, fed by love.Cal, Max, Denver.
The list is short, but it grounds me. The fire in my veins recedes as I go to collect my weapons, leaving a cold emptiness in its wake.
A scream sounds from the other side of the camp.
