“What is going on?” Jaron hissed.
“We have to leave.” I told them about the situation.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Tatiana sat down at the table. “Are you sure? What if he was just blowing smoke?”
I hesitated, but all of our lives were on the line. “Arrazyl was treating me so kindly, we were getting along incredibly well. Then he stopped for no reason I could discern—and believe me, I’ve thought through everything I said and did leading up to it. He became almost cruel.”
Jaron’s eyes darkened. “That bastard.”
“But it would make sense if he decided he got all the information he was going to out of you and was ready to move forward with his original plans.” Tatiana looked as devastated as I felt.
“What if we talk to Thyra? She has sway with her brother and there’s no way she would be ok with this. She doesn’t even know about this, if the meeting we just had is any indication.” Jaron said.
“She won’t be able to sway the Vorazyr away from what he thinks is best for his people. I already heard them disagree onsomething once and he did what he felt was best, despite her argument.” Tatiana murmured.
I pinched the bridge of my nose as a headache pulsed in my temple. “Plus, if the captain’s to be believed, we won’t be able to get out to talk to anyone, and she’s occupied right now, anyway.”
Scrubbing a hand down his face, Jaron turned away and walked to the window, staring out as the brilliant setting sun brightened the golden cliff across from us.
I couldn’t look at Tatiana. She was sniffling, and I knew if I saw her tears, I would join her. So much for all the progress I thought we were making with them.
“How are we going to get out of here?” Jaron continued to stare out the window.
“I thought about that. There’s no way we can overpower even someone like Junyv together, so we need to escape when none of them are around.” I went to stand side by side with him and nodded at the window. “Do you remember what happened when we were hiking in Nepal?”
He looked over at me warily. “Yes, of course. It was traumatizing. I didn’t rock climb or hike steep areas for a while after that.”
“That is the exact thing we need to do to get out of here.”
Facing me, Jaron crossed his arms. “I don’t think I’m going to like this.”
“You’d like dying a lot less.” I reminded him. Tatiana joined us and I continued. “I think that I’m skinny enough to make it through that window if I wiggle out at a diagonal.”
“Except that we’re hundreds of feet above ground.” Jaron said irritably.
“I'll have some type of rope wrapped around me like a harness. You and Tatiana will have to hold on to the rope and help swing me. I'll then use another length of rope with a weight at the end to hook around the decorative metal poles in the front of thehouse and pull me around the side to the front platform. Then I’ll release the bar and let you two out.”
“There's a lot of risk to this plan.” Tatiana nibbled her bottom lip, looking thoughtful.
“She’s right, we need to make contingencies.” Jaron agreed.
“You guys, the festival is in less than a week and right now both Arrazyl and Kyvar are gone, giving us less oversight than usual.” I had to make them see that any delay could cost us dearly.
“If you want to do it while they’re gone, we’ll have to do it tonight because aren’t they supposed to be back tomorrow or something?” Jaron asked.
“I don’t know their schedule, but I do know they’re not here right now and the longer the time between us leaving and them coming back is, the better chance we have of getting away.”
Tatiana wiped her cheeks. “I just can’t believe Kyvar would go along with something like that. I thought—” She shook her head.
I felt the same, and from the flash of pain in Jaron’s eyes, I would say that he might have developed a friendship with Thyra. We were all affected by this.
“Ok, what happens if someone sees you?” Jaron crossed his arms.
“That can’t happen. We should do it in about an hour before the light starts to rapidly dwindle, so we still have light but are less likely to be seen because it will be the main time for the evening meal.”
“That’s weak.” Jaron’s face had never been more serious.
“I know, but we have to try.”
