Clenching his hand, Ahnna kept moving, and then through the smoke and her own tears, she caught sight of another flickering flame. A lantern, and next to it was a narrow door.
She slammed into it and it mercifully burst open, and once James was through, she sealed it shut behind them. He fell to his knees coughing as she sucked in a mercifully pure breath of air, taking in the narrow hall, which was lined with endless bundles of sticks.
A skinny man with soot-stained skin stood in the center of the hallway, gaping at them.
“I won’t call the alarm,” he pleaded. “Just please don’t hurt me.”
“On your knees,” she ordered, and when he fell to the ground, Ahnna snatched up some discarded twine. James was still coughing, but he deftly bound the man and they pressed onward down the dark tunnel.
It stank with the smell of smoke, a faint haze swirling overhead in the light of the lantern she’d taken from the man. On and on they walked, and at one point, water dripped from above.
“We’re beneath the moat,” James said softly. “They’ve designed this so that the workers can access the furnace but not the prison.”
“You think that the entrance to this tunnel isn’t guarded?” she asked.
“Not a chance.” He pushed the knife into her hand. “Make it count.”
The light from the lantern revealed a heavy door ahead, and Ahnna’s heart lurched as she saw there was no way of opening it from the inside. “What do we do?”
James gave a soft cough, still suffering from the smoke he’d inhaled, and reached for the door. But Ahnna caught hold of his wrist.
Lifting the lantern, she looked at him. Truly looked at him for thefirst time in so long, because she’d lost track of the days they’d spent in those tombs. He was filthy, his beard thick, and his cheeks gaunt, but he was still the most beautiful man she’d seen in all her life. “Show no mercy,” she whispered.
He huffed out a breath. “You know that I never do.”
Then he rapped his fingers against the door.
“You’re not done,” a voice called through the door, but it started to swing open. “I told ya—”
James’s hand closed around the soldier’s wrist, and he yanked him into the corridor. Ahnna saw him slam the man’s skull against the wall with a brutal crack, and then she was out in the open.
There was no chance to take a mouthful of air and relish her first breath of relative freedom, because four Amaridian soldiers were gaping at her.
Ahnna didn’t hesitate.
Lunging, she slashed Carlo’s knife across one man’s throat, then twisted and slammed the blade into another’s chest. The third reached for her, but then James was on him. He caught hold of the soldier’s skull, and just as the Amaridian began to shriek for help, he twisted, breaking the man’s neck.
James dropped the body and picked up the man’s sword, his eyes going to the prison. It was blazing with torches, the alarm bells now silenced but not the shouts and running boots. “They’re coming. Run!”
They sprinted through the city, weaving through the dark alleys and racing across streets. Ahnna stole a cloak from a wash line to cover her filthy clothes, and then another for James.
“They know our goal is a boat,” James hissed, then gestured toward the harbor. “Look at the torches heading that way. We’ll never get through that many soldiers.”
All of Riomar was coming awake and civilians poured onto the streets, gasps of horror rising to their lips as they learned that prisoners had escaped from the Furnace. Shouts from captains filled the airas they dispatched soldiers on horseback to secure any vessel that floated within a day’s ride. Ahnna cursed, because they were as trapped as they had ever been.
“We go out of the city and head east and north,” James whispered, pulling the hood of the stolen cloak forward to hide her face. “They can’t guard the entire coastline. We just need to keep going until we get ahead of them.”
“We don’t have time.” Her hand balled into a fist. “Ships full of poison are already on their way to Ithicana, James. Within a day or two, they’ll be unloading the grain and dispersing it, and it will be too late.”
“We can’t stop them if we get caught!”
“I know.” She crouched low, trying to curb her rising panic so that she couldthink.Then she lifted her head. “We swim.”
“What?”
Smearing her finger in some mud, she drew a basic map. “There’s an island within spitting distance of Riomar. It’s full of villas owned by Amarid’s wealthy, and they will have vessels that they use to go back and forth from the mainland. If we can swim across, we can steal one of those ships and be gone south before they know it’s missing.”
“Never mind the waves, the current, the sharks, and your broken arm, Ahnna.”
