No one argues that fact, so we begin a brisk walk to the top of the hill. I’m surprised at how green everything is. After over five weeks stuck in the darkened land of Dunloch, it feels surprisingly alive here even in the middle of the night.
We do our best to walk silently, though Darian’s sack makes strange sounds with it slung over his shoulder. I cringe at every one of them. At any moment, one of our enemies could surprise us. While the main battles will be for the tower, the other teams won’t hesitate to kill us in the middle of the forest.
It doesn’t take long for us to break out of the treeline and come upon the rocky crest. A tower built like a needle, rising forty feet in the air, stands only a few feet away from us. There’s no wall around it, but the door is made of thick, steel-reinforced wood. It couldn’t keep a Chained or Burning One out of it for long, but against a human, it’d be tough to break down without some kind of battering ram.
All along the circular stone walls, there are windows. They aren’t large enough to fit a human body through, but they’re largeenough to shoot an arrow or drop a rock from. At the top are battlements, and the flag rises high above the stones on a flagpole.
Nyxthos’s unmistakable black and silver colors flap in the wind, and my heart races. Everyone is going to be looking for the tower, and after only twenty minutes of walking, we’ve found it. I glance at Darian, who shakes his head.
“We could take it now,” I whisper. “We could break the stairs going up. We could…”
“No,” Jorren says. “Absolutely not. We cannot stand three full days of sieges against us. If we were fighting humans, then sure, but that door will not hold against one of the Chained. A Rider could attack the roof. The Undying could age the stone until it turned to dust and just walk in. Our group will not do well trying to hold a position this fragile with our current strengths.”
“I agree,” Darian says quietly. “Nyxthos knows we won’t win that fight, and he’s offered it to us as a temptation. We should take advantage of it, though. Just… not in the way one of the Chained would.”
I cock my brow at him. “What are you thinking?”
He smiles. “I’ll tell you once we get inside.”
Elara glides down from her position at the top of the tower after a grueling hour of preparation. If I’d ever had doubts about Darian’s strategic genius, they’d be gone now.
As he’s done to me too many times to count in Khorra, he made moves I never could have expected. Once again, I learned just how little I know about the magical world as Darian set up magical traps to kill the next group that entered the tower.
He had Rurik use lightning on crystals which he hung from tripwires and placed in specific patterns. He pulled strange stones out of the sack that Rhion had enchanted to explode and placed them at the base of the staircase. Trick by surprising trick, he laid a path of destruction from the base of the tower to the top, just waiting to be triggered.
He’d talked me through his thoughts as he placed the traps. “The Godforged,” he said, “weren’t around when enchanted objects were commonplace. The House of Steel is a shadow of what it once was, and the Fae aren’t nearly as important any longer. Our competitors probably don’t even know to look for these kinds of traps.”
It’s done now, though. Elara leaving her position at the top of the tower on the back of her pegasus means that it’s time to go.
“I’ve been monitoring the movement through the trees, and the closest group is coming from that way,” she whispers as she points toward the northwest. “They’re getting closer, so we should leave if we don’t want a fight.”
Darian nods, and Elara leads us down the south side of the hill back into the trees. We walk for about a mile, far enough away that no one will stumble on us while looking around the tower, but close enough that we can get back once the screaming starts.
Then we sit down and wait.
Chapter 37
The curse of our Marks is that there’s never enough power or time. Now, as I watch my daughter fight for her life through the Eye, I know I will run out of time at any moment. She isn’t safe. Cedric will describe what happens as he activates his own Mark, but it isn’t the same. We can’t help her, so it shouldn’t matter, but my heart won’t let me wait for news. Ineedto know she’s safe.
~Rhaskar Thorne, personal journals
Fiona
We were supposed to wait for the sounds of battle to start before we chased danger. We were supposed to sit tight and relax for a bit. The goal was to kill most of a group with traps and subterfuge and then to overwhelm the survivors.
Instead, it’s Jorren that screams without warning. I leap to my feet and see a demon dragging him by the arm into the forest. Twomore demons appear beside it, their inky black forms letting them blend into the shadows that are everywhere.
They’re so much worse than Azric’s attempt to mimic them. His was made of shadows, so they didn’t feel sowrong. These unnaturally human-looking faces are made of darkness rather than shadows. Their noseless faces and elongated jaws look the same, but theyfeeldifferent. Seeing them is like waking from a nightmare only to realize you were never dreaming.
The one holding Jorren by the shoulder drags him with powerful legs that drip darkness, leaving pools of it as a trail. Like a wolf dragging a deer deeper into the woods, it shakes its head every so often, and I’m sure that the pain is excruciating.
I leap to my feet and pull Infusions from my cloak. Just the basics: Bear, Falcon, and Cat. Everyone else is moving toward the creatures, so they don’t notice me, and I hope anyone watching us will only pay attention to what’s happening to Jorren.
Rurik has already engaged a demon, and his longsword flashes with lightning. Isola stands weaponless in front of another, but there’s a red glow around her. Elara rides her pegasus toward the demon dragging Jorren, who’s stopped screaming and is suddenly glowing blue.
I pour oil along my daggers’ blades and stuff the oilskin back into my cloak before igniting my daggers at the same time. Rurik makes sweeping strikes at the demon he’s engaged, but it dances around his strikes like a cat who doesn’t want to be touched. I jump over Isola and land directly on the back of the demon fightingRurik. Without a moment of hesitation, I drive my daggers into the ball of shadow where a normal creature’s heart would be.
It doesn’t make a sound as it disappears in a puff of shadow. Rurik points at Isola before rushing to help Elara. I turn to the demon that’s facing the Undying. Unlike Rurik, she’s not even attempting to attack it. They’re in a standoff. I race toward them, and for a moment, the demon turns to look at me.
