I stepped into the lead one, drove my blade through the junction of neck and shoulder, and used the falling weight of it to redirect toward the second. Two clean kills within seconds. The rest scattered. For now.
“We need to talk about Tay.” Cara pressed her back against the wall and scanned the passage, her breathing fast.
“Now?” Gods, the Lightless had regrouped with inconvenient speed. They didn’t usually trouble me, but today they were a hassle. “You have three Lightless coming from your right.”
I spun to her side to handle one before I turned to the immense cave spider that had tried to creep up behind us. It was the size of a medium dog and considerably more venomous. I drove my sword toward it, missed, almost buried the hilt in sand.
“Embarassing,”Shadowbane chided.
The cave spider skittered forward, trying to escape my sword and toward Cara.
She made an aggrieved noise and pinned it to the dirt. Then she hesitated to pull her sword loose, even though it was well and truly dead, and I stepped in to cleave the spider in two. She did not miss a beat, though she did wrinkle her nose at the spider at the same time as she protested, “He’s been in her hands for days. Every day matters.”
If she hadn’t been single-minded when she had a worry, she would’ve mocked me about the miss. I had no doubt she would return to the subject at a more convenient time.
I pulled her back a half-step before she registered the movement from the far passage; something larger this time was taking its time, in no hurry to cover us in blood and ichor andvenom. She let me move her, which she would not have done weeks ago.
“Every day is the same. He is already enchanted and he is not suffering. We cannot go to Tay tonight.”
“Why not?” Her voice was strong, not petulant.
“Gentle with her,”Shadowbane warned.“She’s more tender than she looks. Just as you are.”
I wished I could shut him out.
“Tay is bound by enchantment. We would have to drag him out, and if we dragged him out, he would fight to return to her. He could harm himself. He could harm you.” I knew her well enough by now to know she would protest, so I cut her off. “He would not want to, but he would not be able to stop it.”
She didn’t want it to be true. Then came the sound of her exhale, slow and deliberate. “You’re certain. How long have you known we couldn’t rescue my brother?”
“Long enough to have made a plan.”
The thing in the passage resolved itself into a palewalker. Had my mother left any of the cave monsters for the next Hunt? I moved toward it before Cara could and ended it quickly. Messy work. I stepped back and let the body settle to the earth.
I caught a glimpse of my own reflection in one of the mirrors that hung on the wall, of my ichor-touched armor and my blood-slicked blade. I hated the thought that Cara was being reflected in the enormous mirrors in the arena too, that Fae were watching her with their bloodthirst, and I was tempted to move her into the blind spot. At least they could not hear us.
But mortals were watching too, and they gathered strength from her strength.
“The first step in the plan being to send me back to Amber.” Her voice had an edge in it now, careful as a blade being drawn slowly. “You want me in Clan Amber and away from Bismyth, and I’m supposed to trust that this helps Tay.”
Two from the right. I called out direction; she took it, which always amazed me a little. We worked the narrow space without colliding.
“Yes, you are. You worked out my plan.”
I was still overwhelmed by the memory of how she had looked up from conversation with Kiegan and announced Lightbringer’s name. If the queen had been able to enchant her in time to honesty, she’d have laid the entirety of my plan before the queen like a map. “The dragon who will claim you is Lightbringer.”
“Shadowbane’s mate.”
Shadowbane’s stir of satisfaction coiled at the back of my mind.“My mate.”
I nodded. “But the timing is off. I need you to still be in Clan Amber, because Lightbringer is an Amber dragon.”
“And what can she do? Break the queen’s enchantments?”
She was thinking of the queen’s enchantment on Tay. She always had that keen sense of concern for her family and too little concern for herself. It grated on me. Self-sacrifice for a worthy cause was meant to be one and done, not a perpetual spooning out of one’s self to feed others.
“Lightbringer will be capable of much. The specific shape her powers take will change depending on the mortal she bonds with.”
“The mortal?” Cara asked sharply.
