“Find an excuse. Any excuse. Stall them. I’ll go up ahead and find a new place for tonight, then we’ll take the army through the field, far away from…this.”
“The Serpents want to scare and tire us out.” Calyx spit on the ground. “Bastards.”
“Which means they know our path.” Zandyr’s voice darkened. “Someone has betrayed us.”
Perhaps the same traitor which had stolen my dagger. Which meant they were here with us, marching as if they meant it, and not back in Solkar’s Reach with Allie.
A comfort. One that made me feel relieved and guilty all at once.
“They made a grave mistake, then.” I rose, staring at the massacre with all the lack of emotion I needed right now. My power flooded my veins, quieting the sudden burn in them.
“We cannot investigate every single warrior while we march for war,” Zandyr growled.
“We don’t need to,” I said. “They’ll leave clues. Just like this one.”
“Yes, the Serpents don’t play fair,” Elysia said. “Shocking.”
“Sabotage has a way of turning into success if you know what to do with it.” I clenched my jaw, staring in the distance. At the path we were supposed to take. The one someone else had studied as much as I did. “Send scouts up ahead. Tell them to check the river crossing foranythingamiss. If a brick sits sideways, I want to know about it.”
“You think the Serpents set up traps?” Zandyr asked.
“I hope they did.”
Elysia looked at me like I’d gone insane. “Has the stench rotted your brain?”
“If they haven’t, we’re heading for a graver danger than we realized.”
Chapter 42
Allie
By the time the sleds and wolves had been hidden in the safety of the ancient trees and we silently prowled toward the wall, I was spent.
We crept through the forest, tense and tired. The warriors had been trained well for a ground attack, weaving easily through the snow and trees.
The spells had worked, too, our steps silenced in the early morning.
The sun was barely peeking in the distance, the menacing wall only letting a trickle of rays descend down to us mortals. The shadows were long and slid slowly, eerie in their shift.
But none of them compared to the darkness the wall imposed on us all.
Cold and ominous, it waited as we advanced toward it, thick, icy cave entrances pelted along its bowels. A chill raced down my spine, flashes of the crater’s passage and its obstinate magic clouding my mind.
Yet my eyes didn’t catch any of the signs which had alarmed me last night.
No thick ropes hanging from the icy wall.
No missing arrows strewn on the ground below.
The snow and ice right at the bottom of the wall didn’t look disturbed, but the night winds could have erased any marks.
Had I truly imagined danger in the darkness?
But Sylvester, who flew behind us, low to the ground, had sensed something amiss, too. Had I let his panic infuse images in my mind?
No.
I’d cast a spell. I knew what I’d seen.
