“Luca!”
CHAPTER50
AMARANDE’Scall hit Luca in the gut like a cannon blast.
He withdrew Ula’s blade from the man nearest to him. His opponent fell with a moist thud as Luca’s whole body wrenched toward the sound of his name.
Across the full blaring roar of the fire, farther away from him than she’d been before, the chaos of battle moving him along the diameter of the pit. The cage was there—and honestly he’d thought her to be as safe as could be until he made it there, the reinforced cell keeping others out as well as it kept her in.
But now the whole thing had been shoved aside on its axis. Amarande’s cell angling over the fire, more than half its length balanced precariously in the air, flames licking at the cart as the ashen ground disintegrated under the box’s swinging weight.
Ula thundered in, blood smeared across her brow. “Did you hear it? We need to get there now. If it goes over, there’s no way we can get her out.”
He was already running, sword leading. “Move! Move!” he yelled, though it was no use. Hurtling over bodies, and people. Dodging blades of every shape and stripe as they aimed for others and sliced into the path.
“On your right!” Ula grabbed the empty scabbard that crossed his spine, wrenching him back just in time as a trio of fighters rolled through in a scrum of daggers and fists, all of them barreling straight toward the fire. “Oh stars, the cart’s going. Run, run, run!”
She might have said more, but all Luca could hear was Amarande’s voice. His name. Over and over. It thumped in with each breath as he ran, willing his snakebit leg not to stumble in the stride, the numbness a disadvantage.
Faster now, they edged past where the Warlord’s dais had been, tiptoeing around the bodies, and the cries of those still kneeling at the flames for some sign she might rise from the ashes.
With everything he had, he sprinted toward his love—she could not have the same fate as the Warlord. She could not.
And, as they closed in, he finally knew she would hear him. “Amarande!”
CHAPTER51
“AMARANDE!” Luca’s voice.
She tried to see him through the hole. He rushed in, the weight redistributing in the cart as he joined Koldo. Another shaking belch and suddenly the whole thing tipped.
“Out here!” Ula’s voice. “Stand on the ramp. Weigh it down!”
The box shifted again, and suddenly Amarande knew all that was keeping her on solid ground was the weight and leverage of the three of them on Taillefer’s cell door, the hinges at the bottom straining against the base of the cart.
More voices. More people. More weight.
A metallic sound. The hinges going, the door pinned down, but the whole cart coming apart at the seams. Pulled in one direction and the other.
“Rope! We need rope!” Luca called. “Now!”
More noise. Voices. Amarande held fast to the bars. Trying to ball all her weight as high up in the cart as possible. She glanced down at the sword. Out at the rapidly disappearing lip, sand and ash spilling into the fire as the stress of the cart pressed its full weight and tipping point leverage into the soft and heated earth.
“I am the rope! Use me as the rope!” Ula cried, kicking her boot out toward Luca. Glancing at Koldo. “Lower me.Now.”
Luca and Koldo barely exchanged a glance before Ula was already on her hands, holding her legs out like she were playing wheelbarrow. Koldo and Luca latched onto the pirate’s boot and she crawled into Taillefer’s abandoned compartment. She lowered the hip belt of her dagger.
Amarande’s fingers scraped at the leather, scrabbling until they gained hold. Ula grunted, trying to reach farther, as Amarande wound the belt around her wrist. Then she slid the linen that bandaged her knife wound around the leather at her wrist and grabbed on to it all as tight as she could with her injured hand, trading the extra protection ofthe bandage reinforcement for the temporary pain shooting through her hand.
“Good.” Ula’s eyes glittered like stars, all the blood rushing to her determined face, veins and tendons on end. Her hair fell forward in braids, which only served to frame the strain. “Grab hold of my wrist. On three. One, two, th—”
The cart shifted again and the toe of Amarande’s boot dug into the tipping wooden edge. The momentum sent her upward, but the cage shuddered violently as the final push decimated the sand-ash beneath, and a massive chunk of the fire pit lip dislodged and crumbled into the inferno.
“Pull!” Ula shouted.
Amarande was aware of Luca and Koldo clearly yanking them back, but as the cart fell away, the narrow opening caught on her shoulder.
For one sick moment, the weight of Amarande and Ula plus the cart was dragging against Luca and Koldo. Ula’s whole body was stretched past discomfort into agony, her fingers slipping, teeth gritting.
