“Up,” Kreya said as the soldiers piled against it. The hinges strained and creaked.
“It won’t hold them long.”We’re going to die,Zera thought.And unlike before, if we die here now, no one will know. They won’t know how. They won’t know why. We’ll just be gone, and that’s it.She wished she’d never followed Kreya here. No, she wished she’d never gone to her tower; then she wouldn’t have been facing her nightmares.
“Upquickly,” Kreya said.
They ran up the spiral stairs.
Zera tried not to think about the similarities of this tower to Kreya’s hermit tower and what it could mean. Grime on the walls. Stifling air. Cobwebs. She tried not to touch anything as they ran up, past closed doors.
Behind them, an enormous crash shook the tower—the soldiers had bashed the door down. She heard their claws scrambling on the steps behind them.We’re trapped!This was it. And she hadn’t said goodbye to Guine and . . . No other names cameto her mind, but there were plenty in her life she hadn’t said goodbye to.
She’d always planned to die in her bed, with music and wine, with the chatter of people who adored her. She’d planned to be so old that makeup couldn’t fill her wrinkles and so famous that random children would burst into tears at her demise.
With a burst of speed, Kreya and Zera pounded up the remaining steps until they stood at the top of the tower. It had been a library—half the walls still stood, with charred and empty shelves. A tree grew, gnarled, in one corner.
“Kreya?” Zera hated how her voice squeaked. She was supposed to be a professional!Get a grip, Zera,she told herself firmly. They’d been in worse spots than this, hadn’t they?Have we?
Either way, she’d been much younger and much more in shape then.
“Flight,” Kreya ordered.
Yes! Brilliant. The atrocities wouldn’t expect that. Such a power bone hadn’t existed twenty-five years ago. She drew out the talisman and brought it to her lips. But Kreya stopped her.
“On my count. Three...”
The soldiers were halfway up.
“Two.”
“Kreya? Now?”
The first of the soldiers burst into the room.
“One!”
Hand in hand, they leaped from the tower, shouted the activation word, and soared over the grasses. All of the soldiers who had poured themselves into the tower and stuffed themselves into the stairs now had to shove their way back out. But those outside sprinted across the grasses.
Soaring above them, Zera thought she heard a familiar sound ringing out.
A laugh that she’d last heard twenty-five years ago. It crept inside her ear, nestled in her brain, and echoed there, the horror of it building inside her.My imagination,Zera thought. But she couldn’t shake it.
Landing, they raced toward the wall, with the inhuman soldiers close behind them. Gaining on them. Her breath scraped her throat as she gasped in air, and she shoved her hand into a pocket, searching for the next speed talisman—and felt nothing.
“We’re out!”
“Keep running,” Kreya panted.
Zera glanced back. Swords out, the soldiers were closing the distance between them. A few had fanned out, to prevent their prey from switching directions. Ahead, she saw the wall—still a mile away, maybe two miles, though now she could make out the outline of the catapults and the guard towers. Her leg muscles burned, and her side seized, but she kept moving.
“Got anything?” Kreya asked.
“Stealth. Steadiness.” They’d used up their speed and strength talismans.
“Got anythinguseful?”
“No.” She wished she’d brought every talisman she’d ever made. She thought of her storeroom back in her palace at Cerre. She’d intended to bring enough for whatever crisis Kreya faced, but she’d underestimated their enemy.
Or overestimated herself and Kreya.
