With a scream, she summoned the last of her strength and charged.
Though the guard didn’t see her coming, he blocked her on instinct, his blade shoving hers aside like a battering ram. Hadrian twisted out of reach, panting, his eyes wild with horror as he noticed Tabi’s desperate expression.
Not Anees.Not Anees.
Lory’s prayers were drowned out by a roaring in her head as the guard came for her, steel flashing in the gray of breathing dawn.
Dawn.
Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang once.
Nimble on his feet, the guard rained blows down on both Hadrian and her, the force strong enough to make Lory’s legs quake as she fought to remain upright. They needed to end this before they ran out of strength for good.
Lory swung her sword, kicking out at the man’s side, while in her head, she shouted at Hadrian,“Use your powers.”
Hadrian’s eyes met hers over their clashing blades, and the horror of the revelation of her secret ability was only outmatched by the exhaustion in his gaze.
“Make himfearus.”
A subtle nod as Hadrian swung his sword once more, feinted, then ducked under the man’s arm.
Lory stood her ground while Hadrian closed his eyes for a heartbeat, and when he opened them again, a wicked grin spread on his lips.
The guard’s next strike was unstable, too light, and imprecise, and Lory knew it had worked.
She kicked out with her leg one last time, kicking the feet out from the man’s, and as he hit the ground, pinned him with a knife in his shoulder.
She was on her knees, straddling the man as she leaned over him, ready to twist the knife, but his eyes rolled, and he whimpered.
“Please—”
Lory was of half a mind to draw it out and make the man suffer for the ambush, but as she hovered over him, she saw Aiden’s face before her, Evven’s, her mother’s. The people she’d loved and lost. She wasn’t a tormenter. If she killed him, it would be fast.
The only thing she wanted to know before she ended it… “Who tipped you off?”
The man shook his head, and Lory tried not to hesitate as she twisted the knife an inch.
A scream echoed through the breaking dawn.
“Who?” She didn’t even fully repeat her question when the man spat in her face, the momentary fear evaporating as his black irises solidified.
“You have no idea what you’ve gotten yourself into, fire spitter,” he hissed, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth.
She must have accidentally nicked his lungs—at least she thought so, but when she glanced down at his chest, she noticed a stab wound that Jarek or Hadrian must have landed.
The man utilized the moment of inattention to throw her off balance and grab her wrist, but not to disarm her, no. With stunning precision, he guided her hand across his throat, knife cutting through skin, veins, and cartilage. Blood sprayed from the open wound, showering Lory’s tunic crimson, and beneath her, the life left this body.
When Lory scrambled off him, dropping the knife in the process, she found Hadrian passed out on the ground.
Thirty-Six
Lory
They barely madeit back inside the tunnel, dragging Anees and Hadrian along, door shutting behind them and making the world disappear in darkness once more. Had Lory seen the world clearly despite the absence of light earlier, her fairy senses were now drained, and she had to feel her way along the wall just like the others.
Olive didn’t ask what happened, and they didn’t offer any explanation, but they couldn’t sit and wait for their powers to recover. They needed to get to Hand Nahrit and to get Olive out of the pyramid, and then they’d think of an excuse as to why they might have missed breakfast.Perhaps, if they made it in time, they could use the secret side entrance to the mess hall and blend into the crowd before anyone noticed they were missing.
After a moment of assessing their wounds as best they could in the darkness—Lory’s fire wouldn’t come to life, no matter how hard she tried—they knew Anees’s wound was the most pressing. Hadrian was coming around, his groan echoing in the tunnel, but his mind seemed clear, and his blackout temporary.
