Page 229 of Commanding Blood And Bonds

She left. She actually fucking listened.

Some fucked up kind of relief washed through me—after all, it was my debt we were clearing, not hers—but it lasted only a heartbeat because the water was climbing. Some book I’d read said drowning was a peaceful way to go once you stopped panicking—like a natural high.

Nope. Not willing to find out.

“Think, Cyrus.”

I sloshed backwards, ran and leapt—predictably came up short.

“Fuck,” I muttered, scanning for anything, anything at all. “Think, Cyrus.”

“Or fucking pay attention,” Freya snapped from above.

I looked up and found a dangling rope.

“Please tell me that’s fastened to something heavier than you.”

“Get fucked. I’m stronger than I look.”

“And half my weight.”

“Run and jump. Do it like you fucking mean it.”

“Freya!”

“Cyrus! Hurry up before I leave you for the spiders.”

“You’re insane!”

“Well aware!”

I ran through the sloshing water, jumped, grabbed the rope, and climbed.

Screeching stone. Cracking bone. Hands scrambling for the ledge.

Freya grabbed my tac suit and hauled me up and over. She threw her bodyweight backward, and we collapsed, stacked on the platform. The heat of her breath was a welcome ghost across my cheek as her eyes searched my face.

I rolled off her, scrambling to my feet. I extended a hand, relieved as fuck when she took it, letting me haul her up.

“You just so happen to have rope in that bag of yours?”

“Always come prepared,” she said, straightening and nodding ahead into the looming darkness. There were no torches up here, and we’d both discarded ours before climbing. In near unison, we grabbed our tactical baton flashlights from our belts. I exhaled when they clicked on, beams slicing through the dark to reveal another passage—and an identical wall. Spiders crawled across every surface.

“Small mercies,” she muttered, jerking her chin forward. I made it five feet before the light caught a looming shadow. I turned, flashlight beam catching on a massive stone reaper statue, sword braced over its chest. Behind it, a death mask had been carved into the stone.

“Faster,” Freya snapped. I bolted, and the hair on the back of my neck raised as I took in the statues lining either side.

We sprinted the fifty yards, then scaled the ledge the same way as before. She dropped her bag and tossed down the rope without hesitation, bracing herself.

Fuck, for a tiny thing, she was disproportionately strong.

By the third ascent, I finally asked, “Is the Angel of Death watching your threads?”

“Fucking Ajax,” she muttered, snatching up her flashlight as we bolted for the fourth climb.

I huffed a laugh, pausing to hoist her up. “Don’t know how I didn’t see it sooner.” The last word came through a grunt as I lifted her overhead. I made a mental note to start joining Carr and Nix in their training.

“Weeks of intention, that’s how,” she growled, pulling herself up and over.