It’s at that moment when my boot finally cracks free of the ice, my ankle twisted and throbbing.
Wincing from the pain, I crawl on my knees toward Fallon. The hilt of the knife juts out mercilessly from her side.
I have no great love for Fallon Bane, but I certainly never wished for her to be this grievously harmed.
Lurching toward her, I grab hold of her arm with a shaking hand. “Fallon, can you hear me?”
Sweet Ancient One, she can’t be dead.
“Get back,” one of her guards orders harshly.
I get up on unsteady legs and stumble backward as he drops to his knees in front of Fallon, soon joined by the other two surviving members of her guard.
I stagger to the ground and reach down to absently massage my pulsing ankle, stunned and shaken.
More soldiers are running up the field, shouting. They’re mostly Gardnerian, but some are clad in the light gray of the Verpacian Guard, one of them Elfhollen. Three Vu Trin, including Kam Vin and Ni Vin, bring up the rear. Ni Vin’s eyes meet mine, her black scarf wrapped tight around the burned half of her head, sword drawn.
I turn and look over my shoulder.
There are dead men and dragons strewn across the field. I turn back toward where Fallon lies, incredibly still. A numbed horror washes over me.
Everyone’s talking at once. Men yell out orders as a large contingent of Gardnerian soldiers arrives on horseback. They’re accompanied by a Gardnerian physician and his apprentice, the physician yelling out for supplies.
All the noise is a disconnected mayhem in the face of my overwhelmed shock.
“Give me room!” the physician orders as he rushes to Fallon and drops to his knees.
She’s momentarily blocked from my sight, healers and soldiers surrounding her, one soldier holding a torch, the outer ring of soldiers facing out, their weapons drawn, faces severe.
A young soldier comes down on one knee beside me. “Mage Gardner, are you all right?”
I flinch back from him, shaking with terror, his words barely able to pierce the storm of my emotions.
Someone wraps a blanket around my shoulders.
When the crowd around Fallon disperses, the physician is holding the large knife. Fallon’s tunic is off, her chest covered with tight bandages, her rune-marked uniform and cloak in a tight, glowing ball that’s quickly handed off and taken away.
She’s not dead.
Her eyes are half lidded, but open and staring right at me with a hatred so intense, it jars me to the core.
“The North Tower,” she rasps out. Her eyes loll backward, and she falls unconscious.
Breathless and heart thudding, I watch as two of Fallon’s guards lift her stretcher and carry her away. A small army of Gardnerian soldiers draws protectively in around her, cutting her off from view.
*
“Who are they?” I ask a surviving member of Fallon’s guard, motioning toward the dead assassins.
The young man’s brow knits tight. We both take in the sight of the assassins as their bodies are thrown over the back of a horse. The men’s dead eyes are rimmed with kohl. Intricate runes mark their faces, and their lips are painted black.
Chilled to the bone, I hug the blanket tight around myself.
“They’re Ishkart mercenaries,” the guard tells me with grim certainty. “Assassins from the Eastern Realm.” He flicks his finger toward the dead dragons that are being loaded by more soldiers onto a cart. “And their pit dragons.” He looks to the icy North Tower then back to me. “You should return to your lodging, Mage Gardner.”
“But...what if there are more of them?” I worry, looking sidelong toward the dark wilds, the trees like hulking presences.
“They’re not after you,” he says. He nods in the direction they took Fallon in. “They’re only after her. Our next Black Witch.”
“Her clothes,” I say, the glowing symbols bright in my mind. “What were those strange symbols?”
“They rune-marked her clothing with search runes,” he tells me. “Tracked her here.” He gestures toward the tower with his chin. “Unless you have another Black Witch up in that tower, no one will be bothering you there, Mage Gardner.”
A soldier near the North Tower’s door aims his wand and sends out a line of fire around the door’s frame, melting Fallon’s ice. He wrenches it open and slips inside.
My stomach gives a hard lurch. Soldiers dot the entire field, quickly dispersing as they widen their search into the surrounding wilds. Panicked, I look up and catch a fleeting glimpse of an Icaral’s silhouette in the upstairs window.
I get up and rush, stumbling, to the tower, just as the soldier reemerges. He stands aside, his face impassive, as I stride past him, taking the spiraling stairs two at a time, not caring about the flash of pain every stomp of my left foot brings.
Panting hard, I find Wynter waiting for me on the other side of the hallway, the door to our room open beside her.
Marina. Marina. Marina.
I run to the door and my feet skid to a halt just outside it.
Ariel peers back at me from where she lies on her bed, something rustling under the blankets at her feet.
The rustling thing shrugs the blankets off her head, and Marina peeks out at me with her ocean eyes.
“Ariel hid her?” I rasp out to Wynter, amazed and stunned, doubling over to catch my breath.
Wynter gives me a small nod.
“But...” I say, high-pitched with confusion, “Ariel hates her.”
“She does,” Wynter affirms with another nod then gestures outdoors, toward the soldiers. Her pale face darkens. “But she hates them more.”
I look back to Ariel, and she glares at me with a hatred as hot as Fallon’s.
“They came for Fallon Bane,” I tell Wynter, my throat dry and tight. I’m overwhelmingly grateful that my grandmother’s power has completely passed me by. “Ishkart assassins. They’re trying to kill the next Black Witch.”
“But they failed,” Wynter says, more a grave statement than a question.
I let out a long breath and nod. I’m tense and still lit up with alarm, my ankle throbbing painfully.
“Why was Fallon Bane here?” Wynter’s eyes are full of solemn concern, her voice a constricted whisper. “Does she know of our Selkie?”
I shake my head. “No. But she knows something isn’t right.” I tense my brow at Wynter. “We’ve got to free that dragon. No more waiting. We’re going to need a way to fly a Selkie and more than a few Fae out of here. Before Fallon is healed.”
*
The next day rumors abound that Fallon was brought back to Gardneria under heavy guard, some say to a military base surrounded by dragons.
Vogel uses the incident as an excuse to lock down the borders. Urisk seamstresses are interrogated, and all those who might have worked on Fallon’s rune-marked uniform are shipped off to the Pyrran Isles. Random iron tests begin at all the border crossings.
The need for escape is getting more dire by the minute.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Breaking Cages
The Lupines, my brothers, Cael, Rhys, Wynter, Andras, Tierney, Yvan and I all peer through the dense brush and down onto the expansive military base that lies before us.
The Gardnerian Fourth Division base is like a small city unto itself—multiple Spine-stone buildings carved into cliff faces, a sea of waxed-canvas tents and dragon cages interspersed throughout. On the western end of the base stands a series of wooden barracks, only one lit from within by lantern glow, its chimney spitting smoke into the chilly air. Soldiers appear small as ants from our high vantage point.
I sense movement to my left and turn to see Jarod, then Diana, crouched low and rushing over to us.
“It’s just as we thought,” Jarod tells us. “They’re operating with a skeleton crew.”
“Everyone’s gone to Valgard for Marcus Vogel’s appointment of the new base commander,” Rafe says with a smile.
“Who’s the new commander?” I ask.
Rafe turns to me, his smile widening. “Mage Damion Bane.”
I spit out a laugh. “We’re going to get him in a whole lot of trouble, aren’t we?” I crow.