There’d been an explosion behind me, and I’d stumbled, kept going with my heart hammering as if I were a rabbit.
And then there had been booted feet thundering through the passageway behind me. I’d gasped as I ran, my breathing ragged as I tried to run faster and faster. But they were grown men. They caught up to me.
I turned, mimicking my father, and tried to blast them with my magic the way he had.
It shouldn’t have worked.
Fire flared from my hands and slammed into them like a wall. The force of it blasted me back, and I landed hard, my head slamming into the stone floor so hard it cracked. I’d wanted to puke as I peeled myself off the floor, blood trickling down my face, warm and sticky.
Instead I’d run and I’d jumped into the freezing water.
My scar. I touched the scar on my head, the movement pulling me out of my dreams enough to hear Alis’s voice murmuring, trying to talk to me.
When I opened my eyes, I realized she wasn’t talking to me at all.
She was muttering the word to the spell I’d taught her, the one I’d learned from Damyn.
Then suddenly, she was wearing Lucien’s face. She gave me a smile. “Oh I see you’re awake.”
“What are you doing?”
She brought the stone she’d pried from the wall from behind her back and drove it toward my head before I could react.
I plummeted into my dark sleep all over again.
Chapter
Fifty-Nine
Branok
Caldren leaned against the wall in our city hideout, looking out-of-place when the royals were all in their usual designed spots, more or less: Arren lay on the couch with his boots stacked on the arm of the chair, Lynx was half-listening as he leafed through his books, Talisyn lounged in front of the fire, and Jaik paced in front of the fire.
“I can’t bring all of you with me,” Jaik told Talisyn in exasperation. “I’m taking Branok because he knows his way around the dungeons the best.”
“That’s a pretty dubious honor,” Arren muttered.
“It’s not as if I’m thrilled about it.” But I would’ve been livid to be left behind, just as Talisyn and Lynx were. Arren looked inscrutable as ever, more interested in examining the ceiling tiles than in Honor’s fate, but I had a feeling that was a lie.
I couldn’t stand for the girl to be dead. I had about a hundred questions for her. Why the hell was she masquerading as Lucien? And how often had she played that particular little trick?
Beyond my questions… I hated the thought that she could be hurt or killed. She was a giant pain in the ass. But she made the world a far more interesting place.
I moved to the side of the window again and glanced out the side of the curtain, pulling my spy glass from my pocket. “We’re still being watched by Pend’s men.”
“We’ll take care of that,” Lynx said. “We can take a page from Honor’s book. Pend would expect Jaik to rush off to rescue Honor.”
Jaik looked at him as if he found Lynx’s words vaguely insulting but also couldn’t really argue.
“I’ll wear Jaik’s face,” Lynx said. “And his cloak. You go through the tunnels.”
“They’ll be in the tunnels too,” I pointed out.
“Then they’ll be dead in the tunnels. We just need to reach Honor before the alarm’s sounded.”
“I’ll be Jaik,” Talisyn said. Jaik was already unbuckling the cloak in his house colors, wadding it and tossing it to Talisyn, who caught it against his chest. “I’m the runner-up for arrogant swagger.”
“We could split up again,” Lynx suggested. “Two of us in the tunnels going ahead to distract whoever is waiting, one leading them off through the streets—”
“They’ll count our numbers and they’ll know something is up, even so,” Jaik said.
“Perhaps you could use a little more help.” Damyn loomed in the doorway.
Jaik reached for his knife, stopped himself with effort, then seemed as if he might change his mind and grasp it after all. “How did you get in here?”
“I taught you boys most of what you know, if you recall,” Damyn drawled. “And I came to help Honor.”
“You helped her right along to that cell in the first place.” Jaik’s tone was ice. “You knew who she was, didn’t you?”
“And what were you going to do? Fight your father then and there, Jaik? Her life was forfeit and yours would have been too, the moment you rebelled. Neither of you would’ve left that tower alive.” Damyn tilted his head to one side, studying Jaik.
“If we’re going to fight our fathers,” I said. “We’re going to have to be clever about it. Choose our timing, our battleground.”
Damyn nodded. “Your father may well think you’re fine with the hanging of Lucien Finn. You haven’t exactly been kind to the boy, after all. That gives us the best chance of getting Honor out of that dungeon.”
Jaik’s face shuttered, perhaps at the memory of exactly how kind we’d been to Lucien Finn. I remembered the way Lucien’s face had burst open under my knuckles over and over again, the way I’d lunged at him, snarling, to rip pieces out of him when we were both dragons.
I was absently rubbing my knuckles as if they hurt now, and I dropped my hands to my sides.
“Damyn’s got his vows to our fathers. He and Lynx should take to the street as Jaik and me,” I said. “Talisyn and Arren can go through the tunnels and clear the way ahead of us. Lead whoever is patrolling away.”
“They won’t know Caldren is on our side.” Jaik muttered the words as if he wasn’t entirely sure himself that Caldren was on our side. “So between Damyn and Caldren, they might not see the three of us coming.”
The others left the house first, leaving me waiting with Caldren and Jaik. The silence was about as comfortable as swimming through tacks.
“Any more glimpses of Honor’s thoughts?” Caldren asked him abruptly. “Or of your memories?”
Jaik shook his head, looking annoyed that Caldren had even asked. Then he admitted, “I’ve only had glimpses before anyway, but now it seems like she’s… quiet.”
“Honor, quiet?” I muttered. “That does worry me.”
The three of us dressed as guards, then put on plain cloaks over to hide our clothes in case we ran into anyone. We left the house and made our way through the tunnels, and down a side tunnel that led to the dungeon.
When we thought that our fathers were responsible for all those tunnels and for the hybrids, I’d commissioned this tunnel, working with a few orcs who owed me a favor. It was a narrow passage where we all had to half-stoop, half-crawl. I had some ‘friends’ among the guards, but I hadn’t wanted to risk them on finishing the tunnel. We had to break through the wall into a cell that turned out to be blessedly empty.
“I’m not sure whether you amaze me or worry me, Branok,” Jaik said under his breath.
I clapped his shoulder and said, “If I don’t come back in twenty, forget me. I’ll find Honor and get her free.”
I’d made friends among the guards, of course. It would have been foolish of me not to. I knew which ones had embezzled money, which ones were cheating on their wives. When I hadn’t been able to find genuine dirt on a few of them, I’d framed them for something.