The door opened into the kitchen, where Linus sat shirtless at the kitchen table. A girl stood beside him, her dark hair falling around her, as she tried to clean up a nasty gash on his arm.
“Bryn.” Linus tried to smile at me, but his injury caused him to wince instead. “When I saw you on the wall today, I was so happy that you were okay and fighting to get rid of that witch in the palace.”
It had been nearly two months since Linus had first arrived in Doldastam, and in that short time he’d already grown and changed so much, even though he was barely eighteen. He’d spent time training with Ember, and his arms and chest had begun to fill out, with muscles bulking up his lanky frame.
Light freckles dotted his face, and he still had an openness to his expression, like he could never completely hide what he was feeling, but his eyes had darkened, taking some of the innocence he’d arrived with.
Around his wound, his skin had begun to change color, shifting to blend into our surroundings. When the girl tending his wounds tried to stitch up the gash on his arm, Linus winced, and the color intensified, making it almost appear as if his arm had disappeared, other than the parts stained red with blood.
“We just came here to fix Linus up, and I wanted to get Delilah somewhere safe,” Ember explained as she closed and locked the door behind me.
Delilah looked back at me, and I hadn’t recognized her right away because I’d only met her once before. She was very beautiful, with dark almond-shaped eyes and a soft smile. In her jeans and tunic sweater, she appeared slender and tall.
“We got Linus’s parents out of here already,” Ember went on. “My brother is helping refugees escape. Since most of the fighting is going on around the back wall, Finn is leading evacuees right out the front gate and to your camp on the other side of the hill.”
“I came back to help other people escape,” Linus said, and he gritted his teeth when Delilah turned her attention back to fixing him up.
“My parents won’t leave.” Delilah scowled, and she began wrapping Linus’s arm with gauze. “They’re in the basement hiding in a panic room, and I’m actually surprised they haven’t come back up here to drag me down with them.”
“So that’s what we’ve been doing—trying to help people evacuate.” Ember looked me over, her eyes lingering on my bloodied sword. “What have you been doing?”
“I’ve been trying to get to the palace,” I said.
I thought about explaining to her about Ridley, and how he’d been captured, and how I had to get him free before they killed him. But it all felt like too much to say aloud, and there was enough going on here. Everyone in this room had more than their share of problems to deal with.
“I saw you, and I wanted to make sure you were okay,” I said instead, my words sounding tight around the lump in my throat.
“I think we can handle it,” Ember told me, trying for a reassuring smile. “I know you’ve got your work cut out for you.”
A loud knocking at the front door interrupted our conversation. The kitchen was at the back of the house, so we couldn’t see the door from where we stood, but we all turned toward it.
“I locked and bolted the front door,” Delilah said softly.
But the knocking just grew louder and more intense, until it changed from knocking to someone trying to break down the front door.
SEVENTY-ONE
adversary
Ember and I both drew our swords and moved closer to the entryway from the kitchen so we could see into the front hall, when the door came crashing in.
“Markis or Marksinna Nylen?” a man asked in the strong, clipped tones of a H?gdragen. “Are you safe?”
“I saw her run in here!” a female voice shouted shrilly, and it was like nails on a chalkboard, so I placed it instantly—Astrid Eckwell. “Go inside and get her! She’s the one behind it all!”
I grimaced, realizing that Astrid must’ve seen me coming over here. She had probably been holed up in her mansion with her family and their own personal H?gdragen standing guard. But her contempt for me was so strong that she’d left the safety of her home to make sure that I got my punishment.
We’d grown up together, and Astrid had been unrelentingly vicious to me. She had been the first one to ever call me a half-breed, and she had made certain that it caught on as a cruel chant that the other kids would sing to me during recess.
It wasn’t until my teenage years that I realized the sheer level of her hatred stemmed from jealousy and feelings of inferiority. Her house and most of her riches came from an inheritance that should’ve been my dad’s, and would have been my own, had my grandparents not disinherited my dad for marrying a Skojare. The Eckwells—as second cousins to my dad—were the closest relatives and next in line.
Astrid only had her status because my dad had given it up. Her life should’ve been mine, and I think that secretly she was always afraid I would take it from her.