His Siphons blazed, and the canvas of the back of the tent melted into nothing. We bolted through it before the guards nearby noticed.
They didn’t react to us. Only peered at the hole.
Azriel had made us invisible—shadow-bound.
We sprinted between tents, feet flying over the grass and dirt. “Hurry,” he whispered. “The shadows won’t last long.”
For in the east, behind us … the sun was beginning to rise.
A piercing howl split the dying night. And I knew they’d realized what we’d done. That we were here. And even if they couldn’t see us … the King of Hybern’s hounds could scent us.
“Faster,” Azriel snarled.
The earth shuddered behind us. I didn’t dare look behind.
We neared a rack of weapons. I sheathed my knives, freeing my hands as we hurtled past and I snatched a bow and quiver of arrows from their stand. Ash arrows.
The arrows clacked as I slung the quiver over a shoulder. As I nocked an arrow into place.
Azriel cut right, swerving around a tent.
And with the angle … I turned and fired.
The nearest hound—it was not a hound, I realized as the arrow spiraled for its head.
But some cousin of the naga—some monstrous, scaled thing that thundered on all fours, serpentine face snarling and full of bone-shredding white teeth—
My arrow went right through its throat.
It went down, and we rounded the tent, hurtling for that still-dim western horizon.
I nocked another arrow.
Three others. Three more behind us, gaining with every clawed step—
I could feel them around us—Hybern commanders, racing along with the hounds, tracking the beasts because they still could not see us. That arrow I’d fired had told them enough about the distance. But the moment the hounds caught up … those commanders would appear. Kill us or drag us away.
Row after row of tents, slowly awakening at the ruckus in the center of the camp.
The air rippled, and I looked up to see the rain of ash arrows unleashed from behind, so many they were a blind attempt to hit any target—
Azriel’s blue shield shuddered at the impact, but held. Yet our shadows shivered and faded.
The hounds closed in, two breaking away—to cut to the side. To herd us.
For that was a cliff at the other edge of the camp. A cliff with a very, very long drop, and unforgiving river below.
And standing at its end, huddled in a dark cloak …
That was the girl.
Jurian had left her there—for us. Where he’d gone … I saw no sign of him.
But behind us, filling the air as if he’d used magic to do so … The king spoke.
“What intrepid thieves,” he drawled, the words everywhere and nowhere. “How shall I punish you?”
I had no doubt the wards ended just beyond the cliff’s edge. It was confirmed by the snarls of the hounds, who seemed to know that their prey would escape in less than a hundred yards. If we could jump far enough to be clear of them.
“Get her out, Azriel,” I begged him, panting. “I’ll get the other.”
“We’re all—”
“That’s an order.”
A clean shot, an unimpeded path right to that cliff’s edge, and to freedom beyond—
“You need to—” My words were cut off.
I felt the impact before the pain. The searing, burning pain that erupted through my shoulder. An ash arrow—
My feet snagged beneath me, blood spraying, and I hit the rocky ground so hard my bones groaned. Azriel swore, but with Elain in his arms, fighting—
The hounds were there in a second.
I fired an arrow at one, my shoulder screaming with the movement. The hound fell, clearing the view behind.
Revealing the king striding down the line of tents, unhurried and assured of our capture, a bow dangling from his hand. The bow that had delivered the arrow now piercing through my body.
“Torturing you would be so dull,” the king mused, voice still magnified. “At least, the traditional sort of torture.” Every step was slow, intentional. “How Rhysand shall rage. How he shall panic. His mate, at last come to see me.”
Before I could warn Azriel to hurry, the other two hounds were on me.
One leaped right for me. I lifted my bow to intercept its jaws.
The hound snapped it in two, hurling the wood away. I grabbed for a knife, just as the second one leaped—
A roar deafened me, made my head ring. Just as one of the hounds was thrown off me.
I knew that roar, knew—
A golden-furred beast with curling horns tore into the hounds.
“Tamlin,” I got out, but his green eyes narrowed. Run, he seemed to say.
That was who had been running alongside us. Trying to find us.
He ripped and shredded, the hounds launching themselves wholly on him. The king paused, and though he remained far off, I could clearly make out the surprise slackening his face.
Now. I had to go now—
I scrambled to my feet, whipping the arrow out with a swallowed scream. Azriel was already there, no more than a few heartbeats having passed—
Azriel gripped me by the collar, and a web of blue light fastened itself at my shoulder. Holding the blood in, a bandage until a healer—
“You need to fly,” he panted.
Six more hounds closed in. Tamlin still fought the others, gaining ground—holding the line.
“We need to get airborne,” Azriel said, one eye now on the king as he resumed his mockingly slow approach. “Can you make it?”
The young woman was still standing at the edge of the cliff. Watching us with wide eyes, black hair whipping over her face.
I’d never made a running takeoff before. I’d barely been able to keep in the skies.
Even if Azriel took the girl in his free arm …
I didn’t let myself consider the alternative. I would get airborne. Only long enough to sail over that cliff, and winnow out when we’d passed the wards’ edge.
Tamlin let out a yelp of what sounded like pain, followed by another earth-shuddering roar. The rest of the hounds had reached him. He did not falter, did not yield an inch to them—
I summoned the wings. The drag and weight of them … Even with the Siphon-bandage, pain razed my senses at the tug on my muscles.
I panted through my gritted teeth as Azriel plunged ahead, wings beginning to flap. Not enough space on the jutting ledge for us to do this side by side. I gobbled down details of his takeoff, the beating of his wings, the shifting angle of his body.
“Grab onto him!” Elain ordered the wide-eyed human girl as Azriel thundered toward her. The girl looked like a doe about to be run down by a wolf.
The girl did not open her arms as they neared.
Elain screamed at her, “If you want to live, do it now!”
The girl dropped her cloak, opened her arms wide.
Her black hair streamed behind Azriel, catching amongst his wings as he practically tackled her into the sky. But I saw, even as I ran, Elain’s pale hands lurch—gripping the girl by her neck, holding her as tightly as she could.
And just in time.
One of the hounds broke free from Tamlin in a mighty leap. I ducked, bracing for impact.