Such a Daring Endeavor (12 page)

“Yeah, I know how much you like to tell other people to take care of your problems,” I say, thinking of Gwynn.

Gwynn. Once I get Talon out, I’m coming back for her. I have to find some way to reach her.

Despite her claims of Tyrus’s kill-on-sight order, she hesitated. She made the feeblest of attempts. She could have had her guard hold me, she could have stabbed me directly, or even used her stolen magic somehow.

But she didn’t.

My promise to her resonates like an echo deep in my soul. I’m not giving up on her. Hope was there, screaming from her gaze. She’s confused. She’s lost.

“How is he still alive?” one of the soldiers—an older man with hair more salt than pepper—asks, pointing to Ren. The nametag over his breastpocket reads
Lewis
. “I stabbed him myself.”

My jaw clenches. Thank you, Ayso.

“Lucky break, I guess,” says Ren.

Tyrus wears the same commanding officer uniform I’ve seen him in before. Fitted and spangled with badges and pendants, a patch on his left breast pocket labeled
Blinnsdale.
His mustache is as dominant a feature as ever, as is his purple hand which alights at once, filling the drafty air with little dancing, purple flecks.

Tyrus lifts his hand, and I clutch at my sternum, startling when I realize the teardrop isn’t here. Curse it. I splay my hands instinctively; ready to block whatever charge he’s sending, but instead of attacking, he speaks.

"You remembered that tunnel,” he says.

“So it would seem,” says Ren with challenge in his eyes.

Talon signals his soldiers forward. “Too bad you won’t be following your…” His gaze sweeps across the open cells. “Friends.”

A streak of purple light shoots from Tyrus’s hands. Shasa whirls forward, knocking me hard against the wall and yanking Ren out of the way.

Ren and Shasa fall back and begin fighting with soldiers. I summon my magic, spinning to join the fray when an arm slides around my waist from behind, squeezing tight. I flail my arms, knocking my fists in any and every direction. Hands are there, purple and gleaming. They snap something thin, silver, and amazingly heavy around each of my wrists.

Instantly, the cool stream churning in my bones withers. My magic pinches out into nothing but steam like a fire doused with water. I jab an elbow back against the man holding me. He shoves me to the stone, my palms scraping against the grit. I wheel around to see the soldier’s single golden tooth inserted among the white ones of his menacing smile. His nametag reads,
Naylor.

Behind him I catch sight of Ren in the arms of a soldier and being herded toward the tunnel.

“No you don’t,” Shasa calls out, but not in time to stop them. So she tails, chasing after the soldiers who have my brother.

I debate following, but I can’t leave Talon here. And without magic, I don’t stand a chance against them. I attempt for it again, but the same empty stream responds, blowing cool air through my bones and sending goosebumps along my skin in the process.

Tyrus crouches at Talon’s feet. Naylor and Lewis close in behind their leader. Slowly, Talon bends one leg, then another. He’s healing. Not fast enough, though.

“Stay away from him,” I cry, knowing it won’t do any good. I search the area, begging for something—anything—I can use to get them away from him.

Tyrus interlocks his fingers, elbows resting on his knees. “They healed you, did they? Good. I’ll need you whole for this anyway.”

“You don’t want to do this,” says Talon, attempting to push up from the floor.

The smile is evident in Tyrus’s voice as he presses Talon back down with a hand on his shoulder. “I can’t let you just leave, son. Not after what you did the last time. I banked everything I had on you, and you let me down.”

“You banked everything you had on your schemes. I wanted no part in it anymore.”

Tyrus sniffs and, quicker than a snap, his purple-tinged hand goes to Talon’s throat. While Tyrus is fast, Talon is still faster. One hand on Tyrus’s wrist, Talon grips him just below the elbow and knocks the Arcaian behind the ear, the chains from his shackles clinking.

Tyrus crumples to the ground. Talon succeeds at pushing himself up, but his knees give way almost instantly. Naylor and Lewis move in, pinning him against the wall. Lewis punches Talon in the stomach, releasing him to buckle back down to the stone grime. At a lower vantage point, Talon dives for Lewis’s legs, knocking the Arc so hard he timbers like a tree trunk. He smacks his head against the stone and lies, unmoving.

Naylor rubs the back of Tyrus’s lolling head, chafing his back, attempting to revive him. Talon drags himself upward again, while Naylor snatches the guard’s fallen blade and drives it toward Talon’s side. Talon sniffs, chains clinking as he tries to dodge, but his shackles serve their purpose, shortening his motion. He doesn’t make it in time to block the knife plunging hard into his thigh.

“Talon!” I cry as he lets out a groan.

I glance around, frantic. The door to the secret tunnel still stands ajar, leaving the room startlingly empty. My stomach churns. I hope Ren is safe. And Shasa, too, for that matter.

Tyrus rises shakily to his booted feet, stomping hard on Talon’s newly healed knee. Talon cries out, gripping his leg and toppling over in pain. Blood continues oozing from the knife wound in his thigh.

I pry at the Prones on my wrists, moving in to help, but Tyrus backhands me. I stumble back into a pair of soldiers who grip me from behind and drag me to where Talon still lies crumpled on the floor, blood collecting in his hands. I fight and struggle, but they hold me fast.

“Let her go,” Talon says through his teeth, earning a laugh from Tyrus.

Talon’s right leg juts out at an odd angle. To my surprise, the Arcaian leader shoots purple magic into the wound, siphoning away the blood and leaving him whole. With one hand, Tyrus lifts him effortlessly to his feet.

“Haraway’s right,” the soldier to my right says. “She’s in the way. Shall we kill her, sir?” His grip tightens around my arm, and the claw at his belt
click clicks
.

My pulse thunders. A smile trails the corner of Tyrus’s mouth upward and adds a gleam in his eyes, which shift back and forth between Talon and me.

“I think she’ll be interested to see Haraway’s…flaws,” Tyrus says. “Odis, you have your camera?”

I almost forgot about the soldier who brought in the cases. During our little skirmish, he set up equipment near the door they battered open. A tripod stand now holds a large screen, facing directly at us. Several cords snake along the corner, and what looks like a lantern on a thin metal stand also flags the darkened corner. Discomfort lingers behind his eyes, but Odis adjusts his uniform, standing straight before answering, “Yes, sir.”

Tyrus nods. “Prepare to film here.”

***

Ren pries at the hands around him when footsteps hit his ears. Shasa and her palm light come into view in the narrow space.

“Duck!” she cries.

Ren drops, making himself dead weight in the soldier’s grasp. Shasa chucks one of her throwing knives directly where he was standing seconds before. The knife hits its target. The soldier lets out a grunt before toppling over.

“Come on,” she says, taking Ren’s hand and stepping over the fallen soldier.

The tunnel is dark, but Shasa’s light illuminates the way now. She glances back before turning a corner. Adrenaline pumping, Ren races after her, only to be cut short when her hand darts out to seize his shirt. Before he knows it he’s ensconced tightly against her in an niche in the stone. She kills the light in her hand, cloaking them in blackness. All he can hear is her breathing.

Her body is warm in this small space, her chest colliding against his with every breath she takes.

“Shasa, what are we—”

“I can’t believe you’re the brother,” she whispers. “You’re the reason this all got messed up in the first place. And to think I was actually starting to like you!”

He struggles to follow her train of thought. “Like me? As in—”

She shoves against his chest. “Talon’s breaking his oath, who says I can’t? I was seriously considering it with you, you futz. And now you go and be related to the girl I hate more than anyone else? Why doesn’t anything go my way?” she asks as though she expects an answer.

“Um…”

“Well?”

He blinks, wishing he could see her face, but the darkness is deep. He might as well keep his eyes closed for all the good it does him. “Look, I’d love to hear your dark ruminations—and we can definitely go back to that part where you said you liked me—but shouldn’t we get out of here first?”

“First Talon being totally useless. Now you…wait a minute…” She pauses, planting a hand on his chest as if struck by some realization.

“Have we lost them?” he asks, attempting to peer out.

She pats his chest. Her voice is fraught with discovery. “You can help me.”

“I can what?”

“I came to get Talon. I can’t attack Craven and neither can Jo—and Solomus is pretty much useless with his magic depleted, and considering how he almost killed her the last time he tried to rescue us, so I was going to have Talon kill him for me, but you…”

“You know I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Jomeini!” Shasa says it as if that one word will make everything clear.

“Who?”

She flicks her light back on. Ren has to blink a few times to adjust to the palm light’s small beam. Shasa’s eyes gleam up toward him, pooling wide, vulnerable and welcoming. He feels his knees grow weak under that gaze.

“Ren, I need your help. Will you help me?”

He’s heard of Talon Haraway’s skill, of his magical blood that enhances both wits and abilities, but this is the first time he’s ever seen a Feihrian in action. Shasa knocked that soldier out with a single, well-placed knife. What can she possibly need Ren’s help with?

She peers out around the corner, one hand resting on his stomach. Angels.

“I think they’ve gone the other direction,” she says in that accent of hers. “We have to go now.”

“We?”

She fists his shirt, a small hint of desperation in her voice. “Please. Please say you’ll help me.”

Uncertainty crawls its way up Ren’s spine. Sure, this girl is intoxicating and more intriguing by the minute, but he hardly knows her. “I can’t abandon my sister. And what about Talon? They need our help.”

Shasa swears. “Solomus is waiting down there for me. I was supposed to bring Talon, he’s the only one who can fight me off—”

Ren grasps her wrists this time. There’s only so much vague rambling a man can take. “You have got to explain what you’re talking about,” he says.

Shasa breaks from his grip. “Ambry is with Talon. She couldn’t be in more capable hands. I have one more shot at rescuing my friend who is about to be taken from this country for good and die for all I know. We don’t stand much of a chance of getting Ambry and Talon out if we go back in there right now, not with Tyrus there. But you and I can help them in another way, if you come with me. Once I get my magic back, once we have the maiden wizard back with her magic, we can go back for them.”

“The maiden wizard?”

“My friend! Jomeini Straylark.”

Ren’s head spins. Dismay stamps out all coherent thought. “Your friend—the one you want me to help you rescue—is the maiden wizard?” He thought all the wizards were dead.

Two soldiers round the corner with lights in hand. Ren stiffens at the sound, his heart instantly thrashing.

“They’re down here!” one of them cries.

“Enough already,” Shasa grumbles. Instead of running away as Ren expects, Shasa barrels in, latching onto arms and wrists, twisting them like toys, booting one to the ground and stomping directly onto his nose. A quick crunching sound follows, and Ren doesn’t hesitate to join her.

He startles for a moment when he realizes it’s Norwidge, the guard who was stationed across the hall from Tyrus’s chambers. Ren knows these men. He knows their training. Like when he was sparring with Ambry, he can tell their skill surpasses his. But as Tyrus’s personal guard, Ren received a little training, not to mention the few tricks he picked up as a Black Vault gatekeeper. Self-defense meant survival in most cases.

He charges in with Shasa. She links her arms with his, using him as a grounding point to flip her legs and knock a soldier in the side of the head. Shasa pants over the motionless soldier for several seconds.

“What is that?” Ren bends for the aud blinking beneath the fallen Arc. It must have fallen out of the soldier’s pocket.

The screen is still lit, and Ren nearly drops the device when he sees the image. Ambry is chained to the wall—the same chain Shasa tricked Ren into before he found out who she was. A fresh bruise blossoms on her cheek, and thin Prones bracelet around each of her wrists. Talon kneels beside her, fresh blood along the legs Ren tried so hard to heal. Tyrus fists Talon’s hair, tipping his head back in order to give Ren—or more importantly, whoever this call is really for—a direct view of the boy’s face.

“Vreck it,” Shasa says, taking the aud from Ren and tucking it into her pocket. “We’ve got to move.”

Ren pauses. He can’t remember exactly which direction they came from, but he knows he can’t leave his sister.

“We can’t leave them in there,” he says. After several seconds Ren settles on a direction when Shasa’s before him once more, her hands on his elbows. He catches the fervent gleam in her eyes.

“That’s why we’ve got to move,” she says.