She heard Orquell whisper under his breath. So faint she could not make out his words. But they had been intended for sharper ears, those of a wyld tracker.
Kytt leaned forward, his lips finding Laurelle’s ear. He breathed so very faintly. “Be ready.”
Laurelle nodded and squeezed Delia’s hand, silently warning her.
Orquell spoke again, but this time loud enough for all to hear. “I believe I never answered your question, Mistress Laurelle. Before I go, I might as well satisfy your curiosity. You had asked what I see when my inner eye opens in the darkness.”
Laurelle swallowed to free her tongue. “What do you see?”
“Flames…”
Suddenly a door burst open to the right, yanked by Orquell. Firelight blazed out of the room, sealed so tight that not a flicker had reached the hall. The one who hid in the room had plainly not wanted to be found, but did not dare sit in the dark amid a legion of ghawls.
A cry rose inside.
Laurelle spotted a familiar figure cowering near the back of the room. A thick torch in hand, bright with flame. He held it toward the door like a sword.
“Sten…” Laurelle said.
It was the captain of the Oldenbrook guard.
His eyes widened at the sight of them-then he must have noted the surging shadows around the group. He suddenly sank to his knees in terror.
“No!”
Out in the hall, the firelight cast back the shadows, leaving Mirra standing only a few paces away, stripped of darkness.
Orquell cupped his hands toward Sten’s torch. The flame leaped like a deer from the end of his brand and flew to the master’s hands. At the same time, he turned and cast the fire at Mirra.
The flames struck her, bathing her face, lighting her gray hair like the driest grass. She screamed and fell back into the darkness of the deeper hall.
Orquell shoved them all in the opposite direction.
With the witch maddened by her agony, her ghawls were in disarray. They fled to the end of the hall and around the corner, where more firelight glowed at the end of the next passage. They had reached the habited sections of the tower.
They ran in a wild dash, fearful of what might be rallying at their back. But it seemed the ghawls had found another target upon which to vent their rage and their mistress’s pain.
Sten wailed behind them, the sound barely human.
Laurelle fled from his cry as much as from the ghawls.
Finally, they reached the light. Rooms to either side echoed with voices, moans. Some doors were open, blazing with light. The smell of blood and bile was heavy. They had reached some makeshift healing ward set up on this level. Passing through, they found a gathering of knights at the stair’s landing. The knights eyed the strange and breathless bunch, but recognized a master’s robes and parted the way.
Orquell stepped to the stairs and resoundingly clapped his hands. Laurelle noted a wisp of smoke sail between his palms. She eyed him inquiringly.
“To douse the pyres. As I swore-when I reached the stairs, I would put them out.”
Delia stared at him. “And you also swore not to raise a fire against Mirra.”
“And I didn’t. What burned her was not a flame I cast or kindled. It was borrowed fire, already burning. It didn’t need raising.”
Delia shook her head. “The witch was right. The word of rub-aki is as slippery as any lie.”
“Before we stepped into the hall,” Laurelle asked, “you already knew about Sten’s fire?”
Orquell tapped the mark on his forehead. “The inner eye is sensitive to fire. While communing earlier, listening to my pyres, I sensed a fire hidden near the edge of the witch’s darkness. I needed her cooperation as a bridge to reach it.”
Delia turned to the upper stairs. “Before Mirra heals and collects herself, word must reach the warden and Castellan Vail.”
Orquell remained where he was. “I cannot speak of it. This I also swore. But I know where I may prove of more use.” He took a step down the stairs.
“Where are you going?” Laurelle asked.
He pointed below. “With Mirra and her legion already above, her buried lair is most likely unguarded. If what I suspect is true, there may be something a rub-aki can accomplish that no one else can do.”
“You’re going into the cellars?” Kytt asked, taking a step after him. “Down into her secret passages?”
“If I can find an opening.”
Kytt took the other steps. “I’ve been down there. While chasing the wolfkits. I can lead you.”
Laurelle stared from Delia to the young tracker. Then she slowly took one step down, and another, almost disbelieving her legs. But she knew the truth. They would need her help more than Delia would, if only to carry another torch. And after all that had happened, she was not about to hole up in some room again, waiting for the end. She’d had enough of that.
“Get word above,” she said to Delia. “To your father. To Kathryn. They must know what lurks here and where we are headed.”
The woman hesitated-but she read the certainty in Laurelle’s eyes.
Turning, Laurelle found Kytt gaping at her.
“No,” he said firmly.
Laurelle simply strode past him, rolling her eyes.
Boys.
When would they learn?
A PACT WITH A DAEMON
At the foot of the cliff, Tylar stepped off the vine ladder.
He had never set foot in a hinterland before, but he had heard tales. Other knights, older knights, told gruesome stories of campaigns against hinter-kings and raving rogues. He almost expected his leg to sink into muck, his skin to peel, and his clothes to burn. But his boots found only loose scree.
He moved away from the cliff, making room for the rest of their party. The way down from here was still steep, barely less of a slope than the cliff itself. Below, another dark forest beckoned, ready again to swallow them up under a canopy.
But here, on this thin beachhead, the stars shone overhead. As Harp had predicted, the sun had sunk to a glow at the western horizon. The lesser moon hung full and low, as if wary of showing its face too high above this sinister land. Perhaps it would be braver when the greater moon rose later. Still, the meager moonlight did cast the spread of forest in a silvery light.
Distantly, large pinnacles of rock protruded, looking like foraging beasts lumbering across a meadow. But Tylar knew they were just the broken landscape of the hinter, a shattered tableland, as if struck by a mighty hammer and upended in crumbled sections.
The scuff of rock and low voices announced the arrival of the rest of their party. They had all come down in pairs, joined by bonds new or freshly forged. Krevan and Calla had their shared heritage as pirates, leader and mate, but Tylar had begun to note Calla’s eye lingering occasionally upon Krevan, revealing a certain longing that never made it to her lips. Krevan seemed oblivious. Next came Malthumalbaen and Lorr, an unlikely pair, but both were sculpted of the same Graced cloth. It was this commonality that forged a bond between them. Last came Dart and Brant, also tied together by strange circumstances, her father stumbling into Brant’s life and dying.
And of course, Tylar was no exception. He had his own shadow, too. One that had been with him from the start of his long journey as a godslayer.
“I’m not climbing back up that,” Rogger said.
Tylar did not argue with the sentiment. His entire left side ached, from ankle to shoulder. His hand throbbed and felt four sizes too large. But at least they’d been descending the ladder. His aches reminded him of Master Sheershym’s assessment: a spreading poison, weakening the naethryn inside him, and in turn, corrupting the spell that kept his body healed and Meeryn’s undergod tethered to this world.
What if the naethryn died?
Rogger continued his gripe. “When this is all over, I’ll just sit here and wait for the next passing flippercraft.”