“Not yet, but I heard Darius is furious. He assigned Lennox to lead a special team to sniff out the culprit.”
Whether this is a person who simply enjoys sending people to their death or this is a small step in a more sinister plot has yet to be decided. I would need more information to determine that, but one thing is for certain. Whoever's doing this, their intentions are anything but benign.
“The second they find him, I want to know,” I order. They all nod in acknowledgement.
Amara unsheathes a dagger and flips it into the air, catching it by the hilt. “At least we can say one good thing came out of this.”
“I can’t believe you broke into their armory,” Tristan seethes, the marking on his cheek twisting with his displeasure. “Lena told you not to steal any weapons.”
“It’s not stealing if they're already ours,” Amara quips, her single starlight jewel twinkling beneath the light of the two moons. “The way I see it, they stole from us.” She shrugs. “I was simply reclaiming what's already mine.”
Humming to myself, I secretly agree with Amara as I, too, have felt naked without the weight of my blades. Stroking the hilt of one of the obsidian and starlight daggers strapped to my hip, the warmth of it spreads a comforting heat to my palms.
Rounding on Amara, Tristan folds his arms over his chest. “And what happens when they realize they're missing? Who do you think their first suspects will be?”
“Us,” Amara replies with a droll look, twirling the dagger. No doubt just to irk Tristan even more.
Tristan’s answering smile is all teeth. “Exactly. Which will attract even more attention to ourselves than we already have.”
Zander huffs, unstrapping the leather strap from his wrist and tying his glossy, blonde hair back, giving Tristan a reproachful glare. “Stop your bitching. What's more important to you?” Placing his hands on his hips, he jerks his head towards me and Amara. “Calling attention to ourselves, or keeping them safe?”
Uneasy with Zander’s comments, I watch them share a silent conversation for several moments until Tristan concedes defeat with a nod of his head. My uneasiness grows with the gesture and I beg the Stars for the thousandth time that my friends, my family, would never again speak of such things. Or at the very least not within my presence. But I already know my fate is already painted by the Stars and I'll forever endure listening to how important it is for them to keep us safe. Of how they would do anything for it to remain that way. Like my life is more valuable than theirs, when in truth it's not. Everything I do is for them. For those I love. If I didn't have them, I wouldn’t have the strength to continue. Nor would I be willing to do so.
“Here we are.”
Tristan’s voice tears me from my thoughts and I glance up, finding myself standing before the same white wall alongside which we've been walking parallel. But unlike the rest of the stone cage, this section has large slashes and gouges blemishing the pristine white.
Out of precaution, I stretch my senses once more and confirm no other signs of life. “Zander, I need more light.”
Zander’s copper and starlight jewels flare and glittering gold crawls up the veins of his forearms, up to his chest and neck all the way into his lower jaw, illuminating his once green, but now glowing gold eyes. Raising shimmering gold palms, he summons a massive funnel of gilded, twisting fire. With a monstrous roar, the flames barrel toward the claw marks, shaping themselves to them.
Amara reaches toward the fire, but jerks back when a wayward flame attempts to lick at her skin. Swinging her gaze to Zander, a devious smile quirks her lips, seeming more sinister with the flickering flames reflecting off her whiskey eyes. “I would love for these arrogant Fire immortals to see what true fire power is. They're all but a spark compared to this beast.”
The flames flare to near blinding, howling in agreement. “Born in fire, I rise from the ashes,” Zander whispers, brushing his fingers through the gilded flames of his creation before reverting his attention to Amara with a menacing grin. “They may be able to wield the flames, but I am the flame.”
Chuckling at the hypocrisy of his own arrogance, I, along with everyone else, study the crisscrossed slashes in silence. Tristan grazes his fingers across the markings and dips his finger into a gouge, the wall swallowing his finger down to the second knuckle.
“So the Soulless were climbing atop one another?” Biting my lip, I cock my head to the side. “Trying to breach the walls?”
Tristan rubs his fingers together, dusting off the residual powdered stone as he steps back, his brown, almost black eyes bouncing over the scores. “Appears that way.”
“So the Breccans ordered them to breach the walls?” Amara asks. Tristan jerks his head in a nod, a grim slash to his lips.
This timeline is too close. Too coincidental. There's no way this isn't the beginning.
Tick, tick, tick. The time is near.
“Tristan, how far into the palace have you infiltrated?” I ask, fiddling with my lip while pacing through the grass, my mind bouncing from one thought to the next.
“I've mapped it out almost in its entirety.”
Raising my hand, I count off on my fingers. “So the royal wing, throne room, and meeting rooms?” I ask and Tristan nods. “Did you have any trouble with the Queen's wards?”
He scoffs. “No ward can keep me out.” As if oil filling a well, ruby speckled blackness spreads and fills the swirled marking on his cheek. Flicking his wrist, wisps of shadows spotted with rubies drift from his flattened hand, tendrils dancing along his palm before his hand snaps shut into a fist, the shadows dispersing like smoke in the wind along with the darkness of his markings.
“Stupid question,” I say, waving the thought away. “Have you found anything of note?”
“I've found a few secret passageways. But at this point, none of them seem to be of much use.”
“That's not much help,” Amara says, tapping her fingers on her hips. “Might as well walk through the front door.”
Bobbing my head, I say in all seriousness, “At the rate we're going, we just might.”
A laugh bursts from Amara. “It’d definitely make a statement.”
“What else?” I ask Tristan, hoping he can give me more than the nothing he's given me thus far.
“Nothing.” Staring up at the moons, he scans our surroundings once again. “But I haven't had the opportunity or time to investigate the royals’ private chambers just yet.”
“Make time,” I snap, much harsher than I intended. “We’re running out of time as it is,” I add in a softer tone, though it is no less commanding.
My boots swish through the grass as I return to the wall, halting my steps when I feel the waves of heat blast into me from the funnel of flames. Dropping my head back, I stare up at the Breccans’ assault once more, my eyes rapid firing from one claw mark to the next with the same chaos jarring my mind.
This is important. I know it is. Every instinct tells me I have all the information I need. I have all the pieces to the puzzle, but they’re all jumbled and each time I attempt to slip them into place, they refuse to mesh.
Narrowing my eyes, I step forward into the pyramid of flames and am instantly devoured by the roaring beast. Feeling nothing but a warm caress, I trace my fingers across a claw mark several spans wide as I imagine that very same mark inflicted on an immortal. On how that injury would be instantly fatal to the powerful beings. Regardless of my task, that's something I can’t allow. I refuse to. Even if it’s before I find who I've been tasked to seek.
Where are you, you son of a bitch?
