“Alexa.” Eljin’s sudden urgent whisper shook me from my tortured thoughts.
I turned to see him staring behind us instead of looking at me. I craned my neck to look over my shoulder.
“Looks like we have visitors.”
I squinted through the darkness. There appeared to be a small group of men on horseback. Were they coming toward us? It was difficult to tell. The cloud cover that encased the night in darkness not only helped conceal us, it obscured our ability to see the men behind us.
They were still quite a distance back. If they were pursuing us, we could make a run for it and get to the wall long before they reached us. But then it would definitely appear as though we were doing something suspicious. My hands tightened on the reins, some instinct warning me that we needed to make it to the wall before those men made it to us.
“Let’s see if it’s us they’re after.” I urged Mira forward, squeezing my thighs and calves until she broke into a trot. Eljin had explained the different gaits to me during our trek through the jungle, and had taught me how to sit each of them. Apparently he’d grown up riding, much like Damian.
Gusto quickly caught up, trotting next to us. Eljin glanced over his shoulder every few seconds as we posted — what Eljin called rising and sitting in the saddle to match the uneven gait.
“They’ve sped up. They’re definitely pursuing us.”
Our eyes met, and I could see my own concern reflected in the dark depths of his gaze.
“What do we do?”
He glanced back one more time, and when he looked at me again, his expression was hard. “We can’t involve more people. We make a run for it.”
He tightened his reins and dug his heels into Gusto’s side. The gelding leaped forward into a gallop. I did the same to Mira, and soon the wind whipped past my face, tangling in my hair and stealing the moisture from my eyes as we pounded toward the wall. There was only one entrance that I could see, a massive iron gate, guarded by multiple men on both sides.
“What are we going to do?” I shouted at Eljin.
We were close now, only about a hundred feet away from the wall, and another fifty feet to the west of the gate, where the men on guard had turned toward us, lifting bows and arrows to take aim.
“Am I to shoot them?” I yelled, transferring the reins to one hand and reaching for the bow strapped over my chest.
“No!” Eljin suddenly sawed on the reins, leaning back and pressing his heels down. Gusto responded to his signal and slammed to a halt, kicking up clods of dirt and weeds from his hooves digging into the ground.
Shocked by his sudden stop, Mira and I went flying past them. I had to yank on Mira’s mouth, turning her back to Eljin and Gusto and then signaling her to stop as well. Eljin had already dismounted and stood near Gusto’s head, rubbing the gelding’s large jaw as the horse huffed from the sudden mad dash through the darkness. I dismounted from Mira as well.
“Who goes there?” one of the guards shouted at us in Antionese.
“What are you doing?” I whisper-shouted at Eljin angrily.
“We have to let them go.” He looked up at his horse mournfully. “From here on, we go by foot.”
“What?” I clutched Mira’s reins protectively. It was inconceivable that I’d gone from being afraid of her to devastated at the thought of leaving her behind so quickly.
“Hurry, there’s no time.” Eljin let go of Gusto’s reins and moved back to slap him on the rump. The horse tossed his head and trotted forward hesitantly, glancing back at Eljin as if in confusion.
“I don’t understand,” I argued, still not letting go of Mira.
“The men might think we’ve stolen the horses, since we avoided the city. If we let them go and make a run for the wall, they’ll let us go. My guess is no one from Antion cares about who goes in to Dansii. Only who comes out. As long as we don’t take their horses with us.” He walked over to where I stood, one hand on Mira’s hot flank. I could feel the rise and fall of her breathing, the warmth of her body. It had been foolish of me to let myself grow attached to her. Stupid to let myself care for an animal. I should have known it would come to this.
“Hurry, Alex.”
“Reveal yourself at once or we will open fire!” another guard shouted.
I looked up to see him advancing on us, an arrow drawn tightly in his bow. Another glance revealed the men on horseback rapidly approaching. With a choked cry, I stepped back and followed Eljin’s lead, slapping Mira on the rump. But she only sidestepped a bit, her head swiveling around to pin me with her big brown eyes.
“Go, you stupid animal! Go away!” I flung my arms in the air, spooking her enough to make her trot away a few steps, but then she stopped again. Tears stung my eyes as I shouted at her. “Go, Mira!”
Eljin shouted at her as well, making a motion as though he’d thrown a rock at her. Although he held nothing in his hand, that finally startled Mira enough that she turned and trotted off after Gusto, who was headed toward Bikoro and the other men.
Wiping angrily at my cheeks, I turned away.
“I’m sorry,” Eljin said quietly next to me, but I just shook my head.
“Now what?” I forced my voice to come out hard and steady. I’d pretended not to care for years; I could do it again. She was just a horse.
“Duck!” Eljin shouted as he suddenly leaped toward me. We both tumbled to the ground as an arrow whizzed past to embed itself in the soft earth beyond where I’d been standing.
I reached for my own bow and arrow, but Eljin stopped me. “They’re Antionese. Just tell them who you are.”
Another arrow flew past us, barely missing Eljin’s shoulder.
“Antionese with terrible aim,” I agreed.
As one, we both rolled away and then jumped to our feet. I lifted my hands in the air, making a show of not reaching for my bow. The guard stood only twenty feet from us, another arrow notched and ready to fly.
“Don’t shoot!” I yelled. “We’re Antionese! Don’t shoot us!”
The guard wavered. Behind us, I heard a whinny. Unable to resist, I glanced back to see Gusto and Mira galloping away toward the jungle, the men on horseback in pursuit. Eljin had been right; they’d only cared about the horses.
“You have to do the talking,” Eljin muttered beside me. “He’ll question my accent.”
I faced forward again, to see the guard lowering his bow.
“What is your business here?” the guard yelled.
“We need to get into Dansii.” I started to walk toward him, and Eljin followed. When we got closer, the guard’s eyes widened, traveling back and forth between our faces. Our scars.
“What business do you have that would take you to that forsaken place?”
“It’s the king’s business,” I said.
His eyes dropped to the royal insignia on my vest as I came to a stop directly in front of him, and he immediately stiffened, having gone pale, probably realizing he’d almost shot one of Damian’s guards.
“I — if the king orders it, then …” he stuttered, glancing over his shoulder. “But you still have to convince them to let you in.” He jerked a thumb toward the gate. The other Antionese soldiers were watching our exchange with a mixture of bafflement and wariness. But on the other side of the gate stood three men in dark cloaks, the hoods pulled up over their heads. A cold finger of dread scraped down my spine when all three hoods turned toward us.
“Who are they?” I asked the guard.
Gone was his bluster, and if anything he went even more pale. “I don’t know. Never seen them before. They showed up this morning, after the group of Dansiians went back through the gate.”
My stomach clenched at his words. “How many men?” I asked urgently.
“What?”
“How many Dansiian men went through the gate? Was anyone hurt? Did it look like they had any prisoners?”
“Yes. There was a prisoner….” He trailed off suddenly, his eyes losing focus, going blank in that ho
rrible, soulless way that made my blood turn to ice. “Are you seeking him? Is that who you have come for — the prisoner?”
There was no chance I was going to answer him. Rafe had been here, and I wasn’t about to wait to see what he’d commanded this man to do to us.
“Run!” I shouted at Eljin, grabbing my bow and an arrow. Yanking it over my head, I notched the arrow as I dashed toward the gate, with Eljin on my heels. I felt the draw of magic beside me as he lifted his hands. There was a thud behind us, but I didn’t turn back to see what he’d done. The two Antionese men guarding the gate lifted their weapons in alarm — one held a sword and the other another bow. I let my first arrow fly without breaking stride before the other man could even take aim. It went through his shooting arm, rendering him unable to fight, but it was not a life-threatening injury.
“Move out of the way,” I shouted, waving my free hand at both of them. “Don’t make me shoot again!”
“Halt!” The other guard shouted, but his voice wavered.
Eljin and I stopped, my bow pulled tight with another arrow. The three men wearing hoods stood still behind the gate, watching us approach. I felt the pull of magic again as Eljin lifted his hands once more. The uninjured guard dropped his sword to suddenly grasp at his neck, clawing at unseen fingers that choked the air out of him. The moment his eyes rolled up into his head, Eljin dropped his hand and the man fell to the side, unconscious but not dead. At least, I sincerely hoped not.
“What are they?” I murmured to Eljin, a spike of adrenaline and fear driving into my arms, legs, and belly.
“I think we’re about to find out.”
The gate began to grind open.
Eljin lifted his hands once more as the three men in robes moved forward, past the gate toward us. I heard movement behind us, and I glanced over my shoulder to see the first guard — the one whose eyes had gone blank — recovering from whatever Eljin had done to him and climbing to his feet.
A sudden sinking sense of desperation assailed me. And then Eljin grabbed me with one hand, pulling me in to his side, and the ground surrounding him began to shake violently. My arrow slipped when Eljin grabbed my arm, but I immediately renotched it. Quickly taking aim at the robed man on the left, I let it fly. But before the arrow reached its target, he lifted his hand and it disintegrated into ash.
Cold dread lodged in my chest when I saw that he wore the same strange glove made of metal and jewels that Iker had worn when I’d fought him.
He was a black sorcerer.
A ball of fire suddenly ignited above his upturned palm. We had no chance of surviving this. Before I could second-guess myself, I tore free of Eljin’s grip, lurching forward and throwing my arms out to keep from being flung to the ground by his earthquake.
“Alex!” Eljin shouted, but I ignored him, tossing my bow to the dirt. The ground suddenly grew still.
“Stop!” I yelled. “If you don’t hurt us, I will turn myself in to you.”
The man wielding the fire paused. I could see a hint of his face in the glow of the unearthly flames — a narrow nose and deep-set, dark eyes. “And who might you be?” His voice was cold and heavily accented. Though he didn’t yell, it carried to where I stood as clearly as if he were only a few feet away.
“Don’t do this!” Eljin’s hand closed over my bicep, trying to pull me back, but I ignored him.
“I’m Alexa Hollen, guard to King Damian.”
“No!” Eljin shouted, pushing me behind him. But it was too late; I’d already seen the gleam of teeth beneath the shadow of the hood.
“Your offer is accepted.” The man closed his fist and the fire disappeared. A shiver of terror sliced through me as he strode toward us.
Eljin turned to me, his eyes wide and frantic. “How could you do this?”
“We would have both died. Go to Damian. Help him win this war.” It was all I was able to say before the man reached us and snaked a hand out to snatch my arm; his grip was iron tight. The edges of the metal glove bit into my skin.
“You will come willingly or he dies.”
Fear pounding through me, I looked up into the man’s face. “What will you do with me?”
Without answering, he yanked me to stand in front of him, just in time to see the other two men close the distance between us and roughly grab Eljin as well — each man taking one of his arms.
“What are they doing? Let him go — it’s me you want!” I struggled to turn back, to see what they were doing to Eljin, but to no avail. The black sorcerer’s grip tightened on my arm as he shoved me forward, toward the gate and Dansii.
“He comes,” the black sorcerer growled, “to ensure your cooperation.”
Dread coalesced in my limbs, making my feet leaden as the man shoved his fist — the one encased in a glove made of sharp metal and hard jewels — into my spine, forcing me forward, away from Eljin and the other two hooded men. I arched my back away from the pain, trying to twist out of his grip, but he was ruthless, only holding on tighter. I could have pulled out my sword with my free hand, but I didn’t dare risk it. Not with Eljin very likely being held by two more black sorcerers.
The black sorcerer marched me through the gate, with the others right behind us. In the darkness I could see the outline of buildings; another city.
Once we were all through, the hinges on the grate screeched, and then, with a resounding clang, it ground shut.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Eljin standing between the other two sorcerers, his face devoid of emotion.
We were trapped in Dansii, surrounded by black sorcerers.
Every minute my chances of returning to Damian were growing more improbable. My only hope now was to somehow find Rylan, to negotiate for his life in return for mine.
The sorcerers quickly removed our weapons, tossing them on the ground behind us. I had to bite down my teeth as hard as I could to force the tears back when I saw the beautiful bow and arrows Damian had given me lying on the dirt.
“This way,” the black sorcerer growled, jerking me toward a darkened alley between two homes, leaving our weapons behind. We walked for a few minutes, and then he turned us toward a smaller, sand-colored building. The windows were dark, but two more men dressed similarly to him stood guard in front of the door, though their hoods were pulled down to reveal their faces.
Their heads lifted simultaneously as we approached. One man was as pale as Asher, but he had dark brown hair and a full beard; the other was sunburned, his cheeks even redder than his hair. The redhead’s eyes widened when he saw me.
He asked something in Dansiian as the black sorcerer pushed me toward the door.
The black sorcerer snapped back at him, and the redhead’s gaze immediately dropped to the ground as he turned and shoved a key into the lock. The door swung open silently.
“After you,” the sorcerer whispered near my ear. I forced my chin up, suppressing a shiver of fear, and marched forward to whatever fate awaited me.
The sorcerer yanked me toward a dimly lit hallway, two small gas lamps offering a meager glow to illuminate the barren interior of the building. There was no furniture, no decoration of any kind. We passed room after empty, windowless room. My skin began to crawl the farther in we went, a strange foreboding rushing over me.
At the end of the hallway was a staircase that plunged steeply down into a pit of impenetrable darkness. The man’s fingers tightened cruelly on my bicep as he shoved me forward, into the unknown. Down, down, down; the stairs seemed endless. The darkness grew thicker and thicker the farther we went, until I was afraid I was going to suffocate. There was only the sound of my harsh breathing and our boots slapping the stones. The dank smell of earth filled my nose.
When the stairs finally levelled out, I stumbled forward, unable to see the ground in the unending blackness. The sorcerer pulled me to a stop and we waited for a moment, until the sounds of more feet tromping down the stairs behind us grew closer and closer.
He said something in Dansiian, a
nd another voice responded. I could barely make out the outline of their bodies as my eyes sought for any hint of light by which to see.
“Alexa?” Eljin’s voice came from only a few feet away, but before I could respond there was a dull thud and he grunted.
“No talking,” one of the other sorcerers snapped in his thick Dansiian accent.
A sudden flare of light made me jump back. The sorcerer who still gripped my arm held his other hand out in front of him — the one in the jeweled glove — and had conjured a small flame.
“Go,” the sorcerer said, releasing my arm and pushing me toward the darkness that pulsated outside the scant circle of light from the flames he wielded.
I clenched my hands into fists. My skin was slick with sweat as I forced myself to step forward. Perhaps, I could take him by surprise and kill him. But then Eljin would die. That was why they’d brought him — to threaten me if I changed my mind about turning myself in. And though Eljin, too, was a sorcerer, he was no match for the two black sorcerers who still stood on either side of him. I had no choice but to continue to place one foot in front of the other.
We walked silently through the tunnel for what felt like hours. We passed staircases multiple times, but our captors didn’t stop. The air was damp, chilling me to the bone as we trudged forward. The dirt walls seemed to press in on us, closer and closer, as the time went on without any sign of a break.
“Are you taking us to the king?” I finally asked when I couldn’t stand it any longer.
The sorcerer grabbed my arm, yanking me toward him, his fingernails clawing into my bicep. “No talking,” he repeated through gritted teeth. His eyes flashed in the light of the flame he still wielded, and I nodded, forcing down the urge to attack him, burying it beneath the careful facade of pliancy I was trying to convey.