REVIEW
I received an e-ARC from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Prepare yourselves for more action, politics, and mystery in the sequel of Ony & Ivory! Leaving the gorgeous new cover behind I have to stand by my amazement of how Mindee kept me glued to the page chapter after chapter AFTER giving me THAT prologue!
Kate and gang have to deal with a new upcoming threat that will be a great threat to every wilder as also to the ones Kate loves most. And I couldn't help but love every time horses appeared in the chapters! You will not be disappointed by the romance and the friendship either!
Prologue
Kate
No one dared approach
the gate of the prison—not by choice, at any rate. Even the guards preparing
for their watches regarded the Mistfold with wariness, like conscripts heading
into battle. Not their first one, but their fifth or sixth, enough experience
to make them fully aware of the hardships in store and the likelihood of death.
Kate Brighton couldn’t
blame them for it. The fortress was as foreboding as any she’d seen. Its red
mudbrick wall, the color of dirt mixed with blood, stood more than thirty feet
high, the top hidden by the thick, undulating mist that gave the prison its name.
That mist was as vast and imposing as the sea, obscuring everything beyond it,
even sunlight. Not that there was much of that to be seen yet, only a vague
brightening from black to gray. Another dawn was here, and yet again Kate
hadn’t sensed it, her magic, once stirring to life with the rising of the sun,
dead inside her. She pushed away the reminder and the wave of homesickness it
brought.
Almost time, she thought, raising one hand to touch the
revolver belted at her right side. A sword hung from her left, hidden by her
long cloak. It was a heavier, more impressive weapon at a glance, but far less
deadly. If fighting broke out, the revolver was all she would need. Whenit
broke out. Despite their planning, violence seemed inevitable. There was too
much they didn’t know about what awaited them beyond the wall and beneath that
unnatural mist. The only thing she knew for certain was that her little brother
was being held in there, along with dozens of her fellow wilders.
“It’s almost time.”
Corwin spoke from beside her, and hearing him echo her thoughts sent a trickle
of warmth through her, easing the tight knot in her chest.
Craving a glimpse of
his face, Kate turned to him, only to be met with disappointment. Although the
voice was Corwin’s, the face staring at her from the shadows belonged to a
stranger. It was a plain face with features so unremarkable that Kate’s brain
was incapable of remembering it. But that had been the point when Harue
fashioned the disguise. The magestone she’d made was perched in Corwin’s left
ear, the telltale glow of its magic hidden behind a gold plate. Fortunately,
Harue had the foresight to create it before they’d left Rime a few weeks ago.
The very next morning after setting sail for this gods-forsaken country, her
magic had vanished, same as Kate’s and the others’. It stopped Harue from
making new magestones, but at least the ones she’d already made had retained
their normal level of power and duration. An advantage of magist magic over
wilders’, it seemed.
“Yes,” Kate replied,
glancing away from that unfamiliar face. She wished Harue were a little less
skillful at her craft. The magist might’ve left some trace of Corwin in the
masklike glamour. Then again, such precautions were warranted. Corwin Tormane,
high prince of Rime, was a wanted man. Both at home, where his older brother
had labeled him traitor, and especially here, in Seva, the longstanding enemy
of Rime. King Magnar Fane of Seva would sacrifice six of his seven sons to
capture him.
“You hate this face,
don’t you?” Corwin said, a tease in his voice.
Despite herself, Kate
smiled. Here was her Corwin, for certain—the one who could always see her
hidden truths. “Not at all. It’s better than your regular face, honestly.”
“Well, in that case, I
will make sure Harue remains in my employ indefinitely so that I might wear it
for you each night.”
“Moderation, my love.”
She patted his check. “Once a week at most, otherwise I’ll surely grow bored
with it.”
“Is that so?” He
arched an eyebrow, or at least tried to, but this face wasn’t made for the
gesture and so both brows rose, making him look surprised instead of playful.
“Does that mean you’ll grow bored of me as well?”
A smirk lifted one
half of her mouth. “Let’s survive this rescue first and discuss the rest of our
lives later.”
Corwin grinned back at
her, a hint of himself flashing in those false, dark eyes. “Tonight then. Soon
as we’re on the ship for home.”
Home. Kate longed for it. Despite the troubles
waiting for them in Rime, she missed the land itself with a physical ache. The
rolling hills of Norgard, covered in lush green grass and everweep flowers, the
towering trees of Aldervale, the blue skies over gray mountains in Farhold, and
the crystalline waters of the Penlaurel River. The life and color of Rime made
Seva seem a withering wasteland by comparison. And her magic, of course. She
missed that most of all. Even though she’d always heard that magic didn’t exist
outside of Rime, it had been a shock to discover her abilities were so
conditional to her location.
She returned her
attention to the gate where the change of guard was just finishing. Although
she admired Corwin’s absolute certainty about the outcome of this rescue, she
didn’t share it. Too much of their plan relied on luck and chance, both in
short supply. If only she were able to use her ability to influence the minds
of others; then they could get in and out of the prison with relative ease.
Without it they were forced to rely on stealth and tricks like ordinary
bandits.
Remembering those
tricks, Kate reached into her pocket and pulled out two small pieces of cork,
which she gently slid into her nostrils.
“Good luck.” Corwin
handed her a small glass vial.
She accepted it with a
quick nod, hiding its smoky contents from view with her clasped fingers. Then,
stepping out from the alley, she approached the two guards standing by the
gate.
The one on the left
looked up at the sound of her footsteps and raised a hand to the hilt of his
sword. “What goes here?”
Kate smiled warmly,
counting on these men misjudging her based on her size and sex. “Pardon me, but
I seem to have lost my way.” Her voice sounded strange with the cork in her
nose, but neither guard seemed to notice. “Would you be able to tell me how to
get to Merum?”
At the mention of the
nearby pleasure district, both men’s expressions shifted, and Kate seized her
chance. Before either could respond, she took a quick step forward, squeezing
her mouth shut as she flicked off the stopper on the glass vial, setting its
smoky contents loose. The poison rose up in a thick cloud, enveloping the
guards. The one on the left tried to cry out, but the smoke filled his mouth,
rendering him silent. A moment later, they both fell to the ground,
unconscious.
Kate dispersed the
remnants with her hand, then beckoned behind her. Corwin and the others
appeared in the courtyard, stepping out from their hiding places in the alleys
surrounding the Mistfold. The prison was located on the farthest northern point
of Luxana, the capital city of Seva. A strange place for a prison, although
rumor claimed it had been a temple long ago.
There were eight of
them in all, counting herself and Corwin, a small but deadly band. Dallin
Thorne and Tira Salomon appeared first, both of them former mercenaries: Dal
from the legendary company known as the Shieldhawks and Tira from their sister
unit, the Shieldcrows. Dal flashed a grin at Kate, teeth bared in his eagerness
for battle. The cavernous scars on the left side of his face gave the
expression a sinister edge. Next to him, Tira yawned broadly, as if bored. Kate
supposed she might well be. In the four months Kate had known the woman, she’d
never seen anything faze her. She greeted every danger with the same
unflappable indifference.
Walking a few steps
behind them, Tom Bonner appeared more subdued and somehow far more dangerous
than either of the mercenaries. Given his ability to manipulate metal, there
wasn’t any doubt of his potential for deadliness, at least when they were at
home, but still Kate didn’t like thinking of him that way. His countenance
these days made her more uncomfortable than Corwin with his stranger’s mask.
She missed the old Bonner, gentle and optimistic, but that version of her
friend seemed to have died along with his father, the elder Bonner murdered
nearly half a year ago now by the same man responsible for putting the
prisoners inside these walls.
The remaining three
were wilders, too: Yvonne, an aerist, with control over air; Vander, a pyrist,
with control over fire; and Francis, another earthist like Bonner. Only unlike
him, Francis had a greater affinity for stone than metal. If he’d had access to
his magic, Francis could’ve torn a hole in the Mistfold’s wall and given them
entry that way.
Remembering her own
weakened state, Kate brought her focus back to the task at hand and stooped
toward the nearest guard, relieving him of the ring of keys belted at his
waist. Then she turned to the manway door off to the side of the gate and
unlocked it. Dal and Tira headed in first, weapons drawn, while Bonner and
Francis picked up the sleeping guards and hauled them inside.
Corwin, Yvonne, and
Vander followed with Kate coming last, shutting the door behind her. She turned
in time to see Tira bend toward the guards and slit their throats, one after
the other, as easy as if she were harvesting wheat with a scythe.
“Dammit, Tira,” Kate
said. “What’s the point of putting them to sleep if you’re just going to kill
them?”
Corwin touched her
shoulder. “They are our enemies, Kate, and we couldn’t be certain how long the
sleep would last.”
She shrugged him off and turned away, trying
to regain her composure. Corwin was right, of course. These were Sevan
soldiers, oath-bound to a king who’d been trying to conquer Rime for years and
was now closer than ever to accomplishing that goal—that could be the only
reason why he’d been imprisoning wilders, to use them against Rime in some way,
magic or no. Though surely their magic would return once they came home.
Yvonne, who had visited Seva as a child, claimed it would. And these
people are holding Kiran prisoner.The thought of her little brother was all
it took for Kate to steel herself against the guilt.
Quickly, the group
discarded their cloaks, revealing the Sevan uniforms beneath, each one
painstakingly acquired these last few weeks. Kate freed the helmet from the
strap on her back and slid it over her head. The nose guard and cheek pieces
hung too low, half obscuring her vision from all sides, but at least they would
hide her face from onlookers. She was less certain about the uniform. The last
time she’d tried to pass herself off as a man, it hadn’t gone well.
“Yvonne,” Corwin said,
inclining his stranger’s face toward the aerist, “you stay here and silence
anyone who comes this way.”
“With pleasure,”
Yvonne replied, her eyes bright with anticipation. She was one of the few
wilders with them who didn’t have a loved one caged somewhere here, but her
mother had been killed by Gold Robes, the magist order that had secretly been
kidnapping wilders and sending them to Seva. Rescuing those wilders was
Yvonne’s chosen method of vengeance. Kate often wondered what kind of person
Yvonne would’ve been if it had never happened. She seemed born to be an
assassin. Even without her magic, which she could use to squeeze the breath
from a man’s lungs with a single, silent thought, she was just as deadly, her
knives more like extensions of her hands.
Corwin addressed the
others. “The rest of us will move on in groups, staggering our approach. Try to
blend in as much as possible. Our goal is to free as many wilders as we can
without discovery.” He turned and headed down the corridor searching for the
nearest exit out of the gatehouse and into the prison itself. They’d been able
to gather ample information about the gatehouse, but little about what lay
beyond it, other than that the wilders were being housed in an area called “the
pit.” The dreadful name had kept Kate up late at night, especially the thought
that her six-year-old brother was imprisoned there. No—Kiran would be seven by
now. She clenched her jaw at the realization.
They reached the exit without incident, and
Corwin opened the door and stepped outside onto a dusty, sunlit field encircled
by the prison’s walls. Kate blinked, her eyes slow to adjust to the sudden
change. She hadn’t expected this. From outside the mist seemed to enfold the
entire prison like a dome, but glancing up she saw clear sky. The mist was
still there, but it went no deeper than the wall itself. Magic.Only,
Kate couldn’t see how it was possible. No wilder could do this, not in Seva.
Lowering her gaze, she scanned the rest of the
field, searching for prison barracks, but there were no structures in view.
Instead, a massive hole sat in the middle of the field. The pit.
Kate and Corwin
approached it quickly, hoping they appeared like nothing more than two guards
going about their duty with the others following some distance behind. But when
they reached the edge, Kate forgot her role completely.
“How?” she gasped,
eyes drawn downward into the pit.
This place couldn’t
be. It was like looking through a window that opened onto another world. The
bottom lay several hundred feet below, over a sheer vertical edge. Grass so
green it was almost blue covered the pit floor, even though Seva was an arid
place, water scarce and the flora rough and colorless.
But the grass wasn’t
the only thing that didn’t belong. There were everweeps, too, thousands of them
scattered across the floor thick as a garden. The sight of those flowers, with
their perpetually dew-drenched petals of every color, sent an ache of
homesickness through Kate, as if Rime itself waited for her below. “What is
this?” Kate said. It didn’t look like a prison at all, despite the presence of
several structures down below. There were few walls and even fewer guards.
Corwin shook the question
off. “Come on. There’s a stairway down.” He hurried toward it, and Kate
followed half a beat later.
She swept her gaze over the pit as they
descended the steep, narrow steps carved into the cliff’s side, still trying to
make sense of it all. More than a dozen long, low-ceilinged buildings squatted
in a pentagonal formation in the middle of the circular pit. At their center
was an arena-like structure formed by a short, crumbling wall. It might’ve been
the ruins of an amphitheater. Or a temple, Kate thought, as her
mind at last made sense of the most startling object in the pit, one so
incongruous that her eyes had at first slid right over it.
A massive stone face
lay in the center of the arena, the head of some long-decapitated statue. The
statue rested on its side, part of it buried in the grass so that only a single
eye and ear remained visible. That and half of the crown encircling its brow,
fashioned in the shape of a serpent or perhaps a dragon. Kate supposed if the
statue had a body to go with it, it would’ve reached the top of the pit and
then some.
Although they
descended the stairs as quickly as they could, it still took several long
minutes to reach the bottom. Kate did her best not to think of how hard the
climb back out would be. At least she wasn’t tired. Just the opposite. She felt
more awake, more alive, than she had in days.
Given the early hour, there was little
activity in the pit, only a handful of guards walking scattered patrols. When
one of the nearest spotted them, Kate instinctively reached out with her
magic. Go away, she thought. You don’t see us.
To her surprise, she
sensed the man’s mind clearly, and the sudden desire he had to turn back around
again. Her magic. It was back! She nearly swayed on her feet at the realization.
“What happened?”
Corwin grabbed her arm, steadying her.
“My magic. I can use
it again.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.” She
peered around, prickles running down her skin. Some of it from the joy of
having her magic again, but more of it from fear. Fear of this unnatural place,
and the certainty that if she could access her magic again, so could everyone
else. Including all the wilders imprisoned here. What was Magnar doing with
them?
“There’s no time to
speculate,” Corwin said. “Come on. Let’s count our blessings while they come.”
He made for the nearest building, testing the door and finding it locked.
Kate reached for the
keys, which she’d belted at her waist, but Corwin stopped her. “There’s no need
for that.” He turned and waved to Bonner and Francis, who’d been following
closest behind them. “Is your magic back, too?” Corwin asked Bonner.
Bonner started to
frown, then stopped, a shocked look spreading across his face. “It is. I don’t
understand how—”
Corwin cut him off.
“Can you take care of this lock?”
Pressing his lips
together, Bonner raised his hand toward the look, melting it open with his
magic. Corwin clapped him once on the back, then stepped inside.
Kate followed, the
smell of too many bodies in too small a place enveloping her. She peered around
at the murky darkness, her eyes making out the human shapes covering the floor.
For a second, she thought they were dead, but a simple sweep of her magic told
her they were only sleeping—and that Kiran wasn’t among them.
She and Corwin began
waking them one by one, soon helped by the others joining them. Sluggishly, the
wilders stirred. Although they looked well fed, and there was no visible sign
of abuse, they remained dazed long after waking, men, women, and children alike
staring up at their would-be saviors with expressionless gazes.
Kate motioned Bonner
over to her. “Can you remove this woman’s collar?” She indicated the nearest
wilder, who’d managed to sit up but hadn’t yet tried to stand. She wore a
collar studded with glowing magestones designed to stop a wilder from using
their magic. Bonner waved his hand at the woman’s neck, and the metal melted
away like ice.
“I can’t believe this
is happening,” Kate said, encouraged by how easily he’d performed the magic.
“I know. I feel nearly
myself again,” Bonner replied, unsmiling.
If only that were
true, Kate thought, watching as he removed the next collar, and the next.
She turned back to the
woman. “Can you use your magic?”
“Magic?” The woman
stumbled over the word, as if Kate had spoken in a foreign language. But then
she glanced down at her palm, and water appeared as if she cupped a miniature
fountain in her hand.
“Good, you’re going to
need it.” Kate closed the woman’s fingers, and the water disappeared. “How long
have you been here?”
She blinked slowly.
“How . . . long?”
Dismayed, Kate plunged
into the woman’s mind. A small, quiet voice in the back of her head admonished
her for the invasive act. Once, not long ago, she never would’ve combed through
someone’s mind like this, as if she had a right to these memories, these
thoughts and feelings. But there was no time to consider the morality of what
she was doing—her desperate need to find Kiran outweighed everything.
The woman’s thoughts
were dull and hazy, as if she’d been drinking. The effect was so powerful that
for a second, Kate nearly forgot herself. Then she pushed through the haze to
find what she needed. This woman had only been here some four weeks, and she
hadn’t been out of this room much at all. She hadn’t seen any young boys who
looked like Kiran. Kate withdrew, impatient to move on with her search.
Corwin approached her.
“Everyone’s free of the collars, but we’re having a hard time making them
understand what they need to do. They must be drugged or something. Can you
help?”
Kate nodded, knowing
at once what he wanted her to do. A few moments before, it would’ve been
impossible, but now her magic swelled inside her, making her feel both full and
light and complete all at once. Closing her eyes, she stretched out with her
sway, pulling all the minds toward her like kites on a string. In an instant
she conveyed the plan—that they were all to wait here, silent and still, and
when the time came to leave they needed to be ready to use their magic on the
guards.
She withdrew a moment
later. “It’s done.”
Leaving Tira and Dal
to stay with this group, Corwin and the rest moved on to the next house.
Instead of a single, large room, this one held a long hallway lined with doors
on each side, locked and windowless. Individual cells, Kate guessed. They wasted
no time opening the first few doors, Bonner using his magic with careless ease.
When one of the doors
opened to reveal Kiran inside, Kate couldn’t stop the shout of joy that escaped
her throat. She dashed into the room, reaching for him.
With a startled look,
Kiran jumped back from her, fists raised to defend himself. Then recognition
lit his face. “Kate!”
She pulled him into
her arms, hugging him so tight he gave a grunt. Her mind reeled from the shock
of how different he looked, how much older, bigger.
“Come on,” Kate said,
loosening her grip. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No,” said a voice
from the other side of the room. Kate looked up to see Vianne, Kiran’s mother,
standing in the far corner and watching Kate with blood-shot eyes. Her face was
bruised with fatigue.
“What do you mean, no?
We’re getting all of you out of here.”
Biting his lip, Kiran
took a step back from Kate and shook his head.
“We can’t leave,
Kate,” Vianne said. “You don’t understand—”
She broke off at the
sound of a commotion outside, voices raised in anger. Kate turned to the door
as Francis stepped through it, dragging a woman behind him—Anise, one of the
wilders captured at the same time as Vianne and Kiran.
“Kate!” Francis said
through gritted teeth. “Make her stop fighting me. Make her come.”
“Let go of me,
Francis.” Anise tried to jerk free of his grasp, her face purpled with anger.
“I’m staying. Let go!”
Kate gaped, confused
that Anise, Vianne, and Kiran would refuse to be saved. What was going on?She
began to ask, only to be silenced by the sound of gunfire. She and Francis
exchanged a startled look. It could only be one of their people—revolvers were
as rare as magic outside of Rime.
“Let’s go.” Kate
grabbed her brother by the arm. He pulled back, but Kate didn’t let go. Not
until Vianne stepped forward and sunk her nails into Kate’s forearm.
Anger cut through her
disbelief, and without a second thought, Kate reached into Vianne’s mind,
grabbed hold of her thoughts, and forced her will into submission. A moment
later she did the same to Kiran and Anise. She didn’t understand what made them
want to stay, but she wasn’t going to wait around to find out with armed guards
on the way.
Kate stepped out into
the hallway, dragging her wards behind her. She felt them fighting against her
at each step, their minds like eels, slippery in the hands of her magic.
Corwin dashed down the
hallway toward them. “Go . . . go . . . go!”
“What about the rest?”
Kate ran her gaze over all the open doors.
“They won’t come,”
Bonner said, joining them. “Can you make them?”
Kate reached toward
the other wilders, sensing them, but the moment she tried to engage, she almost
lost her grip on Kiran, Vianne, and Anise. They fought her so relentlessly it
took all her concentration and strength to hold them. She shook her head.
“Watch out,” Corwin
said, as several Sevan guards came through the doorway. He pulled out his
revolver, but before he could fire, Bonner crushed the guards’ swords with his
magic, rendering them useless. Then he and Corwin mowed them down.
Turning away from the
carnage, Kate moved toward the exit with her captives in tow. Outside, Tira and
Dal were leading the first set of prisoners out of the house. As before, the
wilders remained sluggish and dull-witted, only a couple of them using their
magic against the attacking guards.
The entire prison was
aware of their presence by now. Still, with the help of their revolvers, they
were able to keep the danger at bay until they reached the steps. Dal led the
way up with the wilders following behind him. Vander went next with Tira quick
on his heels. Behind her, Francis dragged Anise along by the arm. Reaching the
steps, Kate sent Vianne and Kiran up first. Corwin and Bonner brought up the
rear behind her. Bonner paused several feet up the stairs and turned around
long enough to destroy the stone steps with his magic, preventing the guards
from following that way.
They climbed as fast
as they could, the stairs steep and treacherous. On the ground below, a dozen
Sevan guardsmen had formed a line, bows in hand. They nocked arrows and drew
back to fire.
“Bonner!” Kate
shouted. “Stop them!”
Bonner raised his hand
as the guards loosed the arrows. They took flight, only to be halted by
Bonner’s magic. But already the bowmen were drawing again, even as more guards
swelled their numbers. It seemed if they couldn’t prevent the prisoners from
escaping, they would kill them instead.
“I can’t stop them
all!” Bonner shouted, his face contorted from the effort.
A loud crack echoed
over Kate’s head, the sound like lightning striking the ground. She looked up
to see a huge chunk of the pit wall being wrenched away. Another glance showed
her it was Francis, his arms outstretched as he guided it, his face strained
with the same effort Bonner had shown. The huge slab of stone hovered beside
them as a shield.
“Keep going,” Francis
yelled through gritted teeth.
They charged onward,
their steps punctuated by the sound of arrows bouncing harmlessly off the
stone. Kate’s legs began to burn, and her breathing grew labored. The top
loomed far above them, an eternity away. But they only needed to get out of
reach of the arrows.
“Kate,” Tira called
from ahead of her. “You’ve got to kill those guards before they kill us.”
“I can’t!” She didn’t
have the breath to explain how Kiran, Anise, and Vianne struggled against her
even now, worse than before. Kate could feel their panic—their terror—at
leaving the pit. If she let go, she didn’t know what they would do.
“Please, Kate,”
Francis said, his face purpled from the effort of holding the stone.
Glancing down at the guards below, she knew
she could kill them with her sway, easily and quickly, and likely not risk
losing the wilders’ minds completely. But she didn’t want to. She’d killed that
way only once before and it haunted her still. She could just put them to sleep
instead, but that would take longer. Indecision taunted her. They are
our enemies, she heard Corwin saying to her once again.
Reaching the limits of
his magic, Francis let out a strangled cry and stumbled to his knees, arms
dropping to his sides. The stone slab fell as he did and struck the side of the
steps with a noise like a mountain being rent in two. Below, the guardsmen
seized their chance, bows raised for another volley. At once, Kate reached out
with her magic to subdue them, but she was slowed by the strain of holding
Kiran, Vianne, and Anise. Before she could reach them all, one guard let loose
an arrow. It flew toward Kate, so fast it was almost invisible. A heartbeat
later, she felt the pain tear through her mind, realizing too late that it
wasn’t her pain.
But Kiran’s.
Turning, Kate saw the
arrow protruding from his chest, his features already slackening, his body
going limp.
“NO!” She reached for
him, but her hands found only air as he slid off the edge. It was over in a
moment, his body crashing to the floor below. Before Kate could even scream,
she watched another body plummeting to the ground after Kiran. In Kate’s
distraction she’d let go of her other wards, and Vianne had jumped, compelled
both by her son and whatever force had been working so hard to draw her back to
the pit. With a sickening lurch in her stomach, Kate turned to see that Anise
too was trying to leap off the edge, held back only by Francis’s tight grip on
her.
“Stop her, Kate.” The
muscles in his arms rippled from the effort to hold her.
Kate grabbed Anise’s mind with her magic. As
before, the woman fought her, but Kate wrestled her under control. All the
while the terrible truth beat in her brain—Kiran is dead. Kiran is dead.She
hadn’t saved him. She’d hesitated and he’d fallen. Oh gods.
“Move!” Corwin shouted
from below Kate. His voice cut through her thoughts, reminding her there were
other lives at stake. Staving off her grief, she renewed the climb with the
others.
They didn’t make it
far before there was another crack like lightning hitting ground. A violent
tremble rocked the stairs, throwing Kate forward onto her hands and knees. The
crack sounded again, louder and nearer than before. She glanced behind her
toward the source of the noise and saw Corwin and Bonner were on their knees as
well, but farther away then they’d been. A rift had appeared in the steps,
dividing her from them.
“Corwin! Bonner!” she
screamed. “Jump!”
Corwin scrambled to
his feet, but before he could make the leap, there was a third crack, and this
time the rest of the stairs beneath Corwin and Bonner fell away, a landslide of
stone and dirt that dragged them both down, slowly at first, then faster, until
they both plummeted toward the ground as Kiran and Vianne had done moments
before.
Kate lost sight of
them in the cloud of dust and didn’t know where they’d fallen. But she didn’t
need to. She’d seen Kiran’s. It was a fall no one could survive, and the truth
of it made the world shatter around her, her heart seizing in her chest.
“Come on, Kate.” Hands
grabbed her shoulders, pulling her up, forcing her to stand.
“No,” she said,
reaching for her love and her friend, as if she could will them alive by her
mind alone. She stretched out with her magic as far as she could, but she
couldn’t sense either Corwin or Bonner down below.
Dal knelt beside her,
mouth to her ear. “They’re gone, Kate, but Corwin would want you to survive.”
Dal’s voice was like steel, hiding his own pain beneath it. Corwin had been his
best friend for years, same as Bonner had been hers.
Dead dead dead. The truth filled her mind, overwhelming her
until nothing else existed.
“Come on,” Dal said,
hauling her forward now. “You can’t give up, Kate. Signe is counting on us.”
At the sound of her
name, Signe’s face appeared in Kate’s mind, through the black of her despair.
Signe, another close friend, someone she loved. If Kate died here, Signe would
feel the same pain Kate felt now. Dal was right. They needed to escape, alive.
Blinded by tears, Kate
finished the climb. Once up, they crossed the field back to the wall and out
into the city, sneaking their way down alleys and side streets until they
reached the harbor where Signe waited on the ship to carry them back to Rime.
Home. Just as Corwin had promised.
Only he’d been wrong.
He wasn’t there to tease her with his stranger’s face as she lay down for sleep
that night. She was alone. And when the ship reached Rime’s shores at last, she
stepped onto her home soil feeling like a person rent in two. For a part of her
remained in Seva, lying dead in that pit with Kiran, Bonner, and Corwin. Three
parts of her heart, torn asunder.
About JAY CROWNOVER:
