Page 28 of Dare

Chances were, the female hadn’t gotten through the courtyard yet. I emerged, prowling from the tunnels and noting the sentinels whose pace lacked distress. Either she hadn’t made it past them or hadn’t tried yet.

The dense area provided ample shadows amid the crawlspaces. I ignored the salutations and stalked down the connecting paths, my arms striking fronds out of the way. Yet the longer I searched, the sharper my eyes tapered.

Clouds swirled, the elements growing agitated. Although dawn would be approaching soon, an incoming storm brewed.

A warning sound pounded through the kingdom. Whereas Spring rang a tower bell, Autumn used a large horn, and Winter preferred a looming clock, this court sounded a massive drum to alert its citizens. Rigged in the patrol tower, the device inundated Summer with a percussion loud enough to raise the dead.

A steel-plated legion swarmed the castle’s bridges, parapets, and colonnades. Thirty minutes must have passed. The Summer attendants had kept their word and reported the flight of a prisoner. King Rhys would turn purple over this. Spittle would fly, in which I’d be subjected to the same cumbersome bullshit I had endured in Autumn.

After traversing the courtyard, I reconsidered my efforts. I could make for the tower, after all. Or …

I thought back to this area, when the prisoners had been assembled here. I’d watched her from a distance, saw the female tilt her head as if sensing an entity. An intangible perception, probably primitive. From my position on the walkway, I’d seen her turn, wheeling toward the beach below.

I followed that trajectory. My attention fixed on a point beyond the stone ledge, a few feet down the precipice. An hourglass shadow made haste scurrying down the bluff, a rampant descent toward the shoreline.

Fuck! Tireless, troublesome creature!

It appeared, she wasn’t rescuing her fellow inmates. Or she’d realized that was impossible with everyone on alert.

Tearing off my fur and flinging the vestment aside, I swung my legs over the rim. I would seize this defiant little beast by the scruff and then exercise my full, fucking patience on her.

Yes, she was fire. However, I recalled wrapping my fingers around her throat, dousing that flame before it grew strength. Because that was the thing about fire: it needed air.

11

Flare

I needed air. My throat constricted with shallow pants as I lowered myself down the cliff. Also, I needed some place to land my fucking feet. Both hung off the cliff, my legs dangling while my fingers gripped the ledge, struggling to hold my full weight.

The alarm drum pounded. I startled, my knees banging into a crusted wall of stone and my grasp threatening to slip.

Armored silhouettes with curved swords flew across the parapets. The lower town shone, its villas scattered across the range, each one connected by stairs and bridges. Candles blazed from the windows like furious pupils, their wrathful gazes searching for someone who’d gotten loose.

The Fools Tower loomed overhead, the sight blurring my vision with tears. Pearl and Lorelei and Dante were there, and no one would free them, and no one would help them, because no one saw them. Nobody looked at them or listened to them. It wasn’t fair, and I wanted to do something, but I couldn’t do anything, because I’d run out of time.

In the tunnel, I had untangled myself from the ropes. Creeping backward, I’d snatched Poet’s dagger and sheath from the unsuspecting guard, then vanished. While harnessing the weapon to my waist with one of the cords, I had retraced the group’s path, scurried on all fours into the courtyard, stashed myself behind the ferns, and slipped past the sentinels. I’d almost reached the stairs into the prison, vowing to my tower mates that I was coming for them. I had planned to snuff out the jail by using the ashes of Summer tinder, the same way rioters had blacked out Autumn’s castle for Reaper’s Fest. Then I’d intended to charge at the wardens in the dark, use their clubs to bash them unconscious, and rummage through their key rings until I found the right ones.

But the alarm drum had stopped me, forcing me back into the courtyard. There’d been so many people shouting, charging this way and that, blocking the tower’s entrance.

I’d tasted the briny wind, followed the breeze, and saw him. The prince had stepped from the tunnel door, his cruel face piercing the shadows like a blade.

Another gust had rushed at me, carrying the scent of saltwater. It had been a warning or a summons or both. The Phantom Wild was calling to me, telling me it was too late to save anyone, warning me that I’d never find the true way to help born souls. Not if I didn’t leave right then.

I was sorry. So very sorry. My heart cracked from being sorry.

Instead of storming the tower, I had scrambled in the opposite direction. Until now, I’d been escaping fine, navigating the bluff quickly. The problem was, I had lost my balance. The reason was, I’d seen the prince coming again.

His large shape bustled after me, illuminated by the castle torches. He must have gotten rid of the fur cloak, because his silhouette lacked prickly outlines. Stripped of that heavy mantle, he was nothing but muscle and height, every ridge of his body hewn from concrete.

The prince made the task calm, the way he descended the craggy facade. Off I ripped, tearing down the grass-tufted rocks, from one groove to the next, pebbles skipping from their perches and bouncing off my head. I fell the last six feet. My limbs buckled as I landed in a heap among the cockles, my palms sinking into the sand.

Sand. The open coastline.

Lugging myself upright, I buried my fingers in the grains, scooping them up and holding them to my face. Opening my hands, I watched them sprinkle the air and pile on my lap.

A ferocious belt of wind thrust across the beach. I whirled, following the current’s trajectory while batting the hair from my face. The ocean rushed ahead, the tide eating up the shore, waves rolling across the horizon. In daylight, the water would be clear blue, the depths providing a home for starfish, and the sand would sparkle like fragments from the sun.

At least, on a bright morning, they would. Yet as twilight ascended, clouds packed the sky, and the waves turned over themselves. Both elements swirled like a brew, the prelude to a turbulent dawn.

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