Page 12 of Heir

Cero bade her sit, his anger fading. “Aiz. You’re injured. You’re not making sense. Take a breath and tell me what happened.”

“You became a pilot,” Aiz whispered. “I didn’t. It’s—it’s not fair—”

“You were born knowing the world isn’t fair. You work around it like always.”

“I can’t!” Aiz said, wishing to the Spires that she could think more clearly. “I must go, Cero. I tried to kill Tiral. Then I took something from him.”

Cero’s face blanched. “Tell me he’s dead.”

Aiz shook her head. “He was alive when I escaped. He knew I’d planned to kill him, to get revenge for the orphans. All this time I’ve been sleeping with him, trying to gain his trust. And heknew.”

“Spires, Aiz. I could have told you that he uses people.” Cero looked away, his words bitter. “Pretends he cares so he can toy with them.”

“You too?” Aiz whispered, feeling strangely relieved when Cero nodded.

“Once, after you weren’t chosen for the flight squadron,” he said. “I thought if I talked to him—got to know him—I could convince him to let you train more.” Cero laughed bitterly. “I was naive. He used me, and when I brought you up, he—”

Cero went silent at the sudden thudding on the courtyard gate. A sneering voice rang out.

“Clerics,” Tiral called from beyond the cloister’s outer wall. “Do let me in. I’d like a word with one of your wards.”

“You shouldn’t have brought me here,” Aiz said. “He’ll punish the entire cloister if he finds me.”

Cero hauled her to her feet, steadying her when her legs turned to rubber. “He won’t find you,” he said. “Come on.”

As Sister Noa approached the gate, Cero pulled Aiz into the cloister’s serpentine hallways. They made their way down a short flight of stairs and into the kitchen storeroom.

“You’ll have to leave the city,” Cero said.

“No. I stole this book from him,” Aiz said. “I’ll hide it, and then I’ll beg for mercy for the cloister. The book is leverage. Tiral will kill me, but I’m dead anyway, Cero. Of starvation or in one of his wars.”

Cero stiffened as he pulled her through a door and into a hallway of the cloister she hadn’t seen. “Don’t be pathetic,” he snapped. “You’re worse than the Hawks. The second things get a bit tough, you fall apart.”

“A bit tough?”She glared at him. “What do you call our entire existence?”

“A gift,” he said. “Walk faster.”

The words snapped her out of her self-pity, so quintessentially Cero that she wanted to hug him. But he was already moving. Aiz ran to keep up with his long strides, following him through a narrow gap in the rubble and through a hallway carved with runes. This was part of the ancient structure erected after the migration—or so Sister Noa had told Aiz when she was a girl.

“Cero,” she said. “Listen.” They were deep in the bowels of the cloister, where torches were few.

“Do you hear them?” she whispered. “Voices. Tiral’s soldiers are in the tunnels. We should split up. You can’t be seen with me.”

“Patience, Aiz,” Cero said. “Almost there.” He led them deeper below the cloister, where the ground grew slick with moisture. Water rushed distantly.

“How do you remember all of this?” Aiz asked. “I couldn’t find my way back to the cloister if you put a blade to my throat.”

“Didn’t you ever wonder what I was doing while you were begging fairy tales off the clerics?”

“They’re not fairy tales,” Aiz snapped. “Your mockery is—”

“Not our biggest problem right now.” Cero turned yet again, this time past a grate crusted with ice and rime and into a narrow passage. With every moment that passed, Aiz’s mind grew clearer. These tunnels didn’t go on forever. Eventually Tiral would find them. Corner them. When he did, he couldn’t find Cero with her. Tiral might need pilots, but he’d never forgive Cero for helping the assassin who tried to kill him.

The sounds of pursuit grew louder and Aiz’s palms, slick with sweat, slipped against the rock as she crawled through a space slightly wider than Cero’s shoulders. Water thundered close by. Finally, they emerged onto a ledge. A river surged below, its rapids a milky white. Aiz stopped short.

“I can’t swim.”

“I’m going with you,” Cero said. “Take off your shoes and cloak so they don’t pull you under. The river will spit us out near the docks—”

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