Page 22 of Trial By Fire

Aric’s heart pounded in his ears as he scanned his chambers, but there was no sign of the other guards. No alarm raised, no shouts of warning. He forced himself to consider the situation calmly, racking his brain for any plausible excuse. He’d gone to bed in separate chambers adjoining Malekith’s makeshift quarters in what had likely been a very luxurious resort in the town center, hoping against hope that sleep would calm hisnightmares. But if the prisoners he’d freed had been discovered, if their absence had been noted, then it was all over.

He tried to keep his voice steady, but he could hear the raw edges of panic tearing through. “What’s happened? Is it Malekith?”

“Oh, don’t concern yourself with the prince,” Vizra said, her molten gaze cutting into him. “He is otherwise engaged. No, we have some questions for you, little mage, and we thought now was as good a time as any to discuss them.”

Aric’s heart lurched. She knew. Somehow, she knew about the escape, and the demon prince’s complicity in it. He forced himself to meet Vizra’s gaze, scrambling to keep his expression neutral. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You’ve been quite the busy little worm, wriggling your way through the heart of my operation,” Vizra said. “But I have to wonder, for all your trouble, what exactly you hope to gain.”

“I don’t want anything?—”

Vizra’s nails dug into the tender flesh of his bicep, and he bit back a cry.

“Get up.” Vizra’s nails bit into his shoulder, and Aric winced. “I don’t have time for your human weakness.”

Karthax’s meaty hand closed around the front of Aric’s tunic, and with a growl, he hauled Aric to his feet. Aric’s head spun from the sudden movement, his limbs still heavy with sleep, and he stumbled over his own feet as they dragged him from his room. “I . . . I didn’t do anything,” Aric said, his voice sounding thin and reedy in the pre-dawn stillness.

A wave of panic threatened to overtake him. Had they found out about the prisoners? Did they know he’d helped them escape? The town plaza was eerily quiet as they hauled him across the wreckage from the feast, the only sounds the crunch of their boots on the packed earth and the distant howls of the winged demons making their patrols. No alarms had beenraised, no shouts of warning echoing through the streets. If they knew about the escape, surely the whole camp would be in an uproar.

Aric’s mind raced as he tried to think of what could have gone wrong. Had one of the prisoners given him up? Or had he been too careless, too eager to absolve himself that he failed to take the necessary precautions? He’d been so focused on the escape that he’d let his guard down, had all but dared the demon lords to catch him. Had they been watching him the whole time?

The command tent loomed before them, the black silk billowing in the cool night air. Karthax wrenched open the tent flap, and a wave of spiced incense and smoky shadows washed over Aric. Malekith was nowhere to be seen, and a fresh bolt of panic shot through him. If the demon prince was here, he could at least try to reason with him, to explain why he’d done what he did, and Malekith would come up with some clever cover story to persuade Vizra that it was all a terrible misunderstanding. But with Malekith absent, Aric was at Vizra’s mercy, and he had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t feeling particularly merciful.

“Inside,” Vizra said, her voice a low, dangerous hiss. “We have much to discuss, you and I.”

Aric blinked in the sudden lamplight as he ducked inside the tent, his eyes struggling to adjust after the darkness of night. A tattered map was spread out on the table before him, along with a jumble of notes and sketches in a language he couldn’t begin to decipher. Vizra’s molten gold eyes gleamed with a predatory intensity as she loomed over him, her long hair spilling around her like a cloak.

“Tell me what these are,” Vizra said, her voice a low, dangerous hiss. “And how the humans plan to use them.” She shoved the schematics before him, and his vision swam in a useless blur of lines and curves of ink.

With a grunt, he scrunched his eyes up, then eased them once more. Aric’s mind was still fuzzy from sleep, but as his thoughts slowly began to coalesce, a cold trickle of dread ran down his spine. “I . . . I don’t know. I’ve never seen those before.”

It was the truth. He blearily recognized it as some sort of magical engineering schematic, the kind that the Arcanocrafters in the Silver Tower designed—magical devices, advanced self-sustaining spells, and more. But it would take him more than a half-awake scan to make sense of them, and likely more access to magic than he currently had—which Malekith had seen to was once againnone.

Vizra’s nails dug into his shoulder, and he bit back a cry. “Don’t lie to me, little mage. We found these in the garrison at the Silver Tower. They were using them to guide their strikes, and now you will tell me how.”

Aric’s panic subsided slightly, replaced by confusion and a glimmer of hope. They didn’t know about the prisoners. They only wanted him to make sense of the magical schematics.

She released him with a shove, and Aric stumbled forward, catching himself on the table. His heart was still racing, but a thread of relief unspooled in his chest. The other captives were safe, for now. He just had to figure out a way to get out of this.

He scanned the jumble of papers on the table, his mind racing as he tried to come up with a plan. The schematics were like nothing he’d ever seen before, but he was a quick study. If he could just buy himself some time . . .

Aric leaned over the table, studying the schematics intently. They were written in a mix of arcane symbols and a cipher he didn’t recognize, but the diagrams themselves were fairly straightforward. Some kind of offensive weapon, if he had to guess, with a series of lenses and mirrors that looked designed to focus and amplify magical energy. The basic concept was elegant in its simplicity, but as he traced the lines with his fingertips, hecouldn’t help but notice the glaring flaws, the missing pieces that would keep it from ever working as intended.

But he wasn’t an arcanocrafter. He could be mistaken.

But an answering voice in his mind told him—if he didn’t know, then these demons knew even less.

“Well?” Vizra’s voice cut through the silence, and Aric forced himself to straighten up, his mind racing. “What are they?”

He took a deep breath, a dangerous gambit forming in his mind. One that could either save him or damn him, but at this point, he didn’t have much to lose. “It’s a . . . a focusing array,” he said, the words coming slowly as he searched for a way to buy himself more time. “For channeling magical energy over long distances. But it’s highly unstable. It would take a tremendous amount of power to activate, and even then, there’s no guarantee it wouldn’t backfire.”

Vizra’s eyes narrowed, and Aric’s heart pounded in his ears. He was making this up as he went along, but he had to sell the lie. “Show me how it works.”

She was calling his bluff, and he knew it. But he also knew that Vizra was far from stupid. If he could sell her on the potential danger of the weapon, maybe he could buy himself enough time to come up with a real plan.

Aric’s mind raced as he tried to come up with a plausible explanation. “It’s all in the alignment of the mirrors,” he said, his voice gaining confidence with each passing second. “If you don’t get the angles exactly right, the whole thing will backfire.” He smiled sweetly. “If you want to ask Prince Malekith to loosen my bonds, then I would be happy to show you.”

Vizra listened intently, her molten gold eyes narrowing with suspicion. “And how do you know this, human?” she asked, her voice like velvet wrapped around a dagger.

---