Page 74 of Bound By Darkness

I froze.

My eyes glanced at the familiar specs and brown, tattered clothes he wore as his fingers poked and prodded my ruined flesh. Draven was laid among the carnage, an oozing wound festering across his broad chest.

Never again would he stir. Those hands would never torment another.

Only a twinge of rage clung within me that I had not been the one to finish his life.

“Hurry,” Naexi grumbled as the stairs met their end. Tossing the iron door open, light streamed into the tower.

My eyes narrowed as faelight shone through. As I stepped onto the crumbling rock, my bones drank in the fresh mountain air.

“This way!” Naexi’s long painted fingernails pointed toward the giant iron gates of Galar.

They were swung wide open. Only a mere fifty soldiers or so were crashing against the sentinels.

War had indeed found Galar.

The prisoners followed Naexi and Iyanna down the slippery slope toward the giant doors.

But I… I stalled. My feet refused to budge from where I stood as my heart cleaved in half. As their backs turned to the mountain, I slipped underneath the arms of a man as I raced to jagged rocks.

Not one prisoner stopped me as I slipped from the parading mass of slaves to where Ellia may be resting. I knew I chased a ghost, but my heart cracked at the image of her being left behind to rot and suffer in this place until her dying breath.

As I rounded the familiar wedge of giant rock, sentinels clashed around me as they fought back the invaders.

Flashes of blue and black sparked around me as warriors nimbly evaded the weapons that had killed so many before. I didn’t have time to linger and admire their footwork as I headed to the cave where she rested.

My footsteps grew heavier and faster as I willed the lingering beast inside my mind away—the monster salivating for more powder.

Shoving its raking claws away, I took in a shaky breath.

I would rescue Ellia. I would not lose another person because of my idleness. The monster would quiet soon.

Rounding the corner, the familiar strip of broken rock met my hands as it guided me into the dark tunnel.

Prisoners were strewn across the room as red oozed to form giant pools. Weapons were tossed around the area haphazardly from the frenzy.

Searching and searching, my eyes strained among the dead. So many prisoners had taken their last breaths in this cave, the sentinels killing them instead of letting them escape.

I did not see her among the dead. Had she escaped?

A rasp clawed through Death, the sound drawing my attention to a pile of broken bodies.

They shifted, a few tumbling to the ground as a woman emerged covered in red. Another and another emerged from behind bodies, their faces pale and lingering with Death. They had hidden themselves from the sentinels—using their former comrades as cover.

A woman’s shaky hand rose, veins popping from her sheer skin. “Can… can you get us out?”

“Yeah,” a man whispered. He had a gaping wound spurting life from his thigh. “You—You don’t have chains.” His iron-clad hands shook as he gestured to mine.

The iron was gone, but the weight of those chains hung close. They wanted me to save them? To rescue them from Galar while the Sentinels slaughtered all who breathed?Impossible.

“She can do it,” a meek voice whispered from behind.

I recognized the sweetness of her voice—a voice a breath away from silence as I turned around, her face painted in oil as blood dribbled down her chin.

She was clutching onto life, but it was abandoning her quickly. She showed no malice to it as a smile appeared onher lips. Covered from head to toe in red, she’d hidden too. Used the dead of her prison mates to hide her frame.

I thanked the gods for blessing her with wit as I hauled her to my chest, her body shivering. “Ellia, oh gods. You’re okay.”

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