Page 48 of Court of Treachery

It cannot be!

Her fragmented attention collided full force with Dimitrius, as though he pulled her in, as though he were the centre of herworld. The very individual she knew that she ought to never see again—but the one individual she had secretly wanted to cross paths with more than anything. But not like this. Not there. Idle magic danced in Dimitrius’s palms as he stood beside Saradon and beheld them all—but the blood drained from his face as he found her in the chaos, as though his attention too had been magnetised to her by some force greater than either of them. Without a doubt, it was him. Even if he had a twin, she would have known him by the way he so clearly recognised her.

Korrin’s horn sounded the retreat, and the wave of dwarves turned, running toward the tunnel. Aedon, Harper, and Erika followed suit, swept along by the tide. Saradon attacked. Magic arced toward them, blasting aside goblins and dwarves alike. They were hurled into rocks, smashed into pits, or smote where they stood, falling to the ground in a jumbled tangle of blackened limbs.

It broke the spell. Harper wrenched her gaze from Dimitrius’s and turned, even though every part of her wanted to move towards him, not away. The area became a stampede as dwarves lowered their heads and sprinted toward the tunnel. The thunder of their charge jarred until Harper could hear nothing else. The injured were dragged along, held upright by the crush; otherwise, they would not have made it out alive.

Aedon pushed through the bodies to one side, resisting the flow. When his hand ripped from hers, Harper turned back, swept forward inexorably.What is he doing?With a determined look, he forged back down the passage and flattened himself against the wall, holding out of everyone’s way. With a great rumble, the mountain shuddered beneath their feet. Aedon’s complexion whitened, and every muscle coiled in his body as he fought to channel enough magic. He attempted to break the stone—to bring the mountain down upon them! She paled. He could not face it alone.

“Erika!” she screamed. The woman turned, and Harper jabbed her pointed finger back at the elf.

Erika immediately understood. “I will defend you! Go!”

Harper pushed through the throng of dwarves with Erika on her heels, and rushed to Aedon’s side, grasping his blood and dirt covered hand to lend her magic to him. He drew from her hungrily, slowly pulling at the very energy of the rock and worming himself between every crack he could find. She wove with him, prising open fissures deep in the rock, weakening, pulling, as the last dwarves cleared the doorway and her vision blurred.

The stone cracked and split around them, the sound jarring their ears. Aedon started running, pulling her along with one hand as he snagged Erika with the other. The magic snapped free, and the rumble grew.

“Run!” he bellowed, as the tunnel collapsed behind them.

Harper ran as fast as her burning legs could carry her, while the thundering stone avalanche chased them toward the thirl door. The rumbling slowed as the cave diminished behind them, but Aedon did not reduce his speed.

“We’re the last!” he shouted as they broke into the fresh air, a cloud of dirt and rocks puffing out behind them. Harper breathed deeply, coughing on the choking dust.

The thirl door slammed shut behind them, and Korrin sealed it once more with his touch. “Come. We must flee at once,” he growled. “We will only be safe when we return to Keldheim.”

Long into the night they ran, without stopping, knowing Saradon would not be far behind. Harper staggered until her muscles were numb, her feet blocks of stone, and her chest burned. It was not only Saradon’s eyes chasing her in the waking nightmare they endured, but Dimitrius’s.

Why is he here? Why is he with Saradon? What is he plotting?

She had no answers. But the depths of Dimitrius’s betrayal—of the person she thought she had known—sheared through her chest.

39

DIMITRI

Harper. It was her. And that was impossible. But it washer. Dimitri reeled from the unexpected sight of her in the midst of such carnage and destruction. She had no place there. He could hardly breathe with the shock of it. With the worry for her. He had sent Harper away to keep her safe from Toroth—how had she wound her way into something even more dangerous?

And more than that, it had struck him just how much she had affected him—far more than he had realised. He had felt a bolt of worry for her so deep at the sight of her that the incandescent terror of it cleaved him in two. He had to find her, had to warn her, had to make herleave. She could not be caught in what was to come. He should not have cared. She was nothing more than yet another bystander—a casualty if necessary. Yet he knew he could not bear that.

He sent a curse up to the heavens, to the gods who had made him weak. Because now he realised that he cared for her—he could not deny it to himself any longer—and worse still he wanted her, this brazen young woman who would not cease challenging him. Even her gaze had burned him from across thatcave, though they had not shared a word. That look had seared him where he stood, and if looks could have killed, he would be dead.

“Lord Ellarian!” Saradon snapped.

It broke Dimitri’s reverie, and he startled, coming back to the great hall of Afnirheim once more. Saradon glared at him—judging his silent lapse. Dimitri straightened.

“Thethirl door.” Saradon tested the unfamiliar words on his tongue. He curled his lip, irritated. At a slice of his hand, the dwarf before him crumpled, dead before he hit the ground. Beside Saradon, Dimitri held himself rigid, wiping his thoughts blank. He turned as Saradon addressed him.

“Of course, the rats have a secret entrance. Confound them! But it matters not. The goblins have what they want, a dwarven city, though less sport to enjoy now, and the thirl door is destroyed. The dwarves will not venture here again, and when the time comes, I will show them how we treat unwanted guests.”

“I have no doubt,” Dimitri murmured. He knew Saradon thought of the dwarven king, a fearsome killing machine in his impregnable armour, wielding his giant, double-headed axe. But Dimitri’s thoughts lingered on the unexpected familiar faces in the crowd. Aedon. The nomad. The Aerian. And—something in his chest tightened anew—her. Harper. Why were they there? How? He could not understand how their paths had collided under such impossible circumstances—again. More fool him, but he still felt a shred of compassion, a shred of responsibility for her safety. There would be no keeping her safe from Saradon if she crossed his path. He pushed her from his mind as Saradon huffed.

“And the others,” Saradon mused slowly, pacing back and forth around the grand jarlshalle, the centre of power in Afnirheim, second only in grandeur to Keldheim’s königshalle.One of the only spaces he had not permitted to be desecrated. Thepaschahad not taken kindly to that instruction, or Saradon’s destruction of his throne of bones.

“The others?” Dimitri tried to keep his voice neutral. Luckily, Saradon was too engrossed in his own musings to snag on his discomfort.

“The Aerian, the human, and the two elves. Who are they? What were they doing with the dwarves? What unusual company to keep—they stuck out sorely. They must be of some note.”

“I do not know, Lord Saradon.” Dimitri was entirely truthful on that at least. He had no idea why. Only that they had rescued some of the dwarves the goblins had kept for sport. He suppressed a shudder of distaste. Ghastly creatures. He had no love for the dwarves, but they did not deserve such treatment. This had not been part of the bargain. Dimitri knew there was a cost to any war, casualties, but this was past the line he wanted to cross. It was too late now, he told himself to try and alleviate the creeping guilt beginning to gnaw at him.

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