Page 100 of Unleashed

“She needs help,” Vortok said through gritted teeth. “What do we do?”

Aduun rose. “She showed me where to go. It is the only place she might find help.”

“Then let’s go!”

Aduun clenched his jaw. He looked over his shoulder, and Vortok followed his gaze.

Dozens of their people stared in their direction, looking lost, confused, and frightened.

“Bring them,” Nina rasped. “They don’t deserve to be left down here any longer.”

“But we don’t havetime, Nina,” Aduun said, turning back to her, “we need—”

“Youare their chieftain, Aduun. Lead them.”

Aduun’s brows fell, and his eyes seemed to dim. Vortok knew well of the weight Aduun had carried all these years; the burden of responsibility had grown crushing for him. But Aduun didn’t understand what their people saw when they looked at him.

Spinning away from Vortok, Aduun stepped onto the platform and crossed it. The emaciated valos watched in silence as Aduun hopped down and walked into their midst, parting to allow him passage. He emerged from the crowd a few moments later with Kelsharn’s horned mask in one hand. Leaping onto the platform, he took a horn in each hand and looked down at the trophy, which glistened with black ichor.

“I have failed you too many times to be forgiven,” he said, his voice carrying strong through the open area, “and I no longer have the right to lead. I know what you are feeling, because I have felt that confusion, that fear, in myself. There will be time to confront it, but that time is not now.”

He twisted slightly, pointing behind him with one arm. “The female who saved us, who saved all of you, is wounded. She needs help that we are unable to provide, and I am going to take her out of this place. I ask you to follow me once more. Kelsharn is dead, and for the first time in so long, we can have whatever lives we choose. Follow me to the surface, where you may make that choice, and then you need never see me again.”

The silence was broken by the sound of feet on the stone. One of the valos stepped out of the crowd and approached Aduun. He was thin, his flesh stretched tight over his bones, his mottled fur ragged. He was Gorvahl, one of the clan’s elders. Raising a hand, he placed it on Aduun’s shoulder and squeezed. “You have ever put us before yourself, chieftain.”

“You fought for us,” someone else called from the crowd.

“Kelsharn betrayed us, not you,” said Maroga from her place at the front of the gathering.

Aduun turned his head slowly, as though surveying the crowd. His quills rose and fell uncertainly. “I… We will have much to discuss soon. But I must help my mate.”

“Go, Aduun. Save your mate,” Gorvahl said, dropping his arm. “We will follow you.”

A murmur of assent sounded through the crowd; in their current states, it was likely the best most of the valos could produce.

Crushing pressure built in Vortok’s chest. Kelsharn had taken so much from their people, had pushed and pushed to break them, but here they stood. The scars of the past would never fully heal, but their pain could surely fade. Now that they no longer wore Kelsharn’s ropes around their necks, they could find a new way forward.

Vortok’s future was already clear; he held it in his arms.

He looked down at Nina. She rested against him with her eyes closed, her skin terribly pale in contrast to the crimson smeared on her face, and her hair a disheveled mess. Her breathing was shallow, and he knew from his own heartbeat that hers was too slow and weak.

“Stay with me, Nina,” he murmured. “Stay withus.”

Not going anywhere, her voice sounded in his mind,and Sonhadra knows better than to try to take me from you.

He smiled as he turned to follow Aduun deeper into the city; it was the first time he could recall in all his life that smiling hurt, the expression strained by his bone-deep worry.

Vortok moved beside Balir as they followed the streets between large, dark stone buildings, often reaching out to brush his finger over Nina’s skin. Under different circumstances, Vortok might’ve paused to study the adornments on the walls and around the windows and doors, if only to guess at how such intricate carvings had been crafted. But nothing mattered now except Nina.

Vortok held her just a little tighter. She nuzzled her cheek against his chest.

The buildings gave way to a wide, open space. A rocky hill to the right served as the base for more structures, and a massive, lone building stood far to the left. The stone road forked ahead of them, leading around a wide, dark chasm. Aduun led them along the righthand path. The roads converged on the far side of the pit, where a large statue of Kelsharn looked out over the city behind them.

Another mesa lay ahead, and they hurried across the wide bridge leading to it. Light stones came on as they passed the tall columns lining either side of the bridge, bathing the whole thing in an eerie yellow glow. It was only then Vortok realized the columns tapered to points. He pictured them running between the ribs of some long-dead behemoth and barely suppressed a shudder.

Too much of Kelsharn’s legacy was built on death.

The bridge brought them to a pair of huge doors built into the rock.

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