Page 85 of Mother of Death and Dawn

I crept from my cell, sliding along the walls, allowing myself to fall back into the shadows. The guard was right—I could see now that they were indeed woefully understaffed here. Maybe they needed to send soldiers to other locations at night in order to distribute forces. Earlier today, it would have been nearly impossible to sneak from one building to another—too many soldiers and too little cover. But now? I could hide in the shadows easily, and there were rarely more than two guards on a single path. I managed to slip past the soldiers monitoring the one from my cell to the southmost building. The door was locked, and my key didn’t open it, but a cracked window offered me a way in, even if scraping my blistered skin along the sill made me wince.

Inside, six prison cells—more open and less secure than mine. Five were empty. And the sixth—

Brayan leapt to his feet. “I thought they executed you.”

“Sh,” I hissed, scrambling to open his cell, though my first impulse was to say,I’m very glad you’re alive, too.

“These people are idiots,” he said as I unlocked his door. “They don’t watch what they say in front of me. You’re being used as bait.”

“I know.” I pushed his door open. “I don’t think we have much—”

He added, frowning, “Does the name Tisaanah Vytezic mean anything to you?”

I stopped short. “What?”

“It’s familiar, but I can’t place it. It sounds like that’s the person they’re—”

Bang!

We both whirled around. A sudden commotion rang out in the north end of the compound, a cacophony of crashes and voices.

I couldn’t move. I felt a strange sensation that reminded me of the one that had nagged at me during the walk earlier—but now it was stronger, overwhelming. I felt it down to my bones. Somethingfamiliar.

Brayan was already halfway down the hall. “Why are you just standing there? Let’s go.”

I didn’t know how I’d answer that question—even if I’d had time to before the door to the compound flew open.

CHAPTERTWENTY-FIVE

TISAANAH

Nura had many advantages over me. She had managed to build an impressive presence in Threll over these last months, branching out from the land the Orders had obtained after the fall of the Mikov family. And she had the slaves that she had purchased, a thought that still made my stomach turn.

I’d seen the reaches of her influence here over these last months. But it never got less strange to see this—soldiers in Orders’ uniforms swarming Threllian compounds.

I was so close.

When I had seen Max, chained and guarded at the edges of the compound, I’d almost wept. I couldn’t make out his face. Yet I immediately knew that it was him, the recognition hitting me like a punch to my gut.

“Are yousureit is him?” Ishqa had pressed, over and over again, making no secret of his skepticism.

I was sure.

Her people, of course, were waiting for me.

The explosion, a gift from Ishqa’s Fey potions, rocked the gates, leaving the massive stone doors hanging from the hinges. The smoke was thick, purple from the Fey magic mingling with the blue of Lightning Dust—we’d only managed to get a little of it, but it was plenty to make the blast powerful enough to break through stone.

The smoke burned my lungs, my eyes. I charged straight through it. Let them think that I was Wielding it. Let them believe that I still had the power they’d heard whispered about during the Aran civil war.

I’d memorized the formation of the guards. Memory, combined with my weak vestiges of magic, filled in what sight could not.

At first, I was so focused on my fight that I didn’t feel it—but as I crossed the threshold of the compound, what had been a punch to my gut earlier became a yearning hunger pang. I could feel Max’s presence as if every trace of magic inside of me reached for him.

The soldiers were on me in seconds. I fought on instinct alone, blocking weapon after weapon, hitting bone.

Pain exploded in the back of my skull. White light flashed. Magic.

I countered too slowly. Another blow landed. My knees hit the ground.

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