Page 43 of While the Dark Remains

Kallias jerks up from his seat and stalks out. My stomach drops, and I know where he’s going: to visit his Collection. To remind himself of his own power, and to wield it on those who have none of their own.

Two Years Ago

Year4198, Month of the Black God

Daeros—Tenebris

I don’t believe in miracles, but I’m not sure how else Saga and I make it out of Tenebris undetected.

We can’t take my usual route through the vents. Saga tells me through gritted teeth that her foot is broken—but even if it weren’t, I don’t think she could have managed the climb. But there are no guards outside the doors to the great hall, and we meet no one as we creep slowly through the dark corridors.

We stop at a forgotten laundry, where I’ve been stockpiling supplies for years in preparation for my escape. I planned it all carefully, slowly gathering things a little at a time so nothing would be missed. I shrug into one of the two thick winter coats I stole and hand Saga the other, which she buttons with shaking fingers. She’s in no state to carry anything, so I take both bulging packs, wearing one on my chest and one on my back.

I try not to think about why I have two sets of everything and fail miserably: I was going to convince Ballast to escape with me; I had plotted out every last detail. But then he went and left without me and I stayed, waiting for my moment. I didn’t imagine it like this.

Now, in the forgotten laundry, I break off the end of a broom and give Saga the handle to use as a crutch. I don’t like how much she’ssweating, or how much her wound is leaking through the rag tied tight around her ankle, but there’s no time to examine it right now.

“Let’s go,” I tell her.

She nods, her eyes glassy.

One more dark corridor, with a wooden door at the end of it, and we come out at the base of Tenebris, a few yards away from a sheer drop into the Sea of Bones. Over our heads, stars peer through swiftly gathering clouds, and far, far north toward Aerona, I catch a glimmer of green, dancing and shifting in its strange quiet song.

“We’re on the wrong side,” Saga realizes as she hobbles forward, leaning heavily on the broomstick. “Skaanda’s that way.” She waves her free hand, pointing west past the mountain.

My eyes flick west, then east. Were it not for the Sea of Bones and the scant starlight, I don’t think either of us would have known where we’d emerged. “We must have taken a wrong turn in the dark,” I say.

Saga curses, shuddering in the frigid wind. Over our heads, the clouds knit tight together, wholly obscuring the stars. Darkness blankets us like a shroud, and it begins to snow, thick and wet. “What do we do? We can’t go back into Tenebris, and we sure as hell aren’t going to try our luck with the Iljaria.”

“No.” I set my jaw, digging in the pack for an Iljaria light globe that I stole once from the king’s council chamber, just to see if I could. It pulses a pale, warm yellow, its magic warm and purring in my hand, and it casts a small glow, just enough to see a few steps into the darkness. “We’ll have to go around.”

Saga shields her eyes as she peers west again, toward the front gates and the watching guards. I know exactly what she’s thinking—we’ll never make it.

But we have to try, trusting that the dark and the snow will hide us.

There’s no other choice. We duck our heads into the wind and start west. I hold the light close to my chest, enough for us to see a few inches in front of us, but hopefully not for the guards to spot us from the gates.

Saga hisses in pain with every agonizingly slow step, the broomstick digging a furrow in the snow beside her. The gates are both too far and too near, and already I feel the dark magic of the Black God’s gargoyles writhing through me. Nausea churns in my gut, and it feels as if all the air squeezes out of my lungs. I shift the second pack to my chest to join the first. “Get on my back,” I tell Saga. “I’ll carry you.”

She doesn’t protest, just climbs on as I kneel down, arms wrapped tight around my shoulders. She’s staggeringly heavier than I anticipated, and I nearly face-plant in the snow. But I find my balance and creep forward.

The snow falls thicker, faster; the cold has teeth. The gates loom close, and the gargoyles’ eyes flare red. I gasp at the pain of it, fire in my veins. And then a shout from the human guards—we’ve been seen!

I can’t run with Saga on my back. I let her slide off and we both crawl, bellies in the snow, fear and dark magic raging through me. There comes the whine of an arrow over our heads, and the feathered shaft quivers in the ground a hairbreadth from my hand. Saga curses as she crawls, as more arrows wing over us, gleaming and deadly in the halo of our light. I shove the light into my pack and we crawl on blindly, fingers digging into the freezing ground. Pain slices through me as an arrow grazes my shoulder, and I bite down hard on my lip to keep from crying out.

We crawl, crawl. Pain and magic gnaw at me. I try not to imagine the guards lurking behind us in the dark, swords drawn and ready.

But the arrows cease, and the gargoyles’ magic fades, and the pain in my shoulder diminishes to a dull ache.

“Are you all right, Saga?” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer, just squeezes my ankle.

We crawl on and on, numb in the dark and the snow, until at last I dare to pull out the light again. I look back—we’re not as far from the gates as I would like, but there doesn’t seem to be any pursuit. There might be, though, when the storm stops. We have to keep moving.

I pull Saga to her feet, trying not to see how gray she looks, sweat pouring from her brow, lips pinched together.

“We’ll shelter against the mountain,” I tell her. “We just have to go a little further first.”

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