Page 61 of A Reign of Roses
“Why?” I asked.
His voice drifted off as he observed the chaos. The devastation. The few guards funneling out past walls of fire, desperate for a reprieve from the growing blaze.
“Why…” I croaked again, finally casting my eyes over Maddox. The bloodied guard was a nauseating lump of blood and soot.
Feeling was finally coming back to my legs. Not my spine, then, thank the Stones. I held my palm to the burns across my back and neck. No lighte yet. It would be a while before any of my lighte regenerated. I’d used more tonight than I had in months.
“All I ever wanted was to do right by my mother,” Wyn said as I righted myself to stand. “She wouldn’t be proud of the things I allowed to happen within these walls.” Wyn shook his head. “The things I allowed to happen to you.”
The crash of something—a pillar, or lofted ceiling—sent us careening back and down into the ground. Soot and wreckage filled my mouth and eyes. And heat. More fire, more ruinous flame.
“We need to go,” Wyn managed around the thick, gray air.
“Where is Kane?”
Wyn’s bloodshot eyes locked onto mine. “He’s here? In the palace?”
As if on cue, somewhere, a dragon roared.
Before I could make sense of it—had Kane regained his lighte? Had he found the blade? Or was that a victorious, celebratory Lazarus?—a wild lick of fire lashed out at us. Supernaturally hot and scalding my flesh. Engulfing us, burning—
And then we were moving. Running, as best I could, before the flames could maul us.Sprinting, despite the pounding in my head and all my sizzling burns.
“Wyn,” I panted as we ran past burning columns and melting flesh, “what is the fastest way out of the palace?” He knew what I meant.Where no guards will see us.I had to get out, had to find Kane—
“There isn’t one,” Wyn shouted. “They’re already hunting for you.”
Flames blazed through my vision. Walls of it tunneling, blooming around what was left of Lazarus’s atrium. Swallowing the carcasses of the settees, melting every candle, warping the shards of vases and frames.
“Gods above,” Wyn breathed.
The heat was unbearable. Eons past discomfort. My heart slowed, tired of pumping so fast for so long.
“Think,” I urged him. “You’ve been a kingsguard here for years. There has to be something. One of those hidden passages?”
“The broom closet,” he said in the end, already moving toward a nondescript door that might have otherwise blended into the bloodred walls, and dragging me behind him.
I dodged over groaning, melting men in silver armor. “It won’t protect us forever. Eventually we’ll be kindling.”
“Trust me,” he called back.
But the door was locked. Wyn readied his hands at the frame, lighte curling—
“No.” I seized his wrists. “If you blow the door we can’t defend ourself from the flames.”
“Gods damn it,” Wyn cursed. “Then there’s nothing else, Arwen. Not if we can’t get inside without blasting it open.”
But I’d watched my brother and Halden pick the lock of Powell’s shed a hundred times. I sank to my knees, heart racing, and fished Wyn’s hairpin from my curls. The metal glinted in the glow of the surrounding flames, and I nudged it carefully into the keyway despite my shaking hands.
Agonizing seconds ticked by in which I wondered if this was the worst possible detour to being burned alive…
“Arwen…”
“I can do it,” I bit out, “I just need one more—”
But then the door clicked open and Wyn and I tumbled inside before slamming it closed.
Darkness engulfed us both. And cool, trapped air. Dusty and stale but still—cold air.
