Page 19 of A Kiss of Embers
Nothing.
“Did Bastien send you?” she asked in a small voice rather than answering her question.
Ashryn stared at the girl. “Bastien?”
She nodded. “He promised to break me out tonight. Did he send you?”
Her mouth fell open as she gaped at the girl, trying to make sense of her words. Had Bastien truly promised such a thing? Of course, she knew her friend had lamented over the Ember Fae’s inevitable demise. But he never kept secrets from her, especially not one of this magnitude. Why had he left her in the dark? And what other secrets was he keeping?
She shook the thought away and fumbled with the keys on the guard’s belt. Five keys jangled together as she wrestled the ring off the man and cautiously approached the cell. The girl continued to stare at her warily, but she didn’t blow the red dust into her face.
The fear of getting caught in the act lodged a lump of trepidation in her throat as she tried each key in the slot, continuously glancing toward the closed door. All was still, and a part of her worried Sylvain had either fled his dangerous task or got caught by one of the patrol guards.
But until someone caught her, she would continue to hope.
Finally, a key fit into the lock, and the metal door swung open. “Hurry,” she ordered the girl. “We must get you to your sister.”
“Why?” the girl gasped as she stumbled out of the cell on clumsy legs as if her head spun from the blow she’d received days ago. “Why are you helping me?”
Ashryn’s eyes hardened as she glared at the Ember Fae. “I’m not helping you. I’m saving my friend. Your sister captured him and is threatening him with death unless I trade him for you.”
The girl’s mouth fell open as she reached out to steady herself against the cell bars. “I don’t understand. He was trying to save me.”
“Rotten luck, I suppose. Bastien attracts misfortune wherever he goes. The poor sap.”
Quietly, she crept toward the door and opened it just enough to peek outside. Chickens clucked softly nearby, and a rooster perched in one of the trees overhead, stretching its feathers against the waning darkness of early morning. The creature squawked in annoyance as a patrol of two passed by in the boughs, quick and agile and on their guard.
A breath escaped her lungs as a defeated tremble. They would never clear the forest without someone discovering them. Sneaking the girl out was an impossible task.
But she vowed to risk her life trying anyway.
“Stay close to me. You won’t have a chance of escaping this forest alive if you stray from my side.”
The girl nodded, eyes wide and shoulders stiff. “I will never fly again, will I?”
She glanced toward her wings and winced at the tattered membrane. Beautiful with an emerald sheen but completely useless. Only then did she realize the girl must have entered Attleglade territory to heal her wings in the Glades. It was a shame she got caught.
“I know very little about your people,” she replied as she turned her attention to the outside world through the crack in the door. “On my signal. One…two…
But before she finished her countdown, a loud explosion pierced the air, a shockwave slamming into the door and trying to force it open. Orange and yellow flames burst upward from across the village in a wild dance of hope and determination.
Ashryn spared no second, and she rushed outside with the girl on her heels, darting in the opposite direction while keeping to the shadows. Confused and fearful shouts echoed behind her as they ran, everyone’s attention now on the plumes of smoke and fire instead of the fleeing prisoner and the traitorous fae who broke her out.
The guard’s death is on my hands, she lamented.
But then she steeled her emotions against the man’s inevitable death. He’d delighted in the chance to kill a child. It was unforgivable.
And for Bastien, the man’s death had been worth it.
Bastien screamed.
Thick, barbed vines wrapped around his immobile body and squeezed, the thorns piercing his arms, his legs, his torso. And then they dug into his neck and face. Breath escaped his mouth in pained huffs, and when the barbs dug deeper, he screamed again. But instantly regretted the action when the vines shot toward him like tentacles bursting from the ocean. One of the vines entered his mouth, the others through his ears.
His jaw shattered. His lungs seized. Blood flooded down his neck and seeped into the coarse dirt beneath his body.
He released excruciating sobs as the vines tore his body apart. His legs. His arms. Then they ruptured his stomach, blood spurting in every direction.
He wanted to scream. He wanted to fight back. But all he managed to do was watch as unbearable heat flashed through his body. Hot, painful heat.
