Page 116 of House of Embers
“The collar?” he asked.
“As you suspected.”
He closed his eyes and breathed out long through his nose. “We have to get it removed. It is no life, wearing it.”
“She said as much, but that is not our current mission.”
He nodded, coming back to himself as if he had made a decision. “You’re right. One thing at a time.”
Kerrigan sighed and squeezed his hand. “We’re short on time.”
Fordham still seemed jarred by the conversation, but he just nodded and said, “Magic at the ready.”
The next second, she was pulled through the nothing. Fordham had admitted to being outside the vault door one time before, but it was shielded at all times by guards. They had to take out the guards before he could jump them through the solid tendrille door.
The moment they landed in the hallway, Kerrigan felt the magic suppression like a physical blow. Fordham had warned her, but she hadn’t quite anticipated this. She had felt it at the heart of the Holy Mountain, but this was possibly even worse. Draco Mountain was older and denser. She was glad that she had accessed her magic ahead of time. She wasn’t sure what it would feel like to reach for it, perhaps like the time she had been in the iron dungeons. Iron wasn’t exactly dangerous to Fae, but it felt like shit and made their magic weak. There was probably iron here too.
“Left,” Fordham said before he jumped down the hall, landing behind the first guard. The guard made a strangled noise before Fordham twisted his neck at an unnatural angle.
Kerrigan dove to the left at the same moment, tackling the second guard. They collided on the ground with a heavy thud. Kerrigan punched him in the face three times before the bigger male shoved her backward with a blast of water.
Her gown was soaked, and she spit out the water that had gotten in her mouth. A second later, she sucked the water back out of her attire and hurled it in jagged spikes toward her opponent. The temperatureturned up as Fordham dealt with another guard somewhere nearby. She didn’t have time to assess that he was all right as she stabbed the guard with the water and followed it up with her knife.
The male gasped as the blade slid through his shoulder. He punched Kerrigan in the kidney. She grunted and yanked the blade out. A slew of curse words left his mouth, but she wasn’t done. She brought the handle down on his temple and watched his eyes roll back in his head before he collapsed.
“Kerrigan!” Fordham yelled.
She whipped around, barely missing a thrown blade. Then she launched her own at the female guard. It hit her in the center of her chest, and she fell backward.
A shiver ran through Kerrigan as she watched the woman bleed out. She hadn’t wanted to kill them all, but that was naive. The guards were another tool of the Red Masks. They clearly hadn’t hesitated to attempt to kill her. And yet…
“That all of them?” she asked, shaking herself out of it.
“I think so.”
“You have another jump in you?” she asked. “It’s pretty oppressive down here.”
“One more,” he agreed. “Unless you can suddenly open vaults.”
“No such luck.”
He wrapped an arm around her waist, and they disappeared through the thick vault doors and onto the other side.
Chapter Forty
The Interception
Wynter
Dyta laughed in Wynter’s mind.“Feed them to the fire!”
Wynter cackled as she leaned forward on her dragon. She had only been on her dragon a matter of weeks, and already Dyta felt like an extension of herself. This was what she had always been meant for.
The Society dragons were coming in closer to the armory that Clover’s amulet wielders had just raided. Hopefully they were long gone by the time they’d given the signal. Gelryn and Kivrin were flanking the right, Ordrax and Viviana took the left, and Wynter and Dyta barreled straight down the middle to intercept the Society dragons. They had argued against using Viviana for this formation, but Ordrax had argued that he was ready, and it was just a raid anyway. Viviana had been more opposed to glamouring Kerrigan than riding her dragon.
Dyta was by far the fastest. With her slimmer body, she could take off like a whip and outpace anyone else on the field, which made her the perfect diversion.
“Here they come,” Wynter told her.
