Page 90 of Of Blood and Fire
“Indeed—I’ll spell a fire shield onto your knife, and all you have to do is stab him with it.”
I blinked. “Stab Damon? Seriously?”
Amusement played across her thin lips but failed to reach her eyes, which were flat, cold, and very,veryfurious. She’d kill Aric herself if it didn’t mean breaking her vow. “Better you stab him than burn him alongside Aric, surely.”
“Well, yes, but as you said, Aric is no fool. The first thing he’ll demand is that I drop all weapons.”
“Well then, you’re going to have to be very fast with your stabbing, aren’t you?” She raised a hand and made a “give me” motion. “Your knife and your wedding ring, young lady, so I can spell them.”
I frowned at her. “Why the wedding ring?”
“Because as we have established, Aric is no fool. He will know you’ll have a tracker and demand it be crushed underfoot before you get anywhere near him, so I’ll magic a temporary one on the band.”
“He’s going to demand I drop my weapons along with the tracer.”
“Undoubtedly, which is why you will wear your sword, and I will place an invisibility spell on the knife.”
“You can do that?”
“It is beyond the reach of most, but how do you think Damon’s mother and sisters were spirited out of Zephrine?” She sniffed and made the motion with her hand again. “Come along—the longer we delay, the greater the danger Damon faces.”
I drew my knife and handed it to her hilt first, then tugged off my ring. She nodded her thanks, then turned and marched out.
I crossed my arms, fingers clenched but hidden, though I dared say the glow of the heat pressing against their tips might have been visible. “Has Aric given you a location for our meeting?”
“No, he simply said ‘Where the blue water ponds.’”
“There’re only a couple of lakes in the tunnel system, so that at least cuts down the search area.” Aric might have had the advantage of time to plot his revenge and place his traps, but I knew those caverns better than he ever would, and hopefully could use that knowledge to get around whatever surprises he had waiting. “Where was Damon snatched, and when did it happen? Do we know?”
“It happened in the thermae. We found the attendant knocked out and drag marks that led up to a wall. We called in an earth mage, who found a lever on the other side of the wall that slid that section aside; he’s currently reading the earth to see what information he can gather. As to the when, we’re presuming it happened just after he and the Prioress finished casting their storm across the peaks.”
Which would explain how easily Aric had gotten the drop on him. Spelling the weather shield and then sending it over theSheer would have left him exhausted. “Do we know if the hidden entrance into the thermae is new or old?”
If it was new, then there were likely to be others placed in strategic positions that would need to be found and closed off, just in case the worst scenario happened and he either escaped me or got the upper hand. If thatdidhappen, he’d come after Garran next.
“Old, according to our earth mage. We’re presuming some past king—or queen—didn’t want the inconvenience of having to use the corridor like everyone else.” Garran tapped the scroll in front of him. “We’ve found what amounts to a ground plan of the tunnels throughout the palace, and their connections to the nearby natural system, but there’s nothing that mentions a blue lake.”
Of course there wasn’t, because why would Túxn make things easy now? “Do we know if Damon had stripped off before he was knocked out?”
“His boots still sit under a nearby bench, but we believe he’s otherwise fully clothed. Why?”
“I gave him a tracker when he and the team first went into the tunnels, so we might be able to use it to find him, depending on where they are.”
If Aric hadn’t found and destroyed it, that was. Though why would he, when he wanted us to find them?
“If Rishi cannot read their location in the earth,” Garran said, “that is a good second option.”
I hadn’t realized that was a possibility, which just emphasized how damn tired I was. I really hoped he was able to give precise directions, because it would definitely make progress through the tunnels that much faster, and we needed all the time we could grab right now. The riders might have moved on, but a major attack was still coming—a last, deadlythrow of the dice by the Mareritt, if you will—and it was going to take all our skills and strength to survive it.
And right now, I didn’t have a whole lot of strength left, be it physical or fire.
I rubbed my arms uneasily, the heat in my fingers sending sparks skittering along my borrowed coat. “I’ll go fetch the receiver now.”
Garran nodded. “Make sure your guard is in that room before you enter, just to be safe.”
I smiled grimly. “Trust me, anyone I do not know will be surrounded in a wall of fire so fierce their fucking skin will start peeling.”
“Remind me never to get on your bad side,” Neera murmured.
