Page 98 of The War of Wings
I wasn’t sure when my steps slowed to a walk, my heaving breaths evening out. The tunnel seemed to stretch infinitely in both directions. There hadn’t been any turn offs, had there? It’d been a straight tunnel, right? How long had I been running?
A very well-fed rat waddled out of the darkness, pausing when it noticed me, its beady red eyes just visible in the light filtering in from above.
“Any chance you’ve seen a cloaked man run through here recently?” I asked, because why the fuck not?
The rat just blinked at me before it turned and somehow wriggled its pudgy little body through a tiny gap at the base of the wall.
I stared at the spot he’d disappeared into, squinting as I noticed what looked like…a footprint? Was that a footprint in the dust? The light was too low to tell for sure, but it sure looked like one. The only other footprints in the tunnel were my own. This bigger one… The tread wasn’t facing one way or the other down the tunnel. It was facing the wall.
Hope was an unwelcome guest flaring to life in my gut as my hands reached for the wall, moving slowly over its surface in search of another loose pebble. There was no door here. The footprint was probably from someone who came down here to feed the rats. The size of that rat had been impressive, really. He obviously wasn’t starving down here. He would’ve put the ones in Inkwell to shame, and it took a lot for me to say that considering I’d been very fond of Inkwell’s rats.
I let out awhooshof a breath when I found nothing.Dammit!I beat my fist against the stone wall once, irritated at myself forhaving hope in the first place. I slid down the wall to the floor, cradling my face in my hands as defeat tore apart my insides.
Who was he?Who? Who the fuck would let Malosym go? And how?
My eyes caught on the gap where the rat had vanished. From this vantage point, it seemed a bit larger than when I’d been looking at it from above. For no reason other than sheer curiosity I wedged a finger inside, expecting to find a whole lot of nothing. But my finger caught on something and…
Holy shit. That was a latch. My eyes widened as my finger pushed up, the sound of metal clinking as the wall gave way.
“Thank you, plump little rat,” I murmured as I slowly pushed the door open.
My eyes watered at the sudden barrage of sunlight that greeted me on the other side of the stone. I blinked furiously as I closed the door behind me, praying the stranger wasn’t around to take advantage of my moment of temporary blindness and rid me from his trail. The world started coming into focus and the cloying, damp odor of the tunnel was replaced by the familiar scent of dirt and horses.
I was in an alleyway between two buildings. I jogged toward the familiar sight of a bustling road at the entrance to the alley, hoping no one would take notice of me.
The tunnel had let out somewhere in Araqina, and despite yesterday’s attack, it was busy. People rushed to and fro, horses pulled carts that rattled over the bumps and pits in the dirt road, and vendors stood behind stalls laden with fruit and bread. My surroundings looked every part of a normal city street, but all eyes were cast down. Conversations were muted. There was no laughter or chatter. Even the children were quiet.
I was struck by an overwhelming feeling that almost brought me to my knees, but I couldn’t pinpoint just what it was. It was so familiar, seeing people — regular people, not royalty, not nobility, not the wealthy and privileged — going about their business. But there was a distinct pain that hungover the street, a common thread of trauma that now connected each and every person in Araqina.
Life would go on, at least for now, but it would be different.
After Larka died, I was convinced the world would simply stop turning. How could it just go on when such a tragedy had occurred? How dare the rest of the world continue when mine had been ripped to shreds? But I quickly realized it didn’t matter if my life had been upended. The world wasn’t going to stop. The ones left behind still had to eat. To work. To love and be loved. We still had to survive.
The world wouldn’t stop if Malosym was victorious. No, time would continue its incessant march. But it would forever be different. Worse.
Which was why I had to end his miserable life. So the people on this random street in Araqina could laugh again, so the children hiding in the folds of their mothers’ skirts could run and play again. So the people in kingdoms around the world would never know the agony of feeling their world shatter to pieces. So that in a hundred years, when the people living in this realm today were nothing but dust on the wind, so too would be Malosym’s name.
The stranger I was chasing was gone, swallowed by the crowd. And Malosym was gone, too, back to wherever he’d been hiding. Back to strengthening his forces once again.
I abandoned my pointless search for the stranger as I stepped out onto the street, quickly finding the castle’s silhouette in the sky to the south. I took a deep breath of the dusty air and began thinking about how I was going to break the news to the others. I needed yet another new plan.
Until a cloaked figure caught my attention just ahead.Thecloaked figure. The stranger.
Like a bolt of lightning, I took off in his direction. He was unsuspecting as I reached for his hood and yanked it back. The man whirled and my breath left my lungs. He wasn’t royalty, and he wasn’t a stranger. His face was more than familiar.
What the fuck? What thefuck? “Ludovicus?”
Chapter 39
Petra
Shock kept me from resisting when Ludovicus grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me into a narrow alleyway. He grappled for his hood, pulling it back over his head as his eyes wildly scanned the streets.
My face hardened with anger when I finally caught a hold of my senses. “You!” I shouted.
“Shh! Please,” he begged, frantically looking down the alley and back to me again.
“What thefuck!”
