Page 121 of Swords of Soul and Shadow
“I’ll say,” Fely breathed.
The admiration in her voice was surprising. She had been betrothed to King Filip. Those were his men.
While Hallie still had no idea what was going on, she couldn’t help the trickle of comradery she felt toward the other woman. She wasn’t nearly as bad as Hallie had assumed.
Shouts and cheers erupted from her right, but she barely heard it over the explosion following the crash of the final hover into the city wall’s remnants. They weren’t alone.
Maybe they would find Cerl soldiers. Maybe they would find refugees.
No wonder the grass tasted like soot. The capital had been burning for days. She wondered if anyone had survived. She pushed herself to her knees.
The rogue hover pilot whipped his hover around and zoomed back toward Hallie, Fely, and Niels, flying just above thetrees. She screamed, but it was lost in the wind tearing through her and blowing her sideways. She caught herself on a nearby trunk, the bark scraping her palms. With her pack and satchel on her shoulders, she followed the cheers punctuating the crackling of fire in the distance.
There was something familiar about the way the pilot flew, the loop at the end in particular.
Could it be Kase?
Her heart squeezed at the thought. She wanted it to be him so badly it hurt, but he could never have made it to the capital from the Nardens in such a short amount of time. Besides, how would he have gotten a hold of a Cerl hover?
But she couldn’t help hoping for the impossible.
Just on the other side of the trees, the hover touched down in a small clearing encircling a gaping hole in the ground. It was as if someone had grabbed a chunk of earth and tossed it aside. Hallie tugged Fely behind a large oak. Niels followed suit.
People poured out of the hole and into the open, jostling one another for the best view of the pilot, who had yet to leave the hover. Their clothes were dusty, torn, looking as if they’d seen better days.
Jaydian refugees. They had to be.
Where had the hole come from, though? It wasn’t natural. She’d been out here before, and she didn’t remember it. Maybe bombs. Maybe…maybe…she didn’t know what else, really.
When she saw a few soldiers with the Jaydian emblem on their breasts join the group, Hallie led Fely and Niels out from behind the trees.
“Just let me do the talking,” Hallie whispered out the side of her mouth as they walked.
“Sure, Hal.” Niels held his injured arm to his chest. He was being too nice. She guessed that was the best-case scenario after everything. Maybe she could figure out what else to say to himafter a medic saw to his wrist. The makeshift bandage wasn’t going to hold up much longer.
“I am perfectly capable of speaking for myself,” Fely said firmly.
Hallie nodded. “Fine, if anyone asks, you’re a Rubikan refugee.” Her thick Rubikan accent wouldn’t leave that to guesswork, anyway. “They’ve been pouring into the capital since the civil war. Just be smart about it.”
“So I should not mention that my grandfather was the one who started that war?”
With everything that had happened in the last few days, Hallie shouldn’t have been caught off guard—but there she was, gasping as they joined the group. She was about to whisper something back when she caught the sly grin on Fely’s face. “Is that the truth?”
She just waved delicately. “No matter. Let us figure out who this skilled pilot is and scold them for scaring us half to death, shall we?”
No one glanced their way or questioned where they had come from. They were busy shouting about the pilot, who had finally popped open the windshield. While Hallie was tall, she still had to stand on her tiptoes to see anything at all. A soldier or two tried to herd people back into the hole, but more kept climbing out of it.
Hiding underground? That would explain the empty streets of the capital, evident even from a mile or two away. Was it like the Stoneset caverns, hollowed out after the massacre at Ravenhelm?
Out in the open, they were sitting ducks for any other Cerl hovers that decided to fly over, but Hallie didn’t think they cared. The smell of sweaty, unwashed bodies was nearly overwhelming. Fely’s nose scrunched against the barrage. Nielsdidn’t seem to care, just looked at the ground. Probably trying to keep his pain in check.
“Hey, that’s my jacket.”
Hallie jumped and turned to find someone standing at her other side, a man in his early twenties with jet-black hair and narrow obsidian eyes, like Petra’s. She didn’t know him.
When he grabbed her shoulder, Fely snatched his hand and shoved it away. “I’d suggest backing away.”
A flawless Jaydian mountain accent poured out of Fely’s mouth that time. Hallie’s mouth dropped open, but she quickly shut it.
