Page 76 of Heart's Escape

Varitan’s arm moves so fast it’s almost a blur. Alindra gasps. Varitan’s fist smashes into Rowan’s face. Rowan stumbles backward; I catch him, bracing his shoulder with my arm. Blood streams down Rowan’s chin from his freshly split lip.

“If you speak again, Rowan,” Varitan hisses, “I will kill Phaedron. Immediately and in front of you.”

I hold my breath. Varitan’s threat hangs heavy in the pre-dawn light. Alindra’s eyes jump from me to Rowan; her fingers hover just above her waist. I can knock him out, she said. But what good would that do here, surrounded by an entire army? I shake my head softly. Rowan steps forward, pulling away from me to drop into a mock bow, his arms spread wide. Varitan sneers as Rowan lowers his head.

Not now, I tell myself as I force my fingers to release the fist they’ve created. Not here. But, by all the beasts and whispers of the void, the first chance we get, I’m going to end this monster who’s haunted my nightmares for my entire life.

Varitan turns toward me like he can read my mind. There’s a twist to his lips that looks almost like he’s laughing at me, like my rage and hatred are nothing more than the tantrum of a child screaming at him to stop hurting his mother. I’m trembling. I turn to stare at the ground before my body rebels against my mind and does something horrible.

“The wires keep you invisible,” Varitan whispers. “As long as you’re inside them, nothing can see you from above. But they can still hear you. So move silently.”

I swallow. The effort hurts my dry throat.

“Follow the wire down the other side,” Varitan continues, waving his hand at the massive ridge before us as if it were a lovely garden path. “When you reach the pine grove, you’ll be hidden. Wait for me there.”

I glance up, meeting Alindra’s eyes. Her fingers linger on her waistband, the place where she tucked the gold coin I gave her that presumably has something to do with her plan to knock him out. Her eyes are wide, like she’s asking a question. The grove?

I give her a quick nod. Yes. We’ll wait for him there. We’ll be ready.

“One more thing,” Varitan says, with such obvious pleasure that my skin crawls. “You do know that dragons and elves have a bit of a history?”

I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of an answer. Varitan glares at us as we stand in stony silence. Finally, he huffs a long-suffering sigh and continues.

“Elves used to hunt dragons for sport,” Varitan drawls. “And the dragons have never forgotten. So, if you’re tempted to stray from the silver wire, you’ll give the dragons an excellent opportunity for some long-denied revenge.”

Dragons? I raise my head, curious in spite of myself. I thought we were facing one dragon, Rensivar the Wicked, my father’s old business partner. Varitan smiles in a way that makes me want to slink away and find a place to hide, and then he raises his hand and gestures at the path before us as though he’s inviting us to join him in some exclusive party. That path seems to go straight up the mountainside, trailing the silver wire.

Rowan is the first to move, dripping blood onto the stones as he climbs. Alindra follows, and my heart pinches inside my chest when she stumbles and falls to one knee. She’s back on her feet by the time I reach her, panting hard as she climbs.

Or perhaps that panting sound is something else. There’s a scraping, rock-sliding noise, then a few whispered hisses, and then all the humans freeze. The sound grows louder, a throbbing, whooshing sort of hiss.

And then a dragon flies over the crest of the ridge.

My heart stops. Ragged, dark wings blot out the dawn. Light glints off claws; the wind off its wings pushes cold, gritty air against my face. There is no way that creature can’t see us, my mind hisses. There’s no magic that powerful.

The dragon’s wings beat once more, but this time I can’t feel the wind it raises. It pulls away from the mountainside slowly, almost elegantly, its long neck stretched toward the far mountains. One wing dips as it pivots in the air, and then it drops to trace the road through the valley.

I finally remember to breathe. When I turn back toward the ridge, Alindra is staring after the dragon with wide eyes.

“Is— Is that Rensivar?” she stammers.

“Nope,” Rowan whispers. “You’ll know Rensivar. He’s the big one.”

My mind tries to imagine a creature bigger than the monster that just flew over us and comes up empty. I shiver as Alindra rubs her hands across her arms. She looks like she’s never going to be warm again, and voids below, I want to hold her. I want to pull her close to my chest and tell her everything is going to be just fine and that I’ll protect her no matter what. As if I’d be able to protect anyone with my mangled body.

And that’s just what she needs, my mind hisses. More lies.

* * *

I didn’t realizeI was still holding some thin hope of escape until we reach the crest of the ridge and those hopes vanish.

To our left, the ridge falls away in a cliff so sheer it makes my head spin. Far, far below the cliff, the canvas tents of the army encampment we reached last night gleam in the last of the night’s lingering darkness like distant clouds. Rowan walks up to the edge, leans over, then turns back to me.

“Think we could climb down?” he whispers.

“Get away from the edge!” I growl.

“Ah, right,” Rowan replies, with a grin. “You don’t like heights.”

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