I never hear the rest of what he says. The sky rattles as another blast of dark maegic collides with the wards. They give one final, faded pulse of resistance, flickering the faintest shade of red, then dissipating in a cloud of useless vapor.
The wards are down.
For a moment, there is only stillness. The entire city holds its breath, waiting to see what will happen. Penn and I stare into each other’s eyes. No longer fighting, no longer saying anything at all. His free hand lifts to my neck and he jerks me close. Our foreheads collide with a jarring thunk.
“Stay safe,” he whispers fervently. “For me.”
Then his mouth is on mine in a hard, brutal kiss. It lasts no longer than a heartbeat. It tastes like goodbye. Before I can even think of returning it, he is gone—racing toward the front gates without a word.
Soren shoots me a brief, unreadable look and then he takes off, running after Penn so fast he is no more than a smear of dark navy fabric to my eyes, though the tears glossing over their surfaces may have something to do with my blurred vision.
“Ace,” Farley says. He sounds as shaky as I feel. When I drag my watering eyes to him, I see he looks even worse. “We should get inside.”
Despite his words, neither of us moves. All around, people are running for shelter; soldiers are scrambling for weapons. Everyone seems to have a purpose, a destination, a plan. Except us. We are a point of stillness in the chaos, unmoored and uncertain.
We both glance briefly toward the keep. Toward the promise of shelter. Then, in unspoken unison, our gazes swing around in the opposite direction, down the straight stretch of roadway that separates us from the fortified tunnel on the far side of the crater, where, even now, our friends are readying themselves for whatever evils might burst through those heavy stone doors.
I know Farley is no more enthused than I am at the prospect of hiding out while others fight and bleed and die. But I have no skills in battle and no weapons to speak of—besides the dagger strapped to my thigh. Thank the gods Carys agreed to add the slit so I can access it easily.
Carys.
Realization blazes through me. “Farley. Carys is all alone.”
His light green eyes flood with purpose. He immediately begins hobbling in the direction of High Street, his cane moving at a steady clip.
“What the hell are we waiting around for, Ace? Let’s go!”
Since my arrivalin the Northlands, I have heard many stories of the Reavers’ brutality. I have seen the hatred that fuels their quest to wipe my kind from the face of the earth with my own eyes, in that bloody clearing atop the Cimmerians where a whole unit of soldiers lay butchered in the snow. But whatever tales I have heard, whatever horrors I have seen cannot compare to the things I witness the night of Fyremas.
Farley and I are halfway down High Street when the tunnelfalls. There’s a telltale explosion—much like the ones that rained down upon the wards, only closer, louder, and infinitely more terrifying.
It would take a troll to breach them, Penn had said of the stone doors that seal the tunnel.You are safe.
But I am not.
No one is.
We are nowhere near the explosion, yet the impact still shakes the ground beneath our feet. The resulting boom has me covering my ears and ducking for cover, certain I am about to be blown to bits. A cloud of dust and ash fills the air, spreading outward in a fog.
From here, we cannot see whatever is blasting its way into the city. A maze of streets separates us from King’s Avenue and the gates beyond. But when my senses stop ringing, my ears pick up the unmistakable roar of battle on the wind. And I know, without a doubt, the stronghold of Caeldera has been shattered.
“Fuck,” Farley curses, hobbling faster. He nearly loses his footing on an uneven sidewalk in his haste.
“Careful,” I mutter. “We’re nearly there.”
We pass the apothecary, who is frantically pounding wooden boards over his shop windows. I want to tell him not to waste his energy, to get to safety, but merely nod in greeting as we rush past. The chocolatier is long gone, his door ajar. He left in a hurry. The cobbler and her wife peer out at us from behind their half-closed shutters, fear etched plainly across their features.
Carys’s whole building is dark, but the door swings inward the moment we come to a stop on the street outside, as though she’s been waiting for us. She urges us into the dim shop without a word. Baby Nevin is swaddled tightly against her chest. As soon as we clear the threshold, she bolts the door once more.
“What’s happening?” she whispers, staring from me toFarley. “We heard the alarms. Uther took off to see what was going on. He said not to leave until he came back, but I just heard an explosion…”
“Reavers,” we say in unison. “They’ve breached the tunnel.”
“But the wards!”
“The wards are down. We have to go, Carys.”
Carys grips her baby tighter. Her face is ghostly pale. “We will be safe enough here.”