Page 9 of Hell Sent

Something hard bounced off his back, and he looked down to find an arrow on the ground beside him. Yet more mortals approached him, one wielding a bow, and the other a sword. The swordsman was the biggest mortal he’d yet seen—a man almost his own height—and yet, unfortunately for the mortal, he was still just a man.

The mortal brandished the useless weapon. “Die, beast!”

Azreth took a long breath, wondering at them as they ran toward their own death. He didn’t have the patience or desire for the dramatic flair he’d had downstairs. So he simply stabbed one of them in the throat with the point of the arrow, then bashed in the skull of the other with the hilt of his own sword. He took surprisingly little joy in it.

On the outer wall was a closed gate, through which he could see grass and a dirt road and hills in the distance. But as he got closer, a cold, unpleasant sensation settled over him. A bad energy was coming from the gate. Iron.

Clenching his jaw, he turned his attention to the high walls. He was trying to decide how best to scale or break through them when he heard a panicked breath behind him.

He turned, and there was the dark-eyed woman again, blinking at him in surprise. She’d followed him.The lightning baton rested on her hip like a sword.

He crossed the space between them quickly, taking her by the arm before she could draw the baton. She tried to pull free, and he jerked her back toward him.He hadn’t thought he was being overly rough, but her entire body was thrown off by the movement, and she cried out, nearly falling over.

Azreth took a breath, considering what to do next.

He had enough magic now to summon his false arm, so he began working the spell. Magic trickled around the stump of his right shoulder, then coalesced into a perfect mirror of his left arm. It was the most complex spell he knew, but he was well practiced at it. It was complete in seconds.

The woman watched the process closely, as if filing away the information for later. Maybe she disapproved of the broken pretending to be whole. Or perhaps she was thinking of ways to use his infirmity against him.

He pointed to the iron bars. “What will unlock this cage?”

The woman’s eyes flicked toward the bars, then back to him. Fear cloaked her like a second skin.

He squeezed her arm tighter when she didn’t answer. Her body was as soft as bruised fruit, and he could sense the brittleness of the bone beneath the muscle, narrow and oddly flexible under his grasp. It disturbed him.

It occurred to him that he might have been damaging her, and he loosened his grip slightly. “Speak,” he said.

“I—I don’t know. I’ve never seen it down. You could lift it. I’m sure you’re strong enough.”

“I cannot.”

Her eyes returned to the gate, flitting across the bars. “On the wall. There’s a lever.”

Azreth let his gaze leave her for a moment, just long enough to look. She was telling the truth. There was a handle. A mechanism to open the gate from the inside.

He studied the woman. She’d traded her delicate slippers for sturdy boots at some point during the past few minutes, and she wore a cloak and carried a small traveling bag, now. There was a panicked look in her eyes, but it was a different sort of panic from the others, somehow.

She was just watching him. Waiting.

“Raiya!” Nirlan appeared in the doorway, but he skidded to a halt when he saw Azreth.His eyes darted between them, his expression hovering on the cusp of outrage—and Azreth realized the lord still wanted his wife, even though he’d thrown her carelessly into his cell just a few days ago.

Azreth thought of all the ways he’d fantasized about killing Nirlan. He could disembowel him, crush him, behead him. He could take the baton and shoot him with lightning until it ran out of magic.

As Nirlan took a step backward, Azreth almost chased him back inside the castle. Back inside his prison. Back where he’d been trapped, unable to move, unable to feed or weave magic.

Fear pulsed through him, extinguishing the bloodlust. His heart pounded. He needed to escape. He needed to run.

He was afraid. He was weak.

The woman had stopped trying to pull away. She took half a step toward Azreth, putting him between herself and Nirlan. Azreth came to a decision.He picked her up and held her across his chest.She yelped in surprise.

“Be still,” he warned her quietly, and a part of him was worried she would fight, and that he’d have to hurt her. He was surprised to realize how much he did not want to do that.

She’d saved him. Even if she’d only done it to hurt the lord, he was grateful.

Fortunately, she went rigid and motionless against his chest as he went to the wall. When he pushed the lever, something in the interior of the wall clicked, and the iron gate began to recede into the arch above.

He didn’t look back as he passed beneath the iron bars and escaped into the world beyond.

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