Page 78 of These Divided Shores
Ben flew across the entryway behind Gunnar. He glanced back to see Edda, Vex, and Teo close behind. The entirety of the crowd was behind them, families and elderly and desperate citizens squeezing through the single door of the fort’s central room.
The plaza before the fort was empty. No army waited to intercept Ben; no defensors had looped around with ready pistols and vicious orders. The oddity of that socked Ben in the chest as he leaped down the steps, scrambling after Gunnar, who kept flames alive in each fist.
The dark night obscured the expanse of stone. But as they angled for their dock, a form materialized, a single person who stumbled across the ground.
Gunnar slammed to a stop, one arm arching back to pin against Ben’s chest. Around them, the crowd ran for their own boats, crying out that raiders had attacked, Pious God, they will kill us—
The teetering form twisted, eyes locking on Ben.
“Jakes?” Ben frowned, breathless.
Pain twisted Jakes’s face. A jagged cut lanced across his cheek; sweat and dirt made a paste over his neck, his once-pristine uniform wrinkled and torn.
He looked how Ben had after weeks in the Port Camden prison.
“Ben—” Jakes’s voice caught. “Message—from—”
He faltered, dipping forward and slamming to his knees at Ben’s feet.
Gunnar grabbed Ben’s arm and yanked him on, making once again for the dock. Ben pushed his heels into the ground.
“We can’t leave him—” The plea left Ben’s throat before he could consider it.
Jakes had betrayed Ben, yes, but he was still Argridian as much as the defensors Ben had worried for in the prison’s burning hall. He was still one of the people Ben was responsible to protect.
Shaking, Jakes reached out a blood-covered hand and seized Ben’s leg. His face paled, his other hand gripping his side. Blood glinted in Gunnar’s firelight, fresh scarlet streams of it leaking through a wound in Jakes’s stomach.
Ben’s own blood turned to ice.
“Message—listen, Ben,” Jakes begged, his voice cracking on the narrowness of fading consciousness.
Edda met them in her rush to leave. She saw the wounded, battered defensor as Ben bent down.
Around them, the crowd ran. Somewhere, a priest had started praying again, trying to infuse calm in the people screaming, sprinting, scrambling to getaway.
Jakes transferred his hand to Ben’s shoulder. His grip was weak, fingers slipping on Ben’s borrowed raider clothes. “Your father,” Jakes hissed, one hand still pressed to his side. A fresh spurt of blood trickled down the stained cloth of his breeches. “He knew you would come. Knew someone would—come.” Another wince. “If they couldn’t get you—told me to tell them—tellAdeluna—to surrender. All of you, all raiders, surrender, for the boy.” Jakes fisted his hand in Ben’s shirt on a renewed burst of desperation. “They’re going to follow you to where he is. They’re going to take him. A—Teo? They said—”
Jakes’s eyes rolled back in his head. His body went slack, crumpling to the side.
Ben gaped at him. Elazar had tortured Jakes?Why?
The agony that came dragged a dozen other sensations with it. A stab of betrayal at everything Jakes had done; fury that Jakes could still foster such strain in Ben’s heart; and a vulnerable wretchedness when he looked up into Gunnar’s rage.
“What did he say?” Edda demanded. “What the hell was he talking about?”
All of you, all raiders, surrender, for the boy.
Ben grabbed Jakes’s arm. He didn’t stir, but his chest rose and fell in sharp breaths.
Ben turned to Edda. He couldn’t ask Gunnar for this. “Help me—he’s alive. We can get more information out of him. We can—”
Vex broke out of the running horde. Tears streaked down his face, his eye wide in panic.
“He’s gone,” he gasped at Edda. “Teo. Defensors took him.He’s gone.”
18
THE NEXT MINUTESwere a dream.
