Page 38 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
I tap into my magic and use it to divert the lantern’s light. Blackness engulfs both men.
The guard closer to us curses and stops to fiddle with a lamp that isn’t really broken. “What’s going on?” his partner calls into the dark. I feel Rune move, trusting his body to my darkness as he takes the guard down. The scuffle is over before it starts, a bloody gurgle confirming the guards no longer pose a risk. My heart beats hard against my ribs as I hold my position and our shadow, listening to Rune strip the sentries of their weapons and keys. When he returns to squeeze my shoulder, I smell the copper of the guards’ blood on his hands.
It has begun.
26
KALI
Ilet a small red bit of light illuminate Rune’s hands as he slides the guard’s key into the door. The small click and creak of hinges takes my breath. We file inside, Rune taking the vanguard post again and Luca falling back to rear guard. The girls’ ragged breaths sound behind me. They’re terrified, but they follow.
Holding my throwing knives at the ready, I visualize the maps that Calvin and the girls put together. This corridor runs west to east, heading toward the guard barracks and workrooms. The whisperer dormitories are one level up.
“Kali,” Rune whispers from the darkness, his voice carrying bare inches. “Release the shadow and save your strength.”
“I’m fine.”
The next breath I take is cut short by a male body pinning me against the stone. Rune’s scent fills my nose as he leans so close to me that his breath tickles my cheek.
“Orders,” he breathes, almost beyond hearing. “A scoutworks alone, but a soldier does not. This succeeds only if you follow orders. Understand?”
I glare toward where I know his eyes must be, my pride coursing like fire through my veins. Rune’s heart beats hard enough that I feel it ram his ribs. His lips brush my ear, his voice as unforgiving as the warrior himself. “If something has happened, if you cannot do this, I need to knownow.”
Not a threat, not really. A commander reassessing his forces. Deciding which he can do without. Which hemustdo without. The back of my head stings where it scraped stone. As do my eyes. I hate him for being right, but I release my magic. The natural darkness is thinner than my shadow but dark enough.
“Get in the back of the line,” he orders, the tension in his muscles daring me to protest the punishment.
I turn my back to move down and feel the feather-soft touch of Rune’s fingers between my shoulder blades. A tiny ember of comfort to dull the blow. I don’t want it. Finding Luca, I murmur a few words that have him moving up to take the number-two slot in the stack while I fall in behind Wil and the girls. The stack moves forward. A silent single file, each person running one hand along the stone wall. Our steps and light breathing are the only sounds.
The line stops sooner than my step count tells me we should. A signal of squeezes from the front has us flattening against the wall. Closing my eyes, I try to discard the noise of the others’ rapid breaths and locate the source of whatever has caught Rune’s attention.
There. A distant scraping of boots. A voice calling to another. Someone is awake but not moving toward us. Not yet.
We start out again.
Another hesitation. Another signal. The step count puts us near the first of the barracks doors, but where there should beonly the silence of sleeping guardsmen, there is cursing coming from down the hall instead. Two voices. A pair of guards heading to their beds. A signal from Rune is passed back to me, and I pull a shadow over us. My sword whispers from its sheath as we push back to clear the way to the barracks door. Alexa trips, gasping softly as I catch her arm.
One of the guards hesitates, the sound of his boots deafeningly close.
I feel the group’s collective resolve, ready to kill if the guards decide to explore the noise. A pair of lives to be forfeited because a young girl tripped in the darkness.It would be their own fault,I insist, arguing with my conscience.Sloppy security.No one dared raise a hand against Bahir’s sacred grounds when Firehorn held the throne, and now, with Bahir holding the whole city, the guards are bloody confident that their job ends at keeping frightened and unarmed whisperers from escaping.If the guards die, it will be their own fault.
After a moment, the guards choose their beds over their duty and walk into their sleeping quarters. Relief floods me. Rune signals and I release the shadow, sheathing my sword.
When we reach their quarters, Rune jams a small wedge of wood under the doorframe. Our first claim to control of the abbey’s passages. Three more doors get the same treatment. I hope to the stars that none of the guards inside will decide to leave their cots.
With the corridor secured, we turn to finding someone with keys to the acolyte rooms upstairs. Rune motions me up beside him, and I pull the veil of darkness around us again as we creep toward the enclosed courtyard. The walkway running along the yard’s perimeter is empty, yellow lanterns casting long shadows onto pale stone, but the distant sounds of a living abbey trickle down its spine. Someone will walk by.Soon. Alexa and Jasmine come up to join us, trembling. It’s up to them to recognize a key bearer.
“No one can see us,” I whisper into their ears. “We are darkness.”
Despite the sounds of life, it’s ages before the first person walks by. The girls shake their heads. We wait again. Then again. Again. Again. I hold the shadow, our cloak of invisibility. I feel the others shift their feet, hear their unspoken questions.Are you sure? Take another look. Maybe this one has keys?It’s all taking too long. Any heartbeat now, the soldiers will discover their doors jammed closed and raise a fuss.
“Her.” Alexa clenches my hand so hard, I feel her nails break my skin. “Blond hair, walking across the courtyard now.”
Rune stands as still as my shadow. My stomach tightens. The mark approaching us is but a girl herself. Sixteen, if that. Skinny. Unarmed. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” says Jasmine in a voice so cold it sends shivers through me. “Her name is Zalia. She has keys. Kill her for them.”
Ice coats my blood, my face jerking to Rune. A young girl. Zalia is just a naive young girl. Whatever she’s done to earn Jasmine’s hatred, she couldn’t have understood the full impact of it. She’s a pawn of Bahir’s, like so many others.
