Page 39 of A Court of Truth and Thorns
As if feeling my stare, Rune shifts toward me. “It’s my call,” he says quietly. A commander on a battlefield, in charge and responsible—for both the mission’s success and the costs that will haunt future nightmares. The cost of getting to give the orders. My hands tremble as I count the steps until Zalia reaches the juncture where we stand. Fifteen paces left. Ten. Five.
Zalia turns down a side passage just before reaching our snare. I release a breath, my body sagging in on itself in relief.What in the stars’ name will we do for the sake of the greater good before the night ends? How many innocents will our crusade to save Dansil sacrifice?
“Zalia!” Jasmine rips away from the wall and sprints into the light of the courtyard. I curse. Rune snorts. Jasmine spins around herself, studying the walls as if she’s never laid eyes on the stone before. Her small body, lithe as a dancer’s, spins around a pillar.
“Jasmine?” the girl’s voice calls warily. Zalia. The girl’s name is Zalia. And she has no idea what’s happening. “What in the name of the Goddess are you doing here?”
Jasmine shrugs. Spins around again. Waits. A predator playing prey. Zalia moves toward her. Another girl follows in Zalia’s wake. As the two step into the lantern light, I catch the other girl’s swayed back and swollen belly, not yet heavy but clearly there. A child. The girl is with child.
No. No.NO.
“Not your call,” Rune says softly into my ear, his hand squeezing my shoulder. As much comfort as he can offer just now.
“Stay with me,” the pregnant girl begs of Zalia. “Please.”
“Stop it, Dasha,” Zalia chides. “I need to see to this acolyte. The Messenger’s work takes priority in our hearts. You know that.”
Go back,I yell silently to Zalia’s companion.Go back. Hide. Run.My hands tremble at my sides and I know it’s a good thing indeed that I’m not in charge of this mission. Jasmine takes a step toward us, leading Zalia and her friend right toward our blades. I feel Luca move up to stand beside Rune and hear him take a sharp breath as he gets a full view of the girls.
“Stars,” Luca breathes. “Is she—”
“Quiet,” Rune orders. Cold. Unyielding. Nothing like themess I am. “Prepare the shadow, Kal.Now.”
I do it. Obeying Rune’s order, I throw the shadow wide enough to cover the girls, flinching at their sudden muffled screams as Luca and Rune clamp their hands over the girls’ faces. I press myself against the wall, drinking in the coolness to calm my nerves.
“Stairs,” Rune says, his order coming as smooth and calm as ever. “Move.”
I let the shadow dissolve enough to keep us from breaking our necks and nearly sob with relief when I find the captives gagged, not silenced forever. It could have gone either way, I know. I saw the resolve in Rune’s face to do what had to be done to save all the others. Wil’s eyes are wide, his gaze pinned on the pregnant Dasha as we move up the stairs and slide the key into the first of the acolyte dormitory doors. Waiting for no one, Jasmine slips inside.
The answering commotion is instantaneous and deafening. Screams, questions, yelps, as body after body floods out of the room and into the corridor. Pushing. Tripping. Falling. Grabbing for clothes or friends or shoes. Rune’s orders of silence, given with enough cold command to still any warrior in his tracks, fall on deaf ears among these panicked young women. So many of them. Stars. Dozens in this one room alone. All making enough racket that the abbey will turn into a tomb for us all.
My magic stirs inside me. Without daring a heartbeat more thought, I throw myself into the noise, pretending it’s light that I can absorb and bend, substituting with power what I lack in skill.
The world quiets. Sways.
“Kal,” Rune’s lips scream without sound. I blink at him. The magic pounds my insides. I drop to one knee. Rune drops beside me, his sword out and ready. Luca and Wil move downthe corridor, opening door after door. More people come, girls and boys, young men and women. And more still.
The noise I’m absorbing booms inside my head, threatening to split my skull. I grab my temples with my palms, rocking myself. My eyes shut. The yelling, the scraping of feet on stone, the echoes of sound along stone walls, all assault me like vipers.
I feel a wet warmth inside my ear and realize it’s blood. I open my eyes to a shaking world. Except the world isn’t the one shaking—I am. Rune pries my hands from my head.Stop, his lips command.Stop. You did enough.
My magic’s dam crashes. The hysterical sobs of the pregnant girl as she is herded along with the liberated whisperers is the first sound I hear. Crying for her baby’s life.
“Is it my imagination, or does the girl with child look familiar?” Luca asks, falling back to where Rune and I cover the rear of the escaping whisperers. “I’m certain I’ve never seen her before, but her face...”
“Her brother was a guardsman trainee,” Rune answers curtly. “Novan.”
My breath catches. “You told me—”
“I told you the Holy Guard killed him over a girl,” Rune says. “I never specified the circumstances.”
“We’ll need to tell Wil,” says Luca, frowning down the corridor.
The sleeping guards inside the barracks have awoken and now bang on their jammed doors like crazed apes. A few more minutes and they’ll break through. Four more roses, who must have been on duty at another part of the compound, now rush at us, their swords drawn.
“Luca, go on with the whisperers,” Rune says, readying his blade. “Kali and I will hold these guards off until you have everyone out.”
Luca nods and pushes past us, leaving Rune and me shoulder to shoulder against the coming patrol. My heart quickens then slows as the first of the men reaches us and Rune cuts him down with a mighty slash. I raise my sword in time to block a blow aimed for my head, the force of the attack slipping down my angled blade.
