Page 138 of A Crown of Tears and Treason
Blue light erupted from my fingers, cleaving straight through the vines. They hissed and sizzled, retreating. Thick, rotten smoke choked me.
I pushed through it, climbing the walls like a spider fleeing a sudden flood. The top of my head burst above the scorched vines as if breaching the surface of the waves in a storm.
Cold, hard rain splashed from the dome above, not straying from the perimeter of the abyss. The columns and walls turned slicker. I held on with all my might, the water trying its best to extinguish whatever had caused the smoke–and to push me back into the darkness.
At least it washed away the crumbs of vines clinging to my braided hair, digging painfully into my scalp.
“Hurry!” Goose’s frantic voice resounded from somewhere above. “The exterior walls are closing!”
I looked above in time to see thick stone slabs rising along the perimeter of the dome, shadowing the windows.
Shit, shit, shit.
I couldn’t chisel my way out.
“Get out of here. Now!” I shouted, hoping Goose heard me over the rain.
I pushed my body to its limits, joints screeching as I hopped onto the eighth level. The gods must have been smiling down at me today, because the platform was just rising. I pulled myself up and squeezed on top of it.
I didn’t have time to catch my breath.
The stone slabs continued to slide down, covering the windows.
Goose’s hurried footsteps resounded near the exit.
At least he’d survive. But I wouldn’t make it out in time.
I grabbed one of the thick platform ropes with my right hand, flicking my switchblade open.
Gods help me.
Whatever blue tendrils of power I still had coiled around the blade as I slashed through the rope.
Without the counterweight holding it up, the platform fell and I was yanked upward. My fingers stung from the strain of holding on, but I wasn’t letting go of this rope for anything in this world.
The momentum carried me up, up, and up–past the ground level and the alcove I’d come through, and into the top of the tower.
I spied the last window in the tower, now half-covered by the slab.
I had one chance.
One chance to save myself or fall dozens of feet into the shaft and to my death.
All of this would have been for nothing.
Pure stubbornness guided my body as I let go of the rope just as I reached the window. My fingers barely grabbed onto the frame, feet twitching against the wall, hectic to find some point of leverage.
Adara’s training served me well.
With a strength I hadn’t had weeks ago, I pulled myself up and opened the window. I crouched onto the windowsill, the stone slab digging into my shoulders.
I was too high up to chance a jump–but a tall tree waited for me only feet away, draped in green vines, plump with life and sap, that didn’t dare wound around the tower.
As the slab dug into my spine, I leaped for my life. Gravity claimed my body for a moment. Then my hands wound around the closest vine.
I swung around the tree, ending up on the other side of it.
My feet hit the ground as the alarm behind me blared louder.
