Page 37 of Daring the Drakarn Warrior Lord
I came up on the other side and kept running.
Lexa followed, scooping up her knife as she passed. The brown-scaled warrior roared behind us, but he was too slow. We hit the exit corridor at full speed and didn't look back.
The passage beyond was narrow again. Single file. My lungs burned. My legs felt like they were made of lead. But I pushed harder, driven by fear and determination in equal measure.
Vega had sacrificed herself for this. I couldn't waste it.
The thought of her facing guards alone, getting captured, marked with ash and sent home in disgrace, it sat in my chest like a stone. She'd done it willingly. She’d be fine tomorrow. But that didn't make the guilt any lighter.
"Stop it," Lexa said from behind me.
"What?"
"Whatever you're thinking. Stop it." Her voice was sharp. "Vega made her choice. You don't get to feel bad about it. That's an insult to her decision."
The words hit harder than any punch could have.
She was right. Vega had chosen this path knowing exactly what it meant. Treating her sacrifice like something to feel shameful about diminished the strength it took to make that choice.
"Okay," I said.
"Okay?"
"You're right. Guilt is for later." I forced myself to focus on the passage ahead. "After we finish this."
"With an attitude like that, you’re lucky a therapist didn’t crash down on this heap with us."
I snorted.
The corridor opened into another chamber, this one vertical. A shaft that climbed upward into darkness, but wall that wasn’t completely smooth, there were natural handholds at human-spaced intervals. It was the kind of climb that would be trivial for a Drakarn with wings. For us, it was a death trap.
I looked up, trying to gauge the distance. Maybe fifteen meters.
"We can't climb that," Lexa said.
"We have to."
"Terra …"
"Do you see another way up?" I circled the chamber, running my hands along the walls. Looking for anything. Like for a hidden passage to appear out of nowhere.
Nothing.
Just stone and the mocking shaft above.
Voices echoed from the passage we'd just left. More warriors, heading this way. We were about to be trapped in a dead end with nowhere to go but up.
"I'll boost you," Lexa said. "Get you started."
"That's not going to work."
"It has to work. We don't have another option." She moved to the wall, lacing her fingers together to form a step. "Come on. We're wasting time."
She was right. Again.
I put my boot in her hands, and she lifted, grunting with effort. I grabbed the lowest handhold, pulled myself up. My shoulder screamed in protest. The muscles in my arms shook.
I reached for the next hold. Pulled. Reached. Pulled.
