Venin.
My heart seizes. We haven't found them out on patrol-because they're already inside.
"They're within the walls!" Tairn bellows.
"Already figured that out." I swap my daggers for two alloy-hilted ones at my thighs and move quickly to hand one to Sawyer. "None of us die today."
He nods, taking the blade by the hilt.
"Maren, protect Sawyer," Rhiannon orders. "Cat, help whoever you can. Let's go!"
"Guess I'll just...stay here?" Sawyer calls after us, muttering a swear word as we take off sprinting between the rows of infirmary beds.
We're the first to make it to the doors, where Winifred holds the wailing infantry cadet by his upper arms. "Violet, don't go out there-" she starts.
"Lock the doors!" I shout as we run through.
"Like that's going to stop them?" Ridoc challenges as we enter the tunnel, then all three of us skid to a halt at the sight before us The blankets on every overflow bed down the hallway have been thrown back, revealing desiccated bodies. My stomach plummets. How did this happen so fast?
"Oh shit." Ridoc draws another dagger at my right as two more riders sprint through the infirmary doors behind us, both from Second Wing.
I reach for Xaden and find his shields not only up but impenetrable. Frustrating, but fine. I'm perfectly capable of fighting on my own, and I have Ridoc and Rhi with me.
"You do not have a conduit," Tairn reminds me. Which means I can't pinpoint my lightning strikes, especially not indoors.
"I've always been far more accurate with daggers than my own power. Warn whoever's riders guard the wardstone."
"Already done," he replies.
"Check the bridge!" Rhiannon commands the two from Second Wing, and they take off toward the Riders Quadrant.
"Bring their bodies outside once you're done killing them so we can roast them for fun," Andarna suggests.
"Not right now." I calm my breath and concentrate.
"Eyes open," Rhiannon says, her voice as steady as her hand as she pulls an alloy-hilted dagger and moves to my left. "Let's go."
Then we move as one, quiet and quick as we make our way down the hall. I keep my eyes forward as Rhi and Ridoc check left and right respectively, and their silence tells me all I need to know. There are no survivors.
We follow the curve of the tunnel, passing the last cot, and a scribe flies out of the stairwell ahead, his robes billowing behind him as he runs toward us at full speed.
I flip the dagger in my hand and pinch it by the tip, my heart starting to beat double-time.
"Which way did they go?" Rhi asks the cadet.
The scribe's hood falls back, revealing red-rimmed eyes with spiderwebbed veins at his temples. Nope, definitely not a cadet. He reaches beneath his robes, but I've already flicked my wrist by the time he grabs the pommel of a sword.
My dagger lodges in the left side of his chest, and his eyes bulge in shock as he falls gracelessly to the tunnel floor. His body shrivels in the span of a heartbeat.
"Damn. Sometimes I forget how good you are at that," Rhi whispers, scanning our surroundings as we move forward.
"How did you know?" Ridoc asks in the same hushed tone, quickly kicking the husk of a body over and retrieving my blade.
"A scribe would have run toward the Archives." I take the blade back and wrap my hand around the hilt. "Thanks." The alloy's hum of power is a little dimmer but still there, hopefully capable of another killing blow. How many of them had Imogen and I seen. on our walk to the infirmary without even realizing? "That's how they fed without notice. They're dressed as scribes."
Two figures in cream robes approach from the opposite side of the tunnel, mage light shining on their first-year rank, and I prepare to throw again.
"Drop the hoods," Rhi orders.
They both startle, and the cadet on the right lowers her hood quickly, but there's a slight tremble in her counterpart's hands as she complies, her wide blue eyes locked on the body at my feet. "Is that..." she whispers, and her friend wraps an arm around her swaying frame.
"Yes." I lower my blade, noting that neither of them carry red in their eyes or at their temples. "Get back to the Archives and warn the others."
The women turn and run.
"Up or down?" Ridoc asks, facing the
steps.
Someone shouts beneath us.
"Down," Rhi and I say simultaneously. "Great." Ridoc rolls his neck. "Down the stairwell to the torture chamber where an untold number of freshly fed dark wielders wait. Good times." He takes the lead, switching his dagger to his left hand and lifting his right in preparation to wield as Rhiannon steps in behind me.
We edge down the stairs rapidly, keeping our backs to the stone wall, and I send up a silent thanks to Eran Norris for building Basgiath with stone stairs instead of wooden ones with the potential to creak...or burn. "Pay attention to the present, not the past," Tairn lectures.
Metal clangs beneath us, the pitch varying from the ting of colliding blades to the ear-grating rasp of steel scraping against stone. But it's the maniacal laughter mixed with grunts of pain that has me hurrying faster, has power rising, crackling along my skin. "Control it!" Tairn orders.
shields up to block him, knowing he can still push through if he wants.
"Stop playing with your kill and help us get this door open!" someone demands from below. If they want a cell door open, they're definitely not on our side. They've come for Jack.
"How many guards are on Barlowe?" Ridoc whispers as we near the turn in the staircase that will expose us to whomever waits beneath.
"Two-" Rhiannon's answer is quickly muffled by the sound of a low and painful scream.
"Make that one," I reply, readying my right hand to throw.
The antechamber of the brig comes into view, and my gaze flies over the all-too-familiar space, taking quick stock of our situation.
Two dark wielders dressed in scribe robes yank at the unmoving door handle to Jack's cell, while a female pulls her ruby-hilted sword across the neck of a second lieutenant who's been pinned to the thick table with daggers through his hands, and a fourth stands at the edge of the shadows.
Her long silver braid swings free of her hood as her attention whips in our direction, and her eerie red gaze jumps to mine and widens slightly under a faded tattoo on her forehead. My blood chills when a smirk tilts her mouth, distorting the red veins at her temples, and then she....disappears.
I blink against the sudden breeze that rustles a loosened strand of my braid, then stare at the empty space she'd occupied. At least I think she had. Am I seeing things now?
Rhi gasps behind me, and my focus jolts to the imprisoned guard. Blood floods the table from the rider's wound, and I swallow back the burn of acid in my throat, catching sight of two corpses to the left, one in cream, the other in black.
The female with the jeweled sword at the table pivots, her short blond hair smacking her sharp cheekbones as she turns in our direction, revealing branches of red veins at her temples.
I flick my wrist just in case this one disappears, too.
"Riders-" Her alarm dies with my blade lodged in the middle of her throat. Ridoc rushes the two at the door, but they're ready, one drawing a sword that Ridoc blocks with a thick band of ice.
I throw my remaining dagger at the other as I jump the last two steps, but the dark-haired venin moves unnaturally fast, dodging the strike. My blade bounces off the stone wall behind him as I run toward the rider bleeding out on the table. Fuck!
Rhi leaps over the female's body, headed for Ridoc, and I continue on, keeping an eye on the one I missed.
The venin swings his arm, and a shape flies toward me.
"Drop, Vi!" Ridoc shouts, throwing his hand out, palm down, and a chill sweeps over the front of my legs as spikes rush at my face.
I hit my knees and slide along a small sheet of ice as the mace whips over my head, slicing through the air with a whistle.
"Not the silver hair!" the dark wielder with the sword bellows, and I scramble to my feet, slipping on the blood-covered stone. "We need her!"
To control Xaden? Fuck that. I'll never be used against him again. "Mine, now!" Rhi shouts, and when I glance left, she's swinging the mace at its previous owner, giving me time to get to the twitching rider on the table. "Hold on," I tell him, reaching for his throat to staunch the bleeding, but I pause as his last breath rattles his chest and he falls limp. He's gone. My heart clenches for all of a beat before I draw two more daggers and turn toward my friends.
The black-haired venin moves in a blur, ducking beneath the mace Rhiannon swings, then appears before me like he'd been standing there all along. Fast. They're too damned fast.
My heart jolts as I jerk my dagger to his throat, and he studies me with sicken- ing excitement in his red eyes. Power floods my veins, heating my skin and lifting the hair along my arms.
"Ah, the lightning wielder. You're a long way from the sky, and we both know you can't kill me with that knife," he taunts, and the veins along his temples pulse as Rhi sneaks up behind him, her alloy-hilted dagger poised to strike.
Shadows quake at the edges of the chamber, and a corner of my mouth rises. "I won't have to."
His eyes flare in confusion for all of a mil- lisecond before shadows explode around us, immediately devouring every speck of light in a sea of endless black I instantly recognize as home. A band of darkness wraps around my hips and yanks me backward, then brushes my cheek gently, steadying my galloping heartbeat and quieting my power.
Screams fill the chamber, followed by a pair of thuds, and I know without a doubt any threat to my life's been extinguished.
A heartbeat later, the shadows retreat, revealing the shriveled bodies of the dark wielders on the floor, alloy-hilted daggers embedded in their chests.
I lower my weapons as Xaden strides toward me from the center of the room, the hilts of the two swords he keeps strapped to his back peeking above his shoulders. He's in thick winter flight leathers, devoid of any markings but his second lieutenant rank, and speckled with tiny dots of water that tell me he's been out in the snow.
Second lieutenant. The same rank as Barlowe's guards had been.
The same as Garrick, who's standing at the base of the steps behind Xaden, and almost every other officer temporarily stationed here to protect Basgiath.
My heart stutters and my gaze rakes over Xaden's tall, muscled frame, searching for any sign of injury. Gold-flecked onyx eyes meet mine, and my breath stabilizes only when I realize he's unharmed and there isn't a single trace of red to be found anywhere near his irises. He may technically be an initiate, but he's nothing like the venin we just fought.
Gods, I love this man.
"Tell me something, Violence." A muscle in his square jaw ticks as he stares down at me, rippling the tawny-brown skin of his stubbled cheek. "Why is it always you?"