-ONE
slip another precious inch as the soldier is yanked backward, then thrown
forward, over my head, disappearing into the darkness.
It’s Eya. It has to be. Maybe the wound isn’t—
Blond hair and icy-blue eyes appear above me, and my heart plummets
with the assassin’s body. Jack Barlowe.
“Sorrengail?” He lunges forward, grasping my wrists with an
unbreakable grip.
“I’m so sorry,” I tell Tairn and prepare myself for the weightless
moment that will be my last.
“I’ve got you!” Jack shouts, holding my wrists tight as he throws
himself backward and hauls me up and over the edge.
My ribs hit stone, and he lets one hand go, then grabs my leathers and
pulls, heaving me the rest of the way onto the tower wall.
I don’t waste time, scrambling forward to safety. As soon as my boots
land inside the turret, he backs up a few steps, his chest rising and falling
quickly with exertion as he gives me space, dodging the fallen body to the
left as fire rages to the right.
“You saved me?” I scurry backward, leaving my hands at my sides and
close to my daggers.
“I didn’t know it was you,” he admits, falling back against the tower
wall and catching his breath. “But yeah.”
“You could have let me fall, but you pulled me up,” I say, like I’m trying
to convince myself.
“Do you want to climb back up there and we’ll do it again that way?” he
offers, gesturing to the wall.
“No!”
Wingbeats sound overhead, and we both look up as Tairn soars by. He
would have been too late, and we both know it. The relief coursing through
my body isn’t just mine; it’s his, too.
“Look.” Jack shakes his head and peers over at Eya’s lifeless form. “I
was on the dorm’s watch for First Wing and ran when I heard the screams.
And…well… riders don’t die at the hands of infantry.”
“I killed you. You have every right to throw me off the tower.” I reach
behind me one hand at a time and collect two of my daggers, sheathing
them slowly, bracing myself for anything.
“Yeah.” He rubs his hand through his short blond hair. “Well, that death
was kind of a second chance for me. You don’t know who you really are
until you face down Malek. So, the way I see this is I just gave you a
second chance, too. We’re even.” He nods once, then walks away, exiting
into the tower.
I move slowly around the edge of the turret, stopping to roll over the
body of the first assassin I killed and remove my daggers, cleaning them on
his uniform before sheathing them at my thighs. The fire slowly sputters in
the barrel, and I lean against the hard stone wall before letting my back hit
every ridge on the way down as I slide to sit.
I stare at the tips of Eya’s boots—they’re all I can see from this angle—
and let my head fall back against the wall. Then I breathe and wait for the
adrenaline to pass, for the shock to wear off, for the trembling in my aching
hands to cease.
Eya’s dead. That’s half of us who flew into Resson. Aetos isn’t going to
stop until we’re all gone. He’ll pick us off one by one. I hug my knees to
my chest. Who will he come for next? Garrick? Imogen? Xaden? Bodhi?
We can’t go on like this.
“Holy shit.” I hear Ridoc’s voice a second before I see him. “What
happened?” He falls to his knees beside me, looking me over in obvious
appraisal. “Are you hurt? Stabbed?” His glance skitters sideways.
“Burned?”
“No.” I shake my head. “But Eya’s dead. Assassins. Aetos.”
“Fuck.”
I laugh, the sound tripping out of my lips hysterically. “Jack Barlowe
saved my life.”
“Are you kidding?” Ridoc rises up and cups my face, checking my eyes
for signs of concussion.
“No. He said this makes us even, and I really think he failed math,
because by my calculations now I owe him two lives: the one I took from
him, and the one he just gave me.”
“I should have come with you.” His hands fall away.
“No.” I shake my head, and my vision swims. “They could have killed
you, too.” Shivers rack my frame.
“What do you need?”
“Just wait with me while it passes.”
Silence stretches between us.
“I saw Jesinia,” he says quietly. “The good news is she knows where the
vault is. There are wards, but she knows how to get through them, too. But
the bad news is we need someone in King Tauri’s bloodline to do it.
They’re not just in some sublevel vault. They’re in the royal one.” His
shoulders dip in defeat. “I’m sorry, Violet.”
I look over at Eya’s boots. There’s nothing I can do to protect her now,
but I can protect what she fought for. “Then it’s a good thing we have
access to a prince who happens to hate his father.”
Gods save us from the ambitions of second-years. They think they’ve
experienced everything because they’ve survived their first year, but in
reality, they only know enough to get themselves killed.
—MAJOR AFENDRA’S GUIDE TO THE RIDERS QUADRANT (UNAUTHORIZED
EDITION)
X
