Page 122 of Throne of Ice and Blood
“No!” I scream again as hopelessness and desperation threaten to drag me under and drown me in their cold dark depths. I pound against the branch keeping me trapped while locking eyes full of pain and disbelief on Lavendera. “You can’t do this! You can’t be one of them! You can’t?—”
My voice breaks, and a sob rips from my throat.
“After everything I have done to get to this point,” I press out, my voice desperate and broken. “After all the risks I have taken and all the miracles I have already pulled off, after all the promises that I have made to Isera and Alistair, this can’t be how it ends. Betrayed by my own people!” I stare at Lavendera as pain cuts through my chest. “By someone I thought was my friend.”
Hurt, and a sense of deep recognition, flashes across her face for a second.
Then the branch abruptly disappears from my waist.
“Go,” she says.
I stagger upright after the sudden drop, and stare at her in shock.
“I will give you a head start, because…” That profound sorrow and deep pain swirls in her eyes for a second. Then she jerks her chin towards the corridor I came from. “Just go.”
Before I can so much as open my mouth to answer, she spins on her heel and stalks back towards the fight.
The wall of branches that she raised between them and us drops down into the floor again, revealing that all the humans are now shackled and on their knees. Peter has blood trickling down the side of his face while Ami keeps her head bowed. Kath stares daggers at the guards around them, but next to her, Kyler is white with fear and looks like he’s going to throw up.
I quickly scan all their faces while I back towards the corner.
There is no sign of that telltale red demon mask that the Red Hand always wears, and I can’t see Hector’s face among the captured group either.
Which means that he is still somewhere between here and the treasury.
Indecision cleaves my chest as I race back down the other corridor. The open window that both he and I climbed in through appears on my right, and for a second, I have almost managed to convince myself to use this head start that Lavendera has given me to escape on my own. But I can’t.
If I leave, Isera and Alistair will still be trapped here. And if I don’t warn the Red Hand, he will be captured and then killed. It will gut the resistance.
I know that Draven won’t let them kill me, so even if I’m captured, I will still survive. But the Red Hand certainly won’t.
My heart hammers in my chest as I sprint down the corridor and towards the treasury.
I have to warn him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
My feet thud against the floor as I sprint down the corridor. With every step, the sounds of dragon shifters barking orders to the captured humans grow fainter. The dress whips around my legs as I skid around the next corner.
I jump, throwing an arm out to catch myself on the wall as I nearly trip over the body lying slumped against the wall. Scrambling upright again, I stare at the male dragon shifter in silver armor. His gray eyes are still wide with shock, but they’re staring unseeing at the wall opposite him. There is a red smear down the wall that ends behind him where he sits, leaning against the wall. As if someone shoved a sword through his chest and he just slid down the wall when his knees buckled.
Skirting around his outstretched legs, I take off down the corridor again.
Faelight gems shine in the ceiling, providing the only light since there are no windows in here. But they are bright enough that I can see the next two guards long before I reach them. They are lying on their stomachs, straight across the floor of the corridor. Pools of blood spread out around their heads. But since I can’t see the front of their bodies, I don’t know what wounds they died from.
My pulse thrums in my ears as I leap over the two corpses and sprint towards the next corner. Panic streaks through my body like lightning. I need to make it to the Red Hand, and then both of us need to make it back out into that corridor with windows again so that we can climb out, before Lavendera and the others realize that I went this way. This is the only path out from the treasury. If they come hunting us here, we will be trapped with no way out.
Grabbing the edge of the wall, I swing myself around the next corner. My heart leaps.
Two more bodies lie slumped in the corridor before me. Blood stains the ice floor and their silver armor red. One of them has had his throat slit in the Red Hand’s signature move. But the other looks to have put up more of a fight, because his entire chest has been cut open in one long slash.
I swallow down a flash of bile at the sight of the intestines that spill out of his stomach.
Pushing myself hard, I race towards the next corner.
There are supposed to be three corridors and eight guards between the secret door and the treasury. Those two guards make five dead in total. And this is the third corridor. Which means that when I round the corner up ahead, I will reach the treasury. And the remaining three guards.
With every step, the noise of a struggle becomes louder.
