A row of figures appears at the end of the tunnel to our left. Alastor and Leon step in front of me, pushing me back a few steps. Leon pulls something from his belt, handing it to me. It’s my knife—the one he took from me in Elmere. The same one he used to kill the man in the forest.
Seeing it again, knowing he thinks I might need to protect myself, sends my heart thudding.
“Time to find out how many of the stories are true,” Leon says as the cleavers close in.
Chapter18
Morgana
The cleavers’ leather tunics shine in the torchlight. Unlike the clerics’ dramatic crimson robes, their uniforms are tight-fitting and practical, dyed a deep maroon that’s probably well suited to hiding bloodstains.
There’s eight of them, but they move as one, marching with unnatural precision. It’s like they’re puppeteered by the same master, the effect made all the more chilling by their eyes: each of their irises is swollen and completely black.
“Lower your weapons and surrender,” calls one in the front row. “You have stolen from the Temple and the gods and must pay your penance.” His voice makes me shiver. It’s like it’s been flattened and drained of all emotion, all humanity.
He assumes we’re smugglers, but I can’t help thinking about how, according to the Temple’s doctrine,I’vestolen directly from the gods and deserve the harshest of punishments. If the cleavers discover what I am, I don’t know exactly how death will come, but I’m sure it will be drawn out and painful—ensuring I’m “cleansed” before I’m sent to the eternal realm.
“How’s the earth?” Alastor murmurs to Leon, but he shakes his head.
“Too loose. I don’t want to risk collapsing this tunnel in on us.”
“We’ll do this the old-fashioned way then,” Alastor says, and the fae charge with their swords.
The cleavers strike with their terrial magic first, an incendi flaring the nearest torch on the wall. The searing heat billows toward us, so close I can feel it on my face. It should burn Alastor’s hair right off, but he ducks so quickly my eyes lose track of him, then Leon slices the torch down with his sword.
The flames continue to burn until Leon kicks the torch into the oncoming line of cleavers. With that, the fire vanishes instantly, likely smothered out by an aesteri. It’s clear these clerics are powerful, but it’s also clear that they’re limited in what they can do with all of us packed in this cramped, confined space.
Leon lunges forward, swiping low at a cleaver’s legs. The cleric blocks him with her own blade, but I soon realize Leon intended it as a distraction. Alastor pulls something from his pocket and hurls it toward our attackers. In the gloom, I can’t quite see what it is until it coalesces into a swirling cloud.
Sand. He had sand in his pockets and is using it now to blind the clerics, making them jerk their heads and try to cover their eyes as it flies at them. Their blades lash out wildly, and the fae take down two of them before the earth turns to liquid beneath their feet, and Leon and Alastor sink down to their knees, unable to take another step.
I watch, uselessly, knowing I’m no match for the cleavers. Even if I could summon my celestial magic at will, it would be too dangerous to reveal.
Even as they’re stuck, the fae parry blows from the front line of cleavers as Alastor calls to Leon.
“Surely you can dosomething?”
“On it,” Leon grunts.
There’s a slight shaking in the earth—so subtle I barely notice it. Dust falls in a curtain from the ceiling, making me cough and splutter, but when I squint at the fae, I see the earth around their legs has broken apart, allowing them to pull themselves free.
Magic flies back and forth between the fae and the clerics, the fizz of it merging with the clash of metal. Leon and Alastor are still outnumbered three to one, and Alastor falls to his knees, clutching his throat. Someone’s suffocating him, I’m sure of it.
“Leon!” I shout. “Find the aesteri!”
Leon kicks out at the cleaver he’d locked blades with, forcing him to jump back, and turns toward Alastor, searching out the cleric conjuring on his friend.
But I don’t get to see what happens next, because a cleaver turns my way, her swollen, black irises staring straight at me. My shout drew her attention, and the Temple’s soldiers are done ignoring me.
She breaks free from the group, darting past Leon and heading right for me. I only have one choice. I turn and run.
I head in a different direction to the way we came, down one of the three passages the smuggler might have taken. Maybe I’ll stumble across his exit route, but my main goal is just to lose the cleaver in the tunnels and hide out until the fae come and find me.
Unless the cleavers win the fight. Or the fae decide to leave me behind.
I can’t consider those possibilities now. Not when I have to focus on staying alive. I can hear the beat of the cleaver’s boots behind me, still loud even as the noises of the battle fade into the distance, swallowed up by the mountain stone.
“Surrender, heretic,” she shouts after me. There’s not a trace of anger in her voice, just cold determination. My heart thuds in my throat as I sprint as fast as I can while still trying not to give away my location, but she’s still faster than me, and when I look back over my shoulder, I see her closing in.
