Chapter 70. The Trap Worked Perfectly, and That Was the First Sign Something Was Wrong

Chapter 70: 70. The Trap Worked Perfectly, and That Was the First Sign Something Was Wrong

An arrow whistled out of the dark, thin and fast and tipped with something green. I saw it a half second before it reached her.

I didn’t think again. I pivoted, put my arm in front of her, and the arrow punched through my sleeve and into the meat of my forearm.

"Nggghhhh...!" I gritted my teeth.

It burned like a hot wire. I swore at the top of my lungs, a very long and creative string of obscenities, and ripped it out with my teeth.

Velora stared at me. Then, shockingly, she laughed.

It was a short, startled, breathless laugh, and it was gone almost immediately. But I’d heard it.

"You are an... absurd human," she said.

"I’m told it’s part of my charm."

"It is not... don’t even think about it."

We took cover behind a half-collapsed barricade of broken carts. She pushed me down against the planks and began to cut away the sleeve of my shirt; her hands were rough and fast.

She was breathing unevenly, and her ponytail had come loose, and a few strands of silver and black hair were stuck to her cheek.

She was angry and scared, and I can tell that she was trying very hard to hide both of them.

"Hold still," she snapped.

"I am holding still... why do you think I’m doing it right now?"

"You are moving... still the same with that loud mouth of yours."

"My mouth doesn’t count, and yes... that’s my pulse, thank you. I’m still alive."

She pressed a wad of cloth against the wound, hard. I swore again.

"Fuck...!"

She glared at me. And then, abruptly, she realized how close we were.

I realized it too. There was maybe a hand’s width of space between our faces, and I could see every fleck of gold in her eyes.

Her breath was warm against my cheek. And whoa now... the atmosphere around us suddenly changed into something different... it is more intimate now.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

She cleared her throat and looked away, and the tips of her ears went pink. Oh-hoho~! I get it now... she really changed by a lot in these past few days.

"Do not mistake necessity for affection," she said stiffly.

"What? I’m not mistaking anything," I said.

My voice came out rougher than I meant it to, but I manage to keep my smug smile. "I’m just hoping."

She didn’t answer. And she didn’t say a word other than looking at me with those usual fierce eyes.

But she didn’t move away, either, and after a moment I felt her hand tighten, very slightly, on my wrist. She leaned in half an inch.

Huh? Already... alright then. I tried to take her lips with my lips, but...

The whole world went fucking white all of the sudden.

NNRAAGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

There was a deep, rolling thunderclap from below our feet, a roar that shook the courtyard and made the stones jump, and a tower of dust and flame erupted from somewhere beneath the keep.

Chunks of masonry rained across the yard.

That moment... INSTANTLY broke like thin glass. And here I thought that Velora was about to get dominated by my kiss.

Velora was on her feet in a single heartbeat, and she drew her sword fast with her face smooth and cold. There is... the commander is finally gaining her senses back.

...

But her ears were still pink, and she didn’t quite meet my eye.

Bryn came out of the cellar stairs ten minutes later, covered in soot, with a crossbow slung over her shoulder and a long gash across her forehead.

"It worked," she said hoarsely. "Leon, it worked!"

"Tell me."

She told us, in short, ragged bursts. About forty Wolfkin Oathglass and two chain mages had come through the tunnel in the middle of the main assault, just as I had predicted.

They had marched in single file, smiling, with their weapons sheathed. Elsbeth had sealed the passage behind them days earlier, a thin wall of ice hidden behind a fall of rock, and when the last of them had entered, it had dropped like a portcullis.

The Nightclaw had hit them from the murder holes in the ceiling. The chain-mages had been pinned.

Nearly all of the strike team had been taken alive.

"It should have been a victory," Bryn said, wiping soot from her eyes.

She didn’t look victorious. And to me... she looked uneasy.

"But it was too easy."

"What do you mean by that?"

"There were no Chosen elites among them... No Ylv... and no Auctioneer."

"Only the expendable ones... the rank and file." She shook her head. "And the wardstone was opened by blood."

"Fresh blood, taken from a dead Wolfkin, brought along in a flask..."

"They did not try to hide, but it was as if they wanted us to catch them."

A cold feeling crept down my spine.

I looked at Velora, and I saw that she had reached the same conclusion a second before me. Her face had gone hard and flat.

"A diversion..." she said.

"They knew about the trap," Bryn said slowly. "They walked into it on purpose."

"Which means someone told them." Velora’s voice was quiet. "Someone who heard what was said in the council chamber!"

I thought about the room, about the long table and the cold tea, and about the faces of everyone who had been in it.

I thought about a thin, kind-looking man’s voice drifting up from the snow, saying, ’Master said you would be clever.’

’Master... said...’

I didn’t have time to follow the thought. Above us, on the tallest tower, every one of Sylvara’s little lights went out at once.

It was like watching stars die.

One moment, there was a soft violet glow around the tower, and the next, nothing at all.

I heard her cry out, a high, cracked cry, and I looked up and saw her standing at the rail with her staff clutched in both hands and her face white as paper.

"The shrine!" she screamed. "Leon, the shrine...!"

She explained it on the run, in short gasps, as she half fell down the tower stairs.

’Shit...!’

...

There was a shaft in the dome of the Moon Shrine.

A narrow, vertical well of stone, running all the way up through the heart of the mountain to the open sky, built by the Lunhare in the earliest days to let the moonlight fall straight onto the Moon Font.

It was sealed with a plug of munglass. The only way to open it was with another piece of moonglass from the outside.

"Cassian has a ring made of it," Sylvara panted. "He did not need the tunnel!"

"The tunnel was a lie...! The real back door all along is in the sky!!!"

I felt the world tilt.

We’d planned for the wrong fucking door... We’d laid a perfect trap for a man who wasn’t coming through it.

"Velora," I said.

She had followed us into the courtyard. She stood with her sword in her hand and her torn coat flapping in the wind, and the gate was still shuddering behind her under the weight of a hundred Chosen.

I saw her glance at it, at the roaring chaos, and I saw the arithmetic running behind her eyes.

If I left, she’d be holding the gate with nine riders and a broken wall.

"I... can’t leave you," I started. "I can’t leave everyone of you to deal with all of that..."

"Go," she said.

"But the gate..."

"I have the gate." She didn’t look at me.

She slid her blade across a chain-mage’s staff and shattered it, then stepped aside to let a falling stone miss her by an inch. "Go, Leon. That job is suitable for you more."

It was the second time she’d used my name. I’d have given a year of my life to stop and hear it again.

"Don’t die," I said.

"Do not insult me with that word."

I ran as fast as I can.

The keep’s corridors were a nightmare of smoke and shouting. Sylvara and I tore through them at full speed, shouldering past fleeing servants and stumbling over fallen armor.

My lungs were burning. And my side ached.

Every step sent a fresh stab of pain through my forearm where the arrow had gone in, and the shaking in my hands had spread to my legs.

I checked the number in the corner of my vision because I couldn’t help it.

[Lust Energy: 41/100]

Forty-one. I tried not to think about it.

Ding.

A bright red window flared in front of my eyes, so sudden and so violent that I nearly tripped.

[SSS-RANK TARGET DETECTED]

[Species: Lionkin]

[Gender: Female, Adult]

[Rank: SSS]

[Condition: Bound (Oathglass)]

[Threat Assessment: Extremely High]

’Great,’ I thought. ’Another one.’

’What’s even worse is that she’s taken...’