Crann pointed over their heads. “They’re already here.”
Magnus and Nadine looked up. On the cliffs outside the tunnel, Nozgovot archers were taking aim from the few vantage points that offered access to an emerging target. That wasn’t all. Marching up the path toward them was a massive force, one far too large to fight. Snarls and growls echoed through the tunnel, drowning out all noise save for the one thought screaming in Magnus’s mind.
Fool. You’ve killed them all.
25
Caged
The Nozverak thrall shoved Nadine through the doorway of a tiny cell and thrust her to her knees. She hit the ground hard and cried out as the impact traveled up her thighs and into her spine. How Magnus had survived a fight with one of these creatures, Yudvir only knew.
With a grunt of determination, she rolled to her side and jumped up in time to have the iron bars of the gate slammed in her face. She pushed her arms through without thinking, as if she could grasp the creature walking away and force it to unlock her. And then what? They were trapped.
Magnus was the last one to be imprisoned. Two Nozverak thralls shoved him through the gate of the cell adjacent to her right. He’d sustained a blow to the head which had rendered him listless, and the second guard was really only there to help drag the weight of his body without slowing down the group.
His door slammed shut, and Nadine threw herself to the edge of her cage to look in on her barbarian, who wavered on his hands and knees, his head drooped low between his shoulders. He coughed, and it must have caused him pain, because he bent low and pressed his forehead to the stone.
“Magnus? Can you hear me?”
No response.
Nadine pushed away from Magnus’s bars and went back to the gate. She squinted through the dim torchlight at Samar’s unconscious body, crumpled in the cell across the path from hers. He wasn’t alone. A Nozverak, but not one she recognized, lay curled on his side. He twitched violently as though suffering a nightmare. His skin had been burned all over, and murky gray blood had clotted over various wounds and lacerations. In the corner, another of his kind huddled on his haunches. At least this one was awake, but he rubbed his broken horns against the rocky wall of his cell as though he were trying to file them down. Was he mad? She frowned.
Did Samar have the Eye? He must. But was he even alive to use it? If he weren’t, the thralls wouldn’t have brought him here. Would they?
“Samar!” she yelled through the bars, uncaring that the guards were still nearby. “Samar, you bastard. Wake up!”
The guards in the hall growled a clear warning. Nadine kicked the door of her cell and was enraged that the thing didn’t even rattle. How could it, when it was meant to imprison horned beasts like the Nozverak?
Nadine returned to Magnus. “Get up. Don’t you dare die on me.”
“Why show your loyalty now, female?” Azolirum’s voice rumbled from the other side of Magnus’s cell. The horde king had been chained loosely to the wall of his. He came to stand at the bars on the other side of Magnus’s cage. Nadine stared at him from across the divide, Magnus’s huddled figure between them. “Why now, after your lover has betrayed us?”
Nadine lifted her lips in a snarl. “Quiet.”
Crann and Hezek, who were also chained, sat on the ground behind Azolirum, and they muttered unhappily to one another in their language. Whatever they’d said, Azolirum nodded his agreement. His next words were spoken clearly enough for Nadine to hear, but he stared pointedly at Magnus’s hunched form as he spoke. “You let the nozturel fly. You had him and you freed him.”
“I said, be quiet,” Nadine hissed, then squatted down to speak to Magnus. “We have to figure something out. Help me.”
Magnus didn’t move. Nadine sucked in a breath through clenched teeth and squeezed the bars. “Was it him?”
At last, Magnus met her gaze. His was filled with shame and defeat.
Shuraa ket.
Nadine released the bars and sat back to stare at him. She should’ve known by the way he’d gone running down that path that something was different. Should have suspected the possibility that the nozturel Crann had pointed out might possibly be Magnus’s lost friend. But he wasn’t the only one who’d been distracted. She’d been solely focused on the Eye, which even now might or might not be on Samar’s person.
All her strength and attention had been focused on cutting a path straight to it. Getting back her inheritance and securing the one weapon that would turn the tide of this mission. Keeping all the betrayal from being in vain. She’d been so close. And now? Nadine swallowed and looked around the dirty cell. They needed Samar to wake up. They needed him to have that Eye.
“You were right,” Magnus muttered, drawing Nadine’s gaze back to him. With a grunt of pain, he turned onto his side before walking himself backward to lean slumped against the wall. He winced as he settled himself, head hanging low in self-pity. “You were right about everything.” He half turned toward the Nozverak, who openly glared. “I have betrayed us.”
“Magnus, stop,” Nadine said. “Help me think about what we’re going to do.”
“I’ll tell you what you’re going to do,” Azolirum growled. “You’re going to rot in this hole until the Soul Thieves decide they have no use for you. Then you’ll be taken to the pits to wait your turn for slavery like the rest of them. And then, when all that’s left of you is your body, you’ll use that to turn and tear apart everything you’ve ever had a hand in building. That’s what you’re going to do, female.”
Azolirum’s words drew a pitiful sound from Magnus’s throat. He rubbed the palms of his hands to his eyes. “I couldn’t do it, Nadine. Regna help me, I couldn’t.”
Nadine bit down on her cracked lip. He looked so broken. Lost.
With a huff, she scooted back against the wall of her own cell and huddled against the bars until she was close enough to mutter low words to Magnus. The Nozverak might still be able to hear her, but they wouldn’t catch every word.
“I knew you couldn’t, barbarian.”
And she had. She’d been aware since the night he’d told her about Arvid that, if the two eventually met, Magnus would not accept what had happened to his friend. He wasn’t here to perform a mercy killing.
“You didn’t come here to save our peoples. You came here to even the score with a friend. At the very least, I think you’ll get that death you’ve been trying so hard for.”
Magnus tipped his head against the wall. His throat bobbed. “You hate me.”
His words took her breath away. It wasn’t the accusation, it was the thrill of conviction that rose upon her like a wave upon the shore. He was utterly and completely wrong.
If she had it to do over again, Nadine would have ignored the Eye. She’d have set her eyes upon that Dokiri thrall and driven her lancet through his heart before Magnus had ever gotten close enough to touch him. She’d seen his hesitation when he’d offered to put Rushil out of his misery. She’d sensed instinctually the pain it would cause him. The doubt. All for an enemy who’d betrayed him. So Nadine would do what she must to spare her barbarian that misery for Arvid’s sake. Magnus might have hated her when his friend lay unmoving at her feet, but she would have accepted it.