Then I whirled around and took off, streaking through the forest.
“Quilla!” she called after me.
But I kept going.
I’m not even sure where I was going. Or what I was going to do when I got there. I just followed my heart. And it led me toward Indigo.
When pain flamed through my arm, burning into my mark and telling me I’d triggered another magical perimeter breach, I knew I was going in the right direction. He’d be this way, right in the thick of things and surrounded by the enemy.
My jog turned into a sprint.
When a uniformed guard, heavily weighed down by armor and sporting High Cliff colors, stepped out from behind a tree and directly into my path to face off with me, I didn’t even slow down. If anything, I bowed my head like a bull and charged forward even harder. He lifted a sword above his head, slow and clunky. I whipped out my daggers, one held in each hand.
We met. He swung. I dipped low, sliding past him in the dirt, and ended up behind him, where I sprang back to my feet and whirled to stab him in the back of the neck before he could follow me around.
Hitting him right in the open space between the bottom of his helmet and top of his chest plate, I listened to his death moan echo from the inside of his hood before he slumped to his knees, then fell forward, lifeless.
And thus, I became a Graykey murderess.
“Here!” A shout came from nearby, alerting me to another soldier. “We got one over here.”
Blinking away the daze of what I’d just done, I spun to find two more men rushing into the tiny clearing. These two weren’t covered in metal, leaving me way more targets to hit. So I threw the knife at one, thinking Indigo would be so proud that I finally aimed for the body this time when it struck true, hitting the man in the heart.
The other man was too close for me to throw my second dagger at.
He brandished a battle-ax and swung it freely, going for my neck. But I ducked, swiping toward his torso with my blade as I went.
He was too quick and leaped back, bowing his body out to avoid a cut.
Dammit.
He stepped forward, his boot landing on the hem of my dress. We both paused and looked down at the ripping sound that followed as his move split the material straight up my leg, revealing a naked thigh. Then we looked up at each other together, both our eyes wide over the strangeness of how he’d managed to ruin my skirt like that by merely stomping on it. But then I used my new freedom of movement to jerk my knee up, hitting him right between the legs.
Eyes crossing, he grunted out a breath, clutched himself, and tipped over sideways. I punched him in the side of the head as he went down, to knock him out for good measure.
I messed up, though; I spent too long blinking at his mammoth, crumpled form, still in awe over the fact that I’d been able to best such a huge beast. By the time I sensed a presence behind me, it was too late. A solid bulk slammed into the center of my back, stealing my breath and knocking me to my knees.
With the wind punched from my lungs and my vision spinning with dizziness, I wavered upright for a second before pitching face-forward and landing slumped over the man I’d just knocked unconscious.
Pain paralyzed me, exploding freshly in my mouth and cutting open my lip as my face slammed into the earth, while the throbbing line across my spine seemed to immobilize my arms. Skirts tangled around my legs, trapping me further. I couldn’t even struggle as a rough arm grabbed my shoulder and spun me around onto my back so I was able to look up into the face of my attacker.
The stranger snarled down at me, saying, “Hello, black eyes,” before he straightened and lifted a club over his head.
I squeezed my eyes shut, bracing for impact. This was going to kill me. I just knew it.
But a male voice yelled, “Wait.”
Releasing a breath, I cracked open an eye as someone else with an air of authority about him approached. He didn’t even bother to remove his sword from its scabbard at his side, as if battling was beneath him.
“The reward will be larger if we keep her alive.”
Grumbling, my henchman lowered the club so he could reach down with his other hand to grab a handful of my hair. Then he lifted me.
I cried out when chunks of tresses tore free from my scalp, while others held firm as he pulled me up, far enough off the ground to leave my legs dangling and kicking out to find some kind of footing. Tears of pain filled my eyes as my handler answered, “But I thought they’d already caught one for the procedure. We don’t need to keep two alive.”
Another one?
Were they talking about Indigo?
Had they caught Indigo?
No!
“I haven’t heard confirmation yet that the other is honestly a Graykey,” the older man answered, stopping in front of me, and narrowing his eyes with disgust as he peered into mine that had to be pure black right now. Then he sneered and grabbed my arm, flipping it over to reveal my mark. “But you’re definitely a Graykey. Aren’t you, my pretty one?”
I didn’t answer.
He stepped closer. “You were probably the very monster who murdered my boy? Did you kill my son—my Axel—you little whore?”
Axel?
Oh dear God. This was Indigo’s uncle Everett, wasn’t it? The one who’d degraded him for being a High Clifter and turned him into a servant in his own family’s home? Who’d beaten him for trying to go to Warren to find me and threw him in a dungeon for days on end afterward?
Already hating the pompous windbag, I narrowed my eyes and growled, “Go to hell.”
He smacked me. High. Right across the temple, which seemed to break open a blood vessel at the top of my cheekbone and the corner of my eye.
“Answer me!” he roared. “What happened to Axel? Who killed him?”
I’d die before I let him know who truly took his son’s life. Trying to see him clearly with one eye swelling and blood dripping down my chin, I worked my mouth as I gathered saliva, and then I spit, nailing him right in the face.
With a roar, he walloped me on the side of the head again, causing more hair to pull free from my scalp and fresh pain to bloom across the length of my cheek as my neck creaked from the unnatural angle he cranked it.
My brain blinked off and then back on, filling my vision with stars as I came back to myself.
“Fucking bitch,” my captor was snarling as he wiped my spittle out of his eye. “You’ll pay for that. I may not be able to kill you now, but I can make you suffer nice and long before I do. You’ll scream until you wished you were dead.”
“Your son screamed,” I shot back, my voice hoarse. “When he died, he screamed for mercy and begged for his daddy. But you never came, so I slaughtered his pathetic ass.”
I’m not sure why I told him that. Maybe I didn’t want him to ever know Indigo had been in any way involved. Maybe I wanted to enrage him enough to simply kill me now, so I wouldn’t suffer through what would certainly happen to me if I was imprisoned. Or maybe I just didn’t like this guy, and I relished that pained look of horror that crossed his face as I lied.
In any case, he totally believed me.
Bellowing in devastated outrage, he struck me again.
And my world went dark.
Chapter 32
Indigo
I led my pursuers on a merry chase for a good two hours, remaining just enough ahead of them that kept them following me and yet far enough out that they didn’t catch me.