“Ignis,” Zagar said from a spot about a foot away from where she’d last spoken. Clio moved into position.
Thor was already in motion when the colonel said, “Unda.” As he took his place beside Clio, a shiver of dread coursed down my spine.
“Aether.”
I adjusted my grip on my blade as I moved toward the colonel. I glanced down the line at the other Keepers, both relieved and concerned that their expressions all reflected the trepidation twisting my stomach.
“Please insert the tips of your Blades into the keyholes,” she instructed.
I was about to ask her what she was talking about when I caught a glint of something in the grass at my feet. I pushed away the greenery with the toe of my boot to reveal a flat, oval-shaped rock sunken into the ground. Although it was clear by the accumulation of dirt smeared over its face that it had been here for some time, I could detect a long, thin divot within the rock’s black surface.
My throat went dry as I lifted my sword over the keyhole. There was no telling what kinds of weapons we were about to release. Bringing these relics back into the world could spell disaster for demons—not to mention nephilim and fallen angels. Or they could allow those same downtrodden people to stand up without fear and demand the rights and privileges that came so easily to the elite members of ethereal society.
If I had my way, this moment would lead to the latter.
I plunged the Blade into the stone.
Chapter Seventeen
For a few long moments, nothing happened. The air was heavy with a charge of anticipation. A Blade stuck out of each rock in the row, and each Keeper wore a similarly bewildered expression.
A foreboding rumble cut through the air, but it wasn’t until the ground trembled that I realized the sound hadn’t come from the sky. The other Keepers and I jumped back as the grassy area in front of us shook and rose from the forest floor.
Bewildered shouts and cries shot up from those guarding the perimeter, followed immediately by sharp rebukes from other officers. Even if I had wanted to turn to see who was being reprimanded, I couldn’t peel my eyes away from the sight unfolding before me. A rectangular structure the size of an elevator car emerged from the earth, shaking off bits of grass and soil as it rose.
When the movement finally ceased, the freshly unearthed stronghold stood silent as a statue. Colonel Zagar approached the heavy door, made from the same metallic material as the rest of the box. Instead of a knob, a circular structure like a steering wheel stuck out of the center of the door. She braced a hand on either side and twisted—but nothing happened. She tried again. And again. She attempted to turn the wheel in one direction, then the other, but it didn’t shift in the slightest.
“Is there another lock?” Nate asked in his most deferent tone.
But even as the colonel took a few steps back to study the door’s surface, I could tell the answer was no. There were no holes or slashes in the metallic surface. Besides, why would there need to be a second line of defense after the first level of protection the wards supplied?
Colonel Zagar sighed. “Maybe a Keeper needs to open it. Each of you take a turn.”
Wordlessly, Bridger took the general’s place at the wheel. He attempted to turn it, grunting with the effort, but it didn’t budge.
When Nate approached the door, I waited with anticipation. If the general was right and only a Keeper could access the relics within, who better than the leader of our unit?
But my faith was misplaced. Nate had no more success with the mechanism than Bridger. Clio’s and Thor’s attempts also failed.
Sweat beaded my forehead by the time it was my turn to try. That I could wield the Aether Blade didn’t mean that whatever wards guarded this door would yield to me. Maybe it was because of my presence that the door wouldn’t open to begin with. What if some sort of demon alarm went off as soon as I touched the gleaming metal of the stronghold?
I felt the weight of eyes watching my every move. As much as I wanted to keep distance between myself and the ancient tomb-looking structure, I had come too far to stop now. Blowing out a breath, I closed my fists around the wheel. The metal was warm beneath my skin and vibrated with the same energy as my Blade.
When a few seconds ticked by with no obvious signs that the building itself would rebel against me, I grit my teeth and ventured to twist the wheel.
It spun easily in my hands. I had expected a great deal of groaning when the mechanism finally gave way, but it spun in a complete circle before stopping. I stepped back, and the door swung out toward me.
Inside the vault were more weapons than I had ever seen in one place. The space was too full to allow anyone to step foot inside. Swords stood upright within a grid matrix, above which were three shelves, each lined with daggers, arrows, bows, and spears.
“Cadets,” the colonel said, snapping my attention away from the relics, “I need you at the perimeter. MacIver, Rhodes, Falk, Adley, Sing—with me.”
The five officers she called turned, but didn’t leave their posts from around the outskirts of the clearing until one of the Keepers had arrived to replace them. I switched spots with a young woman about my height with short, shockingly blonde hair. I was so distracted by the light golden color that I didn’t realize who I’d stepped into place beside until Shonda swiveled her head on her neck to stare straight at me.
“I bet you’re feeling pretty special right about now.”
I didn’t give her the satisfaction of glancing in her direction. “Just doing my job.” Behind me, metal clinked and thunked as the colonel and her officers started transferring relics from the vault into the wagon they brought. I fought the urge to glance back to determine just how many weapons they could fit in the vessel. Were they going for just the swords, or a bit of everything? I wanted to have as many details as possible to relay to Liza later. While the stronghold itself would be impossible for her to access, there was no way their destination was nearly as secure. With the right intel about the new location of the relics, Liza could send a team to acquire them after they were moved.
Another peal of thunder ripped through the sky—this time directly over top of where we stood. The clouds were sure to let loose any time now. I only hoped we’d be well on our way back to the trucks by then.
“Anyone else would have gotten an infraction for talking to a commanding officer like that,” Shonda murmured, her voice just loud enough to bridge the distance between us. “You don’t deserve the Aether Blade.”
I fixed her with my coldest glare. “Apparently the Blade disagrees with your assessment.”
She opened her mouth to retort, but before the words escaped her lips, movement in my periphery caught my eye. I spun to identify the source, but the dense forest surrounding us was so dark it was difficult to see more than a few yards in. Although it was probably only a bird, my heart rate sped up as I scanned the vicinity.
“Did you see that?” I whispered to Shonda.
A boom overhead elicited shouts from several guardsmen. Shonda jumped and nearly tripped over her own feet. A guy two down from her actually fell to the ground.
But two beats later, he hadn’t made the slightest attempt to stand. The man on my left dropped, too. I spun on my heel, surveying the rest of the perimeter guards. Three more had dropped.
“We’re under attack!”
I’m not sure who called out, but the energy in the clearing changed immediately. Shonda and the officer on my left both pulled their stunners from their holsters and held them at the ready. Automatically, I reached for the Blade on my back—except it wasn’t there. All five of the Eternity Blades still stuck out of the stones in front of the stronghold.
I peered into the forest gloom, trying to make out the specifics of our attackers—who and how many. But I couldn’t discern anything with certainty.
More tranq darts sailed through the air, but only one more person fell—Wyatt from Shonda’s team. The guardsmen with swords unsheathed them and used the bl
ades to deflect the incoming projectiles.
“How’d they know we were here?” someone shouted.
“They must have followed us from the academy!” someone else responded.
I inched backward, allowing those with weapons to guard the line. Overhead, the sky finally let loose, unleashing a flood down on us. The downpour was so heavy it was difficult to see more than a few feet away. Shonda’s figure blurred so badly she appeared to writhe and twist, although I was sure she was holding her defensive pose as rigidly as ever.
And then the real attack came. From out of the woods, figures clad in blacks and browns and muddy greens emerged, brandishing swords of their own. My stomach dropped. Were these people carrying earth-forged weapons like the ones we used in the training gym, or was it possible they had angel-fire relics? Shivers shot through me as metal clashed against metal.
There were so many of them. Who were they? If one guard’s theory was right and this group had followed us from Blakethorne, the question was why? Were there people stationed outside the academy just waiting for vehicles to leave, hoping to discover something worth attacking?
Shouts rose up nearby, and I leapt sideways just in time for a man clad in an olive green shirt and black pants to face-plant on the ground beside me. A guard studied him for a few moments, kicking his foot with the toe of her boot before adjusting her grip on her stunner and turning back toward the fray.
A sword lay a few inches from the fallen man, but it wasn’t the blade that drew my attention. The skin of his fingers was red and scaly, the nails thick and black. Although a black knit cap covered his head, I didn’t need to see what was beneath for a sickening certainty to wash over me. The man was a demon.
Were we closer to the distribution hub than I imagined? Were these people, warned by Derek that a group of guards were coming for them, acting out of self-preservation?
But that seemed improbable based on volume of people pouring out of the woods. Every perimeter guard was engaged with a demon, and there were more rushing past the distracted guards to go for the weapons. This wasn’t a small group fearing someone might take something of theirs, it was a militia ready for battle.
Two men with thick horns sprouting from their heads like spires ran toward me, swords raised. Did these men work with Farrin? Did they have any idea who I was? The torrential rain made their expressions impossible to read, and without a weapon I dropped to the ground, covering my head to keep from drawing their ire.
They rushed past, shouting at the top of their lungs as they neared the center of the clearing. I tried to get a clear picture of what was happening, but the sheets of rain cascading to the ground made it impossible.
“Eden!”
I turned toward the voice. Thor crouched beside the vault, waving me to join him. I took a quick survey of my surroundings. More figures had fallen to the ground, though whether angel or demon, I couldn’t tell through the storm. No one paid any attention to me as I scampered to Thor’s side.
“We need to get our swords,” he said, his voice just loud enough to carry over the pounding rain.
“Okay—then let’s get them.”
I turned, preparing to creep around the corner of the structure, but Thor closed his fingers around my wrist. “As soon as we start yanking Blades, this whole thing’s gonna sink back into the ground. I don’t know how our friends here will handle that.”
I wasn’t a hundred percent sure whether his reference to friends was sarcastic of serious, but it didn’t matter. Enough relics had been removed from the stronghold to pose a threat in the wrong hands.
At the moment, I wasn’t positive which hands those were.
Another person fell to the ground with a thud and a grunt. Through the storm, I could only make out his inky hair and tan skin and my heart twisted. Was that Nate? “Where are the others?”
Thor shook his head, and my hands flew over my mouth to stifle a startled sob. Were they hurt? Dead?
He tugged my fingers from my face, leaning close so that his dark honey-colored eyes took up the entire world. “I haven’t seen them since the fighting started,” he said, his tone even. “I’m worried about them, too—but we can’t focus on them. Not now. First, we fight.”
Everything jumbled in my head. Yes, I needed to fight, but could I really stand alongside Colonel Zagar after what she’d said? She made it clear the Guard had no interest in helping people; they only want to control those who won’t fall in line. The balance of power needed to shift if anything was ever going to change.
Revolutions always came with a price, but in my head all I could see was an image of Nate on the ground in a pool of his own blood. Even if the person I’d seen fall wasn’t him, he could still be hurt—or worse. Could I live with myself if something bad happened to him?
I needed this to stop. Thor was right—we didn’t know how anyone would react to the stronghold retracting into the ground. Maybe it would give the demons enough time to flee so the fighting could end.
I balled my fists. “Let’s do this.”
We switched positions so he could lead the way around the structure. It made sense, since my sword was closest to the edge. Easier to change spots now than when we were nearer to the fight.
Battles raged on in every corner of the clearing, but the fighting was thickest directly in front of the stronghold. Colonel Zagar held her own against three demons while three of the officers who had been helping her load the wagons now guarded the weapons from those hoping to steal them.
Thor lunged for his sword first, but when he pulled on the grip, it didn’t move. I took hold of my Blade, but I had no better luck.
“Maybe we need to close it,” Thor said, nodding at the half-open door in front of us.
We moved on it at the same moment. Since it had swung open on its own earlier, I hadn’t gotten a sense for how heavy it was. Now the two of us strained against it to get it to budge. My feet slipped and slid on the soaking grass, but no matter how many times I fell, I climbed back to my feet and kept pushing. When it finally clanged closed, Thor twisted the lock mechanism back into place as I returned to my Blade.
It lifted easily out of its slot, and when Thor pulled his from its stone, the ground shook as the structure began sinking into the ground. There. That should make for a nice distraction.
But as I turned to survey the effects, vise-like arms closed around my middle and pulled me off the ground. The Aether Blade slipped from my grip and plunged into the wet earth as my captor began pulling me backward, toward the surrounding forest.
“Thor!”
He spun at my call, but before he had made it more than a few steps, two demons intercepted him, each with swords of their own.
I twisted in my captor’s arms. “Let me go! What are you doing?”
“A Blade Keeper’s worth more than any of those shiny weapons,” growled a voice that made my hair stand on end.
No matter how I kicked out with my legs, my feet didn’t make contact with the person holding me. The only thing I connected with was an immovable tree trunk, the impact sending a wave of pain radiating up from my shin. Despite my flailing, the arms kept squeezing tighter and tighter, and by the time we crossed into the forest, I could only gasp in shallow breaths.
“You don’t understand,” I wheezed. “You have to…”
“Let her go!”
Nate streaked into the woods, one of the relic blades from the stronghold grasped in his hands. His hair was soaking wet and covering one eye, but it couldn’t disguise the fierce determination on his face. As blackness began creeping into my periphery from lack of oxygen, I used what little focus I could muster to take stock of Nate and look for any injuries—but in the forest’s gloom, I couldn’t make out much.
My captor chuckled, squeezing me even tighter. “Well, well. If it isn’t Nathaniel Kouri come to be the hero.”
The way the man said Nate’s name made my blood turn to ice. The Blade Keepers might be household names in the angelic world,
but they were irrelevant to most demons. There was a reason this guy recognized Nate, and it couldn’t be good.
“Run,” I croaked. “Nate, get out of here.”
His eyebrows cinched. “No. I won’t let them take—”
A tranq dart lodged itself in Nate’s neck, and he dropped to the ground before he could finish his sentence. My captor threw me to the ground, and I crawled over the sodden undergrowth to Nate’s side. I yanked the dart from his skin, but it was too late—half of the tranquilizer was already in his system. He was unconscious. My vision blurred as I cupped his cheek with my hand. “Why didn’t you run?”
“Poor Nate.”
The drawling voice sent a shiver down my spine. It wasn’t the man who had dragged me into the woods who spoke; this voice was all too familiar.
Derek strolled toward me, his pace entirely unhurried as he loaded a second dart into the barrel of his gun. He wore black gloves and a black jacket I’d never seen before. The hood cast a shadow over his face. “Boyd here is right about one thing.”
Rage seeped into every pore of my skin, so hot I was sure I could burn anything it touched. I glared at the man who’d pulled me into the forest. Canaan Boyd. I should have recognized his voice—or at the very least the perpetual tang of shekar that always clung to his clothes. “What are you doing here? Our guess was wrong—we weren’t going for Farrin’s place. An attack like this was never part of the plan.”
Derek snorted. “You’re one to talk about the plan, seeing as you’ve completely thrown it out the window. I know you, Eden Everdell. Better than you know yourself. I asked you not to go to the academy. You aren’t strong enough for a mission like this.”
I stared at him, mouth open. “You and I remember that conversation very differently. Besides, I’d say I’ve done pretty well so far. Did you hear about the clinic? Doc would be in societal rehab—or the pit—if I hadn’t gotten that intel.”
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