A Court of Lies

by Kate Avery Ellison

  Nath lifted his sword. “Maybe if we leave them a peace offering, they’ll be distracted long enough for us to escape.”

  “Don’t you dare, rat-face,” Jade said. She stepped in front of her brother, who was still scanning the halls as if looking for something.

  “You’re sounding a lot like the enemy right now,” Nath shot back.

  Auberon hissed a curse. “Let me think!”

  Kael crossed the room to Briand’s side. “Can you feel the dragon from here, Catfoot?”

  She reached out with her mind and faintly brushed the dragon’s. “Barely,” she said. “It’s faint.”

  “Er,” Crispin interjected. “I think it’s that way. If we’re where I think we are.” He pointed to the tunnel that branched to the left.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “What do you know?” Jade demanded. “Who are you anyway, boy?”

  Crispin colored at her words but crossed his arms. “I played here when my father and I visited. I remember this place… I think.”

  “You think,” Nath repeated. But he looked hopeful. “Think harder, lad!”

  “There should be a giant scratch on the wall if it’s the right tunnel,” Crispin said, closing his eyes.

  In the distance, a howl filled the air.

  Nath and Crispin both flinched. Kael lifted his head in alarm. Jade and Auberon stiffened.

  “What was that?” Tibus growled.

  Nath and Jade spoke at the same time.

  “Rypters.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  EVERYONE STARED AT each other. Nath’s pulse began to pound in his ears as dizziness swept over him. He put out a hand to steady himself against the wall, and the stone was so cold that his fingertips burned.

  “We need to move now,” Jade said in a panicked voice. “These are not normal rypters.”

  “Normal is bad enough,” Nath said in a strangled tone. Memories were flashing through his mind—snapping mouths, long teeth, black, blind eyes—he was finding it hard to breathe—

  The dragonsayer was beside him, her hand on his wrist. She didn’t say anything, but her presence was enough to anchor him again. He was with friends. He was not alone and bound in a cage. He was no longer a slave.

  Still, he was shaking.

  “Look,” Tibus said, pointing upward. “The symbols we saw in the ruin.”

  Trilazyti.

  Auberon hissed something under his breath. “It’s a spell,” he said. “Someone, strike me. We need blood spilled by a fight.”

  The dragonsayer drew her knife and swiped at him, and a drop of blood fell onto the icy ground. It turned to glowing blue and swirled toward the nearest tunnel in a glowing river of light.

  “Follow,” Auberon bellowed.

  The next thing Nath knew, he was running alongside the dragonsayer and Tibus down a dark corridor. Shadows. Ice. Chilling cold. His heart banged against his ribs, and his breath rasped in and out of his lungs. He was gripping his sword so hard that his hand ached. They ran beneath a twisted crevice in the wall, and he dimly heard Crispin shout, “There’s the scratch!”

  Tibus replied, “Lad, if that’s a scratch, then I’m an ant,” and then Nath heard another howl of the rypters that were hunting them, and again he was cast into the dark well of his memories, of pain and blood and panic. He clawed his way out, back to the present nightmare.

  Here, he wasn’t alone. Here he had hope.

  They weren’t dead yet.

  At the end of the tunnel, Nath saw a door of green metal, embellished with images of mountains and stars, and more trilazyti.

  The glowing ribbon of light extended through the doorway.

  “Through there,” Auberon shouted. “This is the right way. We’re at the western corner of Ikarad now.”

  “I knew I was right!” Crispin exclaimed.

  “You are obnoxious,” Jade said to the lad, and then she staggered and fell to her knees. Auberon wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her up.

  “Come on, sister. Stay with us,” he said as her head lolled forward. She blinked and gasped as if coming up for air.

  Kael swung the doors open, and they gave with a groan, opening to another frozen space, this one with columns lining the walls.

  Nath heard the sound of claws against stone. He turned, and time seemed to slow as he saw three giant rypters appear at the end of the corridor behind them like rabid ghosts.

  “Help me bar the doors,” Kael shouted.

  Crispin stood bewildered and frightened, unable to move, until Nath and the dragonsayer grabbed him and pulled him back into the room. Kael and Tibus yanked the doors shut and locked them.

  Nath swung around to follow the light further, but it disappeared beneath a collapsed pile of rock and broken columns.

  They were trapped.

  There was no way out.

  The unearthly howl of the giant rypters echoed, and the doors shuddered as the beasts slammed into the steel.

  Kael and Tibus stepped back and drew their swords.

  The chains went taut as the doors banged beneath the weight of the rypters, but they held.

  “How do we get out?” Crispin shouted.

  “I thought you were supposed to know,” Nath snapped. His memories were clawing at his mind like the rypters at the door. He breathed in and out, trying to stay in the present.

  “I don’t have any idea! I only remembered the tunnel!”

  Nath did another frantic sweep of the room. He was shaking so hard he almost dropped his sword. His heart slammed against his ribs, and memories of being dangled over rypters by his Seeker master threatened to overtake him once more, but he breathed deep and pushed through them.

  Right now, his friends needed him, but it was taking all he had not to fall to the floor and cover his face with his hands.

  The rypters’ assault on the doors intensified. The thunderous sound of the claws against metal clanged in the silence.

  “Look,” the dragonsayer said. “More trilazyti.” She pointed at the walls, which were inscribed with the strange, triangular language.

  Auberon swung around, his eyes blazing as he scanned the wall. His expression changed. He looked over his shoulder at them.

  “What does it say?” Tibus called. “Is there a spell we can use to escape?”

  “Ari? What do we do?” Jade grabbed her brother’s arm with her free hand. She was still holding the baby rypter, although it had wriggled halfway out of its rags and had its ugly head pointed at the door.

  Auberon’s expression was odd. Satisfied, almost. His eyebrows flicked as he spoke.

  “Yes,” he said. “But none of you are going to like it.”

  Kael joined them, his sword still in his hand. His gaze swept across the symbols on the wall before he turned to Auberon.

  “What does it say?” he asked the Seeker.

  Auberon spoke with quiet triumph. “We can open this wall. There’s a tunnel beyond it. But…” He paused.

  “But what?” Nath cried.

  Auberon exhaled. “It requires a sacrifice.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  “A SACRIFICE,” NATH repeated.

  “Specifically, the life of someone for his friends,” Auberon said.

  They fell silent.

  “That’s absurd,” Nath said. “You’re lying.”

  “Are you volunteering?” Kael asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Auberon fixed a cold stare on him. He made a sound like a cough. “You are not my friends.”

  “Read us the spell,” Kael commanded.

  Auberon turned back to the wall. “The life of one spilled for his friends will open this wall and reveal the tunnel—that’s a rough translation, anyway.” He paused. “Perhaps,” he said to the dragonsayer, his gaze flicking to Kael, “perhaps this is what the Seeker saw in his vision.”

  The blood drained from the dragonsayer’s face, and her eyes sharpened into flinty shards. Her voice was cutting as she responded. “No,” she said. “It
isn’t.”

  A knot formed in Nath’s stomach. A Visionary. The Seekers rumored to see the future.

  Nath had heard the rumors of the Seekers who saw the future during his time as a Seeker slave. A cold, hard knot formed in his stomach. Something about Auberon’s smile made him feel sick.

  Kael’s shoulders tensed.

  “What vision?” he asked, his voice low and hard. “Catfoot, what is he talking about?”

  “You didn’t know?” Auberon said. He smiled, a cruel and curling smile that suggested he had envisioned this conversation already, and things were going as he had hoped. “She didn’t tell you about the Seeker who came to visit her before I did? The one with the vision of how the war will be won?”

  Kael’s expression darkened. “What vision?”

  A suffocating feeling swept over Nath.

  The Seeker took a step toward the dragonsayer. His voice was a purr as he said, “Why don’t you tell him, and let him decide?”

  “No,” the dragonsayer said. A note of panic entered her voice as she shook her head. “No.”

  “Briand,” Kael said. “What is he talking about?”

  “It’s nonsense,” the dragonsayer said. “Lies.”

  “Tell me, Catfoot,” Kael bade her quietly.

  Her face crumpled. Her shoulders bowed. The words she spoke next fell from her lips like stones. “Did you never wonder why I was hired to kill you by that Seeker?”

  “He foresaw the future,” Auberon interjected. “For the war to be won by your true prince, you die… by the dragonsayer’s own knife.”

  Nath felt as though his chest was imploding.

  No, no, no!

  Crispin pressed a hand to his mouth.

  “Lies,” Tibus growled, but he sounded uncertain. He shot a stricken look at Kael, who was standing frozen and taut, his expression like stone.

  “Is this what he said?” Kael asked, speaking directly to the dragonsayer. His voice was like a sword, hard and sharp. “Is this true, Briand?”

  The dragonsayer didn’t say anything.

  “The Seeker’s vision saw you die on the dragonsayer’s blade,” Auberon said, answering for her. “And the action led to the victory of your prince.”

  Nath couldn’t seem to find air to breathe. The Seeker must be lying. He must be manipulating them somehow. It couldn’t be true. It was a nasty, dirty trick.

  Kael’s face hardened into a mask of duty.

  “Kael, no!” Nath burst out. “It must be a trap. Why else would the Seeker urge you to fulfill a vision that wins us the war? That defeats Cahan?”

  “I don’t care one iota about Cahan,” Auberon replied. “My sister and I are fugitives, remember? The order threw us out. And I don’t want to be torn apart by those rypters, so if there’s a vision that leads to me—and your precious dragonsayer—surviving, I’m going to speak up.”

  “Can’t the dragon breathe fire on the wall and break it down?” Crispin said.

  “It doesn’t work like that,” the dragonsayer said quietly. “We’re too deep inside—we have to get to the meeting point as planned. The dragon can’t simply dismantle the entire structure. That would take eons, and we don’t even have more than a few minutes—”

  The clanging sound of the rypters tearing at the doors stopped. In the sudden silence, the group stood staring at each other.

  Then, a worse sound filled the air.

  The rasp of claws against hard-packed, frozen earth.

  The rypters were digging under the doors.

  Kael stepped forward, stopping right in front of the dragonsayer. He reached down and drew one of her knives from her belt, pressing the hilt into her palm.

  The blood drained from her face.

  “No,” she said, her voice low and desperate. “Kael, no. This cannot be what he saw. This cannot be the answer. There’s got to be another way to escape.”

  “This is the way,” Kael said.

  “No,” Tibus said, the words a growl.

  “Sir!” Nath shouted.

  “Do it,” Kael commanded the dragonsayer. His face was calm. Impassive. He said something else to her in a voice too low for Nath to hear.

  Then Kael grabbed her wrist and forced the knife into his abdomen.

  A scream wrenched itself from Nath’s mouth. He stared in horror as Kael crumpled to his knees, and then fell to the ground with the dragonsayer’s knife beneath him.

  The dragonsayer cried out, a deep sound of shock and anguish.

  The rasping of the rypters’ claws changed. They were getting close. They were almost through.

  “Tibus, Crispin, Briand!” Nath cried, dropping beside his commander and tearing off the armor he wore to see the shirt underneath, which was already dark with blood. “Help me lift him. We’ve got to get him up. We can save him. Kael, you foolish, loyal bastard—”

  They had to get him out of there. If they could cauterize the wound, stitch him up, get him to a healer… There had to be something they could do.

  The dragonsayer was on the other side of Kael, her face frozen and expressionless as she pressed her hand against the bloody wound as if to staunch it.

  “No,” Kael gritted out. He locked eyes with Nath and then the dragonsayer, but his voice carried to the others. “This is the vision. I will fulfill my destiny.”

  “First you agree to marry that woman, and now this,” Nath cried. “Kael, you thick-headed fool. We need you alive. She needs you alive.” He gestured wildly at the dragonsayer. Kael loved the dragonsayer, didn’t he? Nath was sure of it. How could he die and leave her, even for Jehn? And on a half-formed, ridiculous prophecy, by a Seeker, no less…

  Kael grabbed Nath’s wrist. “Go now. Leave me.” He paused for breath. “That’s an order, soldier.” Blood bloomed across his shirt. His head sagged to the side as his body went still.

  “Kael,” the dragonsayer said in a broken voice. Then, to Nath, she whispered, “He’s dead.”

  Nath shook his head as a high-pitched sound rang in his ears. This couldn’t be happening. His hands and legs felt numb. His mind was working, his thoughts continuing to flow, but the rest of him felt frozen.

  Dead.

  Auberon pressed a hand against the wall. “All of you, follow me,” he commanded. A growling sound of stone against stone filled the air, and the wall slid backward, revealing a darkened tunnel.

  “You bastard!” Nath hurled himself toward Auberon, sword drawn, his face contorted with anguish and fury. Auberon dodged the blow, falling back, and Nath leaped at the Seeker and pressed the sword to his throat.

  “I’ll kill you,” Nath breathed.

  Auberon grabbed Nath’s wrist, and Nath screamed as pain shot up his arm and visions of rypters tearing into his flesh filled his mind. Auberon cast him aside and rolled into a crouch.

  Nath hit the wall hard and lay unmoving, stunned. He watched as the Seeker leaped to his feet, bare hands outstretched as Tibus closed in on him. Auberon seized the soldier by the shoulder, and Tibus’s legs buckled as he grunted, his eyes rolling back.

  But then Briand was at Auberon’s side, her knife pressed to his neck, her hand on his arm.

  “Try again,” she hissed. “Try and see what I do to you. Use your powers and I’ll throw you across the room—”

  Auberon whirled on her, knocking her back with a blow of his elbow, but not before she sliced him along his neck. It was a flesh wound, missing any arteries, but blood seeped down his skin.

  “Stop!” Jade thundered.

  Auberon stood panting, red-faced and wary.

  “Do you all want to die?” Jade demanded. “We haven’t escaped yet. We could still be detected. We need to get away now, not waste time squabbling.”

  Nath pushed himself up on his elbows, his face haggard and his eyes as dark as river stones. “Run him through, Guttersnipe,” he rasped.

  “We need him to get out,” Crispin said. “He’s the only one who can read the trilazyti.”

  It was a vicious truth. They d
id need Auberon.

  “I could leave the rest of you,” Auberon snarled. “I could leave all of you.”

  “You can’t get out without me,” Briand said. “The dragon is waiting. It’ll eat you if I’m not there to hold it back, once it discovers we don’t have its mate’s head.”

  “It isn’t my fault your fearless leader has too much heart and too little brains,” Auberon said. “I only told him what the vision said. I only told him the truth.”

  “Say that again,” Nath shouted, brandishing his sword. Tears streamed from the tutor’s eyes as he spoke the words.

  The doors began to groan behind them. The rypters were almost through.

  “Nath,” Tibus said. “Briand. We have to go.”

  Nath looked from Kael’s body to the tunnel.

  The gates strained, the sound of the metal warping against metal a high-pitched scream. Tibus grabbed Nath and Briand and dragged them into the tunnel after Auberon, Jade, and Crispin. They stumbled along the darkness.

  Eventually, Nath saw a glowing blue light. The river of magic from before, the one guiding their path. They’d found it again.

  Nath could barely see through the haze of tears filling his eyes. He’d seen death dozens of times, hundreds of times. But this…

  He wished he had died instead. He was furious with himself for not thinking of it. He should have been the one to fall on that knife.

  Dimly, he saw the dragonsayer lean against the wall, her hands splayed across the rock, and then she called for them to stand back as the rock began to heat. Steam hissed around them like a swirl of smoke, and Nath shut his eyes. A moment later, Tibus grabbed him by the shoulder and propelled him forward. A hole, dripping and jagged, split the wall before them.

  And together, they ran through the hole and into a cave. Steam blasted him in the face, and he caught a glimpse of a dragon, massive and looming, its scales dark blue and its eyes like flames. The dragonsayer stopped and seemed to be having a silent conversation with it, and then the dragon reared up and roared. Briand screamed, and Tibus swept her up in his arms as they ran. The dragon tried to follow, and then it flew backward as if yanked by an invisible force, and Nath saw the dragonsayer’s eyes roll back in her head. The dragon disappeared into a black stretch of water at the back of the cave, and they ran up, and up, and up into the gray light of dusk.