His head tipped, his head fell, and a half breath later, his body followed in a puff of ancient limestone dust.
“Come back from that,” Vivia snarled, before lifting her gaze to Merik. Before a new expression settled over her features. One he’d never seen before. One that almost matched … regret.
“Merry,” she said at last, a breathy, almost chuckling sound, “you look awful.”
THIRTY
Safi had given up trying to still her tapping fingers, her jittering heels. Caden had given up telling her to stop.
After what had seemed like hours in the carriage, everyone was wound up. Even the Fareaster woman had taken to picking at the dirt beneath her fingernails, a furious movement that grew more animated, more impatient with each minute that passed.
Yet there was no accelerating the carriage. Once free of the crammed market, travelers to the arena filled every mud road through the marshes, every rickety bridge across the oxbows. Most people were hideously drunk—just as Admiral Kahina had described—and though Caden rarely peered beyond the curtain, there was no missing the sounds of revelry outside. Of petty brawls igniting, of slave wagers passing hands.
The landscape changed too. Firm earth shifted to uneven mud and shaky bridges. The ripe stink of a city softened into the sulfuric stink of a swamp. All the while the temperature within the carriage moved from bearable sunburned heat to unbearable choking humidity.
The only person who seemed unperturbed by it all was Zander, who even tried to make conversation. “I’ve heard the Fareastern continent is even larger than the Witchlands. Which nation are you from?”
This earned him a withering glare from the slaver and an apologetic shrug from Caden.
When at last the carriage driver hammered on the roof and shouted, “Almost there!,” no one was sorry to see the ride end.
The carriage lurched and jolted into an awkward descent. The outside din shrank to a stone-cuffed rumble, and any light that had slithered through the curtain’s edge now vanished entirely. They had moved underground.
“The slavers’ entrance,” explained the Fareaster, sneering at the knife still held at her throat. “It is beneath the arena. Many armed men will be waiting there.” She offered this less as a warning and more as a threat.
It prompted Caden to sit taller. “Zander,” he barked, “I want you to exit first. Deal with any soldiers waiting—”
“Please,” Vaness interrupted, authority dripping off her alongside the sweat. “Allow me.” She didn’t wait for a reply. The carriage was already clattering to a stop, and she was already reaching for the exit.
No one stopped her. By the time Safi was out of the carriage, all twelve arena guards had been shackled to the ground and gagged with iron.
The only people Vaness did not attack were the driver and the Fareaster, the former having dived for the glistening stones beneath the carriage and the latter still sitting on her bench, hissing profanities after them.
While the Hell-Bards gathered blades off the subdued guards, Safi examined the cavernous arena entrance with its pitted ceilings and spluttering torches. Water seeped up between the mismatched flagstones. As if the arena were very slowly sinking.
It probably was.
Two archways caught Safi’s attention. One seethed with shadows; the other seethed with sound. Every few breaths, roars and cheers rushed through. A living onslaught that set the stones to humming.
Whatever fight happened aboveground, it was a good one. And it meant the quiet tunnel was the one that led to the slave pens.
“Heretic,” Caden murmured, appearing beside her. He offered her a crude short sword. Heavy but serviceable. “Any guess where the crew might be?”
“There.” Safi pointed at the darker doorway.
A half-grin of approval from Caden, and after snagging a torch from its sconce beside the archway, he set off at a brisk jog into the bowels of the arena. Safi followed the commander, trying to reconcile her grip with the awkward blade, while Vaness hurried behind. The empress was weaponless, of course, though two new shackles rippled around her wrists like baby snakes. Lev and Zander trailed last, and though they glanced back to check for more guards, no one came.
Gods below, it felt good for Safi to move. Good to stretch her legs without Hell-Bards to goad her or Baedyeds to chase. Good to hold a sword again, even if it was meant for someone with hands twice the size of hers. None of that mattered.
Nor did it matter that every few steps, Safi’s boots splashed through puddles while water hit her head, icy and hard. She was moving.
Soon enough, all sounds from above had muted, replaced by murmuring, echoing conversations and the eternal slosh of a fortress half submerged. Here the entire floor was ankle-deep in thick, sulfuric water.
When the tunnels finally branched with a honeycomb of options, six guards appeared. Before surprise could register on their faces, Vaness had them locked against the damp walls. Narrow belts about their waists, iron gags across their mouths.
“Cartorrans?” Caden asked the nearest one, who dangled crookedly from a belt about three inches too high. His eyes shot to the central-most branch of passages—a look of such honest panic that it set Safi’s magic to warming.
“This way,” she called, already resuming the jog.
Lev cut in front. “Best let me lead. Just in case we encounter any witches.”
Fair point.
Fire flared ahead, and conversations paused at the approaching splashes. Then they were there: a low dungeon exactly like something from a nightmarish fairy tale. On and on it spanned, lit by primitive torches. Stone cells with faces of all shades, ages, and sizes pressed against the crude bars. Many wore collars similar to the one the Hell-Bards had forced on Vaness.