Consort of Rebels Read online

  Wait….

  My eyes snapped open, and I shook my head to focus my vision. I peered blearily through the cell window. Tears pricked my eyes, and I let out a small, gasping laugh.

  Not lead weights. Daggers.

  The two blades had reappeared inside their sheaths.

  I resisted the urge to yank my arm back, not wanting to risk dropping or dislodging the weapons. Instead, I slowly pulled them through the bars, stepping away from the door as I did so. As soon as my arm cleared the window, I fell backward onto my butt, bruising my tailbone and bumping the back of my head on the hard stone floor.

  Not that it fucking mattered.

  After the agony of cozying up to that damn door, a couple bruises felt like butterfly kisses.

  And I had my daggers back.

  Too weak to stand again, I crawled back over to the corner out of the light and strapped the sheaths back to my thighs. The effect was more comforting than a warm blanket.

  Propping my back against the chilly stone wall, I settled in to wait.

  Fortunately, today wasn’t one of those days Kate decided to let me skip a meal. A few hours later, my ears perked at the sound of soft footsteps approaching my cell. I stiffened, pressing farther back into the shadows of the corner. I was almost certain she wouldn’t notice the daggers I now wore in my sheaths, but my heart thudded heavily in my chest anyway.

  When the dark-haired woman appeared outside my cell, I glanced wanly up at her like I always did. After casting a critical eye in my direction, Kate disappeared from the window, and the lock on the door opened with a click. She set down a small tray with a bowl and a jug of water and shut the door behind her.

  Just like I had this morning—or whatever time it had been—I crawled on hands and knees over to the meager sustenance. Pride urged me to stand, but I wasn’t going to use my dwindling reserves of strength until I had to. And I’d be a fool to turn down the last meal I might get for a while.

  She peered down at me through the little window while I ate, and I made sure to stay away from the light creeping through the window, pressing myself close to the wall by the door.

  When I finished, I let out a satisfied sigh, sucking in a deep lungful of air. I lingered for a moment, dabbing up the last few pieces of rice with one finger as I tried to get my brain and body to sync up. My mind felt more alert as nerves and adrenaline sharpened my senses, but my body still felt weak and sluggish, like it lagged two steps behind.

  Finally, unable to put it off any longer, I set the dish down on the tray and turned, crawling slowly back toward the far corner.

  When I was halfway across the room, the door opened behind me. The dishes on the tray rattled as Kate picked them up.

  And I moved.

  Pivoting on one knee and pushing off the ball of my back foot, I leapt toward the door. I slid one of my daggers smoothly out of its sheath as I did, reaching out with my other hand to grab Kate’s wrist.

  I yanked, and the tray went flying. The jug and bowl shattered with a loud crash as I pulled Kate into the room, throwing myself on top of her and pressing the dagger to her throat.

  In the quiet after the crash, Kate’s sharp breaths pierced the air. She opened her mouth to make another noise, but I bore down harder with my blade, drawing a thin red line across her neck.

  “Don’t scream,” I whispered. “Or it’ll be the last thing you do.”

  Her nostrils flared, disgust and rage flickering across her features in the dim light.

  Then she opened her mouth and screamed.

  The action made the dagger dig deeper into her neck, and blood welled. I pulled back in surprise, and in that second, I saw a glint of triumph in her eye.

  This fucking bitch called my bluff.

  I barely had time to process the thought before she bucked her hips, throwing me off balance and rolling to dislodge me.

  Kate scrambled for the door. I dove after her, grabbing her by the ankle. She kicked out with her other foot, catching my cheekbone.

  Stars burst in my vision as pain exploded in my skull.

  She reached for the still-open door, and I gave up trying to pull her back. Instead, I let go and darted past her, slamming into the door just as she tried to escape the room. Agony flared in my body. The heavy wood smashed into her fingers, which were braced against the frame. She let out another scream, more piercing than the first.

  Fuck. If anybody else was in this building, they must’ve heard the commotion by now.

  I shoved Kate backward and kicked the door all the way shut, rounding on her. She cradled her broken fingers to her chest, wild hazel eyes fixed on me. When I advanced toward her, she feinted and tried to dodge around me, but I slashed out with my dagger, catching her across the shoulder.

  She stumbled, and I pressed my advantage, driving her into the wall and using my bodyweight to keep her there. I drew my other dagger, crisscrossing the blades over her neck.

  “Okay, you got me,” I panted, trying to slow my breathing so she wouldn’t know how winded I was already. “I didn’t want to kill you. I still don’t. Hell, I should. I should slit your throat right now for what you did to Christine, and for whatever else you’ve done for Rain. But I’m sick of people fucking dying because of me.”

  “I am prepared to die for him.” Her shoulder glistened with blood, and her neck was smeared with red from her previous encounter with my dagger, but her voice was confident and strong.

  “Yeah? What’d he promise you, huh?” I dug my blades a little deeper into her skin, but I hadn’t been lying. I was sick of all the death that seemed to follow me around. I was sick of trying to justify the lives I’d taken. “Your very own worshippers and slaves, once you have enough magic to live like a god? You realize he’d just as soon kill you as give you any of that, right?”

  “He has already saved my life,” Kate hissed, her dark eyes burning with fervor. “His vision is the only way, the only future. No one sees the world like Rain Blackshear does.”

  “Thank fuck for that.”

  Stepping back quickly, I raised my right hand and bashed the butt of my dagger against Kate’s temple. She pitched to the side, eyes rolling up into her head.

  As soon as she was down, I sheathed my blades and bent over with my hands on my knees, weakness flooding my body like ice water. The adrenaline of the fight had helped keep me upright, but my strength was flagging badly. I needed to get out of here before Rain came back or someone else came to investigate the noise. I didn’t have too many more fights left in me.

  Crouching down beside Kate’s prone form, I pulled her shirt off. One sleeve was sticky with blood, and I cut it off before slipping the rest of the garment over my head. I had no idea where I was, but if—no, when—I made it out of here, I’d have a better chance of surviving if I was protected from the elements.

  Her feet were a bit bigger than mine, and her boot had a slight heel where mine didn’t, but I’d rather walk funny than walk barefoot. I yanked her left shoe off and shoved it on my foot.

  A quick pat down revealed nothing else useful on her but a small key ring.

  I used the blood-soaked sleeve to bind her wrists, wincing at the purple, swollen fingers on her right hand. But I forced down my pity. Kate had killed Christine. She was helping Rain carry out his insane plan, and she’d treated me horribly as a prisoner. I might not be able to bring myself to kill her in cold blood, but that didn’t mean she deserved to live.

  Slipping out of the cell, I glanced around cautiously. The large room was still empty. Two hallways led away from it in different directions. One of them I’d been able to see from inside the cell, and one I hadn’t.

  I turned back to the door of my cell and tried several keys until I found the one that locked it. Shoving the key ring in my pocket, I crept toward the newly revealed hallway.

  But before I made it three steps, heat and power flared in my belly, almost bringing me to my knees.

  Oh, shit.

  My magic was back.r />
  And it was pissed.

  Chapter 3

  All the power that had been suppressed by Rain’s prison cell flowed through my veins like liquid lightning, overwhelming me.

  I glanced down at myself, almost expecting to find light emanating from my skin, but all I saw was a body covered in sweat, grime, and smears of blood. My bra, which had once been black, was now tinged a brownish gray, and my usually flame-red hair was about the same color as my bra.

  But I could feel the magic burning inside me, straining to reconnect to the bonds it had forged with my four. I pressed a hand against the wall to stay upright, willing it to calm the fuck down.

  Not right now. Please, gods, not right now.

  I wished I could explain to the power raging through me that I was trying to find my way back to my men; I just needed it to behave for a little while longer so I could do that.

  Keeping my hand on the stone wall for stability, I stumbled down the long hallway. It was carved right out of the rock and was obviously made more for function than form. The walls were rough and uneven, and the sconces jutting out were spaced far enough apart that the hall lapsed into darkness between them.

  I summoned a small flame above my free hand, both for the added light and as a precautionary measure, in case I ran into other residents or guards. My ears stayed perked for any threat, but the only sounds were my short breaths and the shuffling of my feet.

  The stillness was eerie.

  Shit. Maybe Rain and Kate were the only two people in the world who knew about this place, whatever and wherever it was.

  That wouldn’t surprise me. Rain could’ve easily hired some Touched goons to guard his lair, but he struck me as paranoid enough not to trust anyone but Kate with the knowledge of what he was doing here. That must be the reason he’d been able to keep his responsibility for the Great Death a secret all these years.

  He told my father about his plans once. And my dad tried to stop him.

  Pride and grief swelled inside me in equal measure at the thought. Rain had probably learned his lesson about revealing his sick secrets after that.

  I followed several winding stone corridors, all of which looked exactly the same. When I turned down a new hallway, hope made my heart pound faster. A door stood at the end of it.

  Picking up my pace, I half shuffled, half ran toward the large wooden door. But I slowed as I neared it, noticing the blue glow that pulsed over the dark wood.

  Warded.

  Fuck.

  It made sense. If Rain didn’t have guards watching over this place, he must’ve locked it down tight with magical protections instead.

  Godsdamn it. Guards, I could fight—or charm. Magical wards, on the other hand… I had no way around those. Growling, I turned around and retraced my steps through the catacombs, pushing through my bone-deep weariness.

  Trying to keep a mental map of which hallways I’d already ventured down, I kept moving, stumbling upon two more warded doors.

  By the time I reached a third one, panic was whipping my magic up into a frenzy. This place was fucking huge. Even if no one stopped me, I could spend hours wandering the stone halls fruitlessly, searching for a way out that may not even exist.

  I turned and shuffled back the way I’d come, the vibrating tension of my magic at odds with the dwindling strength of my body. Choosing another random offshoot, I ventured down the dark corridor, fingers brushing the cold wall.

  A grinding sound up ahead stopped me in my tracks.

  Fuck. Maybe there was somebody else here.

  I peered down the dimly lit hallway, muscles tensed. The grinding sound grew louder, but I still couldn’t see anything.

  Suddenly, a man stepped right out of the wall before me.

  No. Not a man. A part of the stone.

  The creature had no features, just a blank face. And it was bigger than most humans, seven feet tall at least. It’s head almost scraped the low ceiling of the cavernous tunnel.

  For a second, I just stared at it, dumbfounded.

  Then the grating sound came again, and another creature just like the first emerged from the wall behind me.

  They moved simultaneously, faster than rock had a right to. Two large, rough fists swung for me.

  I ducked too late. The fist meant for my face missed me, but the one aimed at my midsection hit me in the shoulder instead, sending me flying into the wall. The bite wound on my shoulder sang with pain as I slipped under another rocky fist, darting down the hallway.

  Raising both hands, I turned around as the two creatures barreled toward me. Flame shot from my palms, sending a scorching fireball careening through the cavern. Heat enveloped me, and I swore I could hear a few strands of my hair sizzle.

  Shit. Too much! My magic raged under the surface of my skin, barely under my control.

  And it didn’t even slow the rock creatures down at all. They emerged from the billowing flame unscathed, expressionless faces trained on me.

  I fell backward, and a second after I hit the ground, a large stone knee landed by my side. One of the figures knelt over me, and I twisted my head just in time to avoid having my face crushed by its large fist.

  Usually, I liked close-quarter fighting. I was good with my fists and my blades. But neither of those would work against this big motherfucker and his friend.

  Scrabbling backward like a crab, I threw my hands out again, calling on the power of wind. My magic surged through me, and this time I didn’t try to stop it, didn’t try to control it. I let the wind shriek through the tunnel, my own scream lost in the howling noise.

  The stone men dug their feet in, pushing into the violent gust, but it pressed them back.

  I couldn’t sustain it forever though. When they were a few yards away from me, I let the wind drop and did the best thing I could think of when faced with magical stone adversaries. I ran.

  My mismatched shoes made my gate uneven, and I careened between the walls like a drunk trying to run an obstacle course. But I kept moving, even as the thundering sound of footsteps grew louder behind me.

  When the corridor I was in opened up into a large room, I sprinted inside—and the footsteps behind me stopped.

  I whirled around. The two figures stood stock-still just outside the entryway to the room. Then, without a sound, they stepped back to the walls, disappearing into the stone.

  Why didn’t they follow me in here?

  Backing slowly away from the door, I edged farther into the room, and then glanced around at the new space I had entered.

  I gasped.

  It was cavernous, at least three stories tall. I had entered in the middle level, onto a balcony that surrounded the perimeter of the room. Below me, a steel platform ten feet across took up the center of the floor. Six large prongs rose from it, looking almost like the setting on a gigantic ring.

  Except there was no diamond set inside these prongs. Instead, they held a shifting ball of bright white light.

  It pulsed with power, the energy radiating from it nearly knocking me off my feet.

  Magic.

  This was what Rain had stolen.

  I blinked back tears as I stared down at it, overwhelmed by the otherworldly beauty of the bright, shifting light. It was pure, concentrated magic, burning like a star.

  A staircase led from the balcony to the main floor, and I crept down it, gaze locked on the magic star. From up close, it looked even bigger and felt more powerful. I swore I could hear a low hum coming from it, as if the concentrated magic were alive.

  But Rain couldn’t use this magic, could he? If he’d gotten this from his first magic pull, it was inaccessible to him. Or so he’d told me.

  Thank the gods. Because if he had access to this much power, he’d be unstoppable.

  The thought hardly comforted me. His plans for a second magic pull were well underway, and he seemed confident that this time, he would be able to use the magic he stole from others.

  I had to stop him.

  But fir
st, I had to get the fuck out of here.

  The room was quiet. I shot a glance up at the balcony level, but the stone figures hadn’t reappeared. Were there more of them guarding the corridors on this level? I wasn’t sure I could survive another encounter with them.

  But I couldn’t give up trying to find a way out. It’d been hours since Rain left for the Capital; he might be back any minute. And as soon as he found Kate tied up in my old cell, he’d realize what I’d done and hunt me down.

  Several corridors led away from the main level of this room. Stealing one last look back at the ball of magic suspended within the metal prongs, I picked a passage at random and darted cautiously down it. The hallways down here were darker than the ones above, with cobwebs draping across them in places. Although no creatures emerged from the walls, I hit two more dead ends at warded doors, and my jaw began to ache from being clenched so tight.

  But the next door I stumbled upon wasn’t warded. It wasn’t even locked.

  It hung slightly ajar, and somehow that sight made me more nervous than all those pulsing blue wards had.

  This wasn’t right. Rain would never be so careless.

  Was he back already? Had he come through here? Did he know I was down here too?

  Slowly, tentatively, I reached for the door. It creaked as I pushed it open, and I winced. The area beyond was swallowed up in darkness.

  I braced myself and was about to step through when a noise drew my attention. A muffled voice came from another corridor that intercepted this one several yards behind me.

  I froze, torn by indecision. Should I step into the blackness beyond and into a possible trap? Or should I turn and fight Rain now—maybe even get the jump on him? I was weak, but the magic that burned inside me was still raging out of control. And it was pulling me back toward the sound of the voice, probably itching for a fight.

  Decision made, I slipped a dagger from my sheath. I kept one hand free for spell casting but didn’t summon a flame yet. The light would give away my position too soon.