Hunted Warrior (33 page)

*  *  *

Malnefoley regretted the innocent lives he had taken at Bakkhos as he and the sisters at his back forged through the tunnels beneath Battersea. He regretted them in a deep place, where he wished the world could be a different place, a softer place. He'd experienced a glimpse of that softness in Avyi's arms. Yet that alone should've told him what a rare and impossible wish it was. He had never felt anything that intense and full of trust before. Unless he protected her now, he never would again.

That meant the armored men who stood between him and the enclosures that held human and Dragon King alike became his victims. They were unfortunates who had chosen to work for the cartels, seduced by the promise of power or wealth.

They were in his way.

But unlike the burdens he had carried since Bakkhos, his conscience was clear as he used his gift to light the deep tunnels and fell the men who stood ready with plasma guns and Tasers that temporarily stripped Dragon Kings' powers. These people would not hurt Avyi. They would not hurt Orla. And they would not keep him from freeing his imprisoned Dragon Kings. He was the Honorable Giva, and he was the Great Dragon's representative on this mortal plane.

He twisted through two pipes. The bow jostled off his shoulder. Avyi snatched it up and threw it over her shoulder where the quiver of arrows was strapped to her back. The two weapons, reunited for the first time, snapped with red fire.

Avyi skidded to a stop and dropped behind a half-rusted beam that appeared sunken and tired of its century-long burdens. She held her head, shook it, stomped her feet. Mal was by her side in a second, while Orla kept watch.

“Avyi,” he said, both of her forearms in his hands. “Avyi, answer me!”

“
No
. No, no, no . . .”

“Tell me.”

Haunted golden-green eyes were made sickly dark by the underground shadows. He wanted to see them in daylight. He wanted to see them eager and happy and satisfied—all of the emotions he had never expected of the woman formerly known only as the Pet.

She thrust the bow into his hands. “I can't. Do you understand me? I
can't
. And I . . . Mal . . .”

Two tears streaked down her cheeks. Mal wiped them away as if he could just as easily wipe away her distress. “You can't trust me with this?”

“I can't tell you, because it can't be changed. And I hate the Dragon for showing me what can't be changed.” She shook her head, meeting his gaze with startling hatred.

“You don't mean that. You believe.”

“Yes, I believe in our creator, but I can hate it, too.”

“Time to go,” Orla said tersely. “No time for this. It happens or it doesn't. Avyi, you've never steered me wrong. For your sake, for whatever you've seen, I hope you're wrong. But Hark needs me. I have to go, and I need your help.”

Mal hoisted Avyi to her feet, which were surprisingly steady. She was wearing her brass knuckles and holding her open switchblade, although he couldn't say when she had donned the weapons.

“One last time. Tell me.”

Her features, at times so impish and mocking and stealthy, were made of stone. “No.”

She raced after Orla, with Mal to follow them both. The caverns below Battersea shrank and became more narrow, reminding Mal of the crypt where they'd found the bow. Cadmin's bow. He couldn't think of it any other way now. He couldn't think of any of Avyi's predictions with doubt anymore. Which was why her sudden premonition—the one she refused to share—was so distressing. Something about Orla, Hark, Cadmin.

Or herself.

She wouldn't tell him if the prediction was a fixed point that ensured her death. That fact, which he knew with utter certainty, knotted in his stomach like a coiling snake. But what was worse? This frustration, or knowing the moment she would be taken from him? She could be taken from him when he envisioned more for their future than this desperate mission.

His wasn't a prediction. His was a wish.

Knowing would be better. At least then he could fight, no matter how useless. At least then he could say what was bottled inside him, too strong to put into words.

They reached what appeared to be a dead end. Orla kicked the dirt wall and slashed at it with her shield. She railed, cursing Hellix. Mal had to restrain her from taking hold of his sword. The determination on her face said that Hellix was a dead man—sooner rather than later—for having led them on this wild-goose chase.

“Wait,” Avyi said. “Orla, calm yourself.”

Orla was a snarling beast of a woman. Mal cut the leather strap that held her shield in place, then kicked it away. He grabbed Orla around the waist and spread his palm at the base of her skull. “I won't hurt you,” he said against her ear. “But I can make it so that your place in this fight ends here. Do you want to be unconscious while Hark needs you?”

“No,” she growled.

“Then listen to your sister.” He swallowed, meeting Avyi's eyes over Orla's blond-on-blond crown. “Tell us.”

“That's just it. Orla, use your gift. Try to find something. Anything. Reach deep, sister. Find a Dragon King who can tell us the way.”

“That deformed prick said Hark was trapped with humans.”

Avyi smiled softly. “And you trust him?”

A vicious smile, completely opposite in emotion, transformed her face. Mal was surprised. As the warrior named Silence became more ferocious, her features became more starkly beautiful. “Not enough to stop trying,” Orla said. “You can let go, Giva. Hark has always insisted that my name should be Patience. I don't feel patient, but I can behave.”

“You two are some pair,” Mal said, releasing Orla and stepping back, his sword out of reach.

“I'll take that as a compliment.” Avyi's words were stripped of emotion, but she caught Mal's eye with a brief twinkle of sharp humor. Then she took Orla's hands in hers. “Look. Use my gift. See what I see. No one has ever been able to read me as clearly as you.” She smiled, almost sadly. “Now we know why.”

Orla nodded. The sisters pressed their foreheads together, their fingers clasped. Concentration shaped their features until only their difference in height and their hair color differentiated them. “There,” Orla whispered. “Dragon be, a Garnis. That's not the present, is it?”

“No. It's hours from now. But now you know where he is. Use him. Use his senses to find Hark.”

Because the Sath could only borrow the powers of one Dragon King at a time, Orla let go of Avyi's hands and backed away, until she was flush against the crumbling dirt wall. Maybe a century ago, humans had intended these tunnels to be an extension of the Underground, or even bomb shelters. Now they were forgotten ruins, propping Orla up as she fought to find one of the Lost among so many warped paths.

Another damned labyrinth.

Avyi took Mal's hand. “There. She has it. Look.”

Orla grimaced. “Giva, I need a little help.”

“Name it.”

She seemed to shake out of a trance, which must be what every Sath felt like when they released another Dragon King's powers. “This dirt blockage is roughly ten meters thick. I can hear the Garnis on the other side. He's in chains. He won't be for long, if Avyi's vision is right. But for now, he's my eyes and ears. The human cage is beyond that. I saw Hark.”

“Then why isn't he using the Garnis's powers?” Avyi asked.

“He's collared,” Orla answered. “And unconscious. I hope.”

Mal wasted no time. He stood before the dirt barrier and closed his eyes. They were away from strong sources of energy. Avyi rubbed her hands together. Orla took the ends of her shirt and scrubbed the fabric until pieces fell away. But friction was only so useful. It took time. Mal dug deeper within himself than he'd ever tried, even during those four isolated years on a distant Greek mountaintop. He focused on the pulsing of the women's hearts, and how their blood sped through their veins. Their energy was enough for him to work on an even deeper level, as the turbine of his gift amped up.

He grounded himself on the dirt floor. The earth itself became his wellspring of energy. Why hadn't he ever noticed before? Perhaps because, like most of his life, resources were usually plentiful. Now, he dragged energy from miles-deep wellsprings of water and lava. He harnessed those flowing currents until they were bolts of electricity warping the air around him. He couldn't see Avyi or Orla. He could only hope they knew to take cover.

In the moments before he released the most potent expression of his gift he'd ever experienced, he thought about his cousin. About Nynn. She was half Pendray. That meant half berserker. Her power had been enough to explode buildings, and was so feared that she had been banished by the Council—at a time when Mal hadn't been courageous enough to stand up to those ten influential figures.

He was the Giva. He should've protected his cousin. He'd known that for a long time, but as unimaginable power surged through his blood, through the whole of his being, he sympathized with her. He admired her. Because he, too, knew what it was to explode.

CHAPTER

T
he wind was knocked out of Avyi's lungs when Orla grabbed her and they landed in a pile on the hard-packed ground. Orla's shield covered them both when Mal's energy burst from him with the force of a cannon. The sound of his raging bellow was even louder than the shock of lightning meeting rock that had been buried underground for hundreds of years. She and Orla huddled together. She clutched her eyelids shut when the light became too, too, too bright. Briefly, she was glad that she didn't have the power of a Garnis. Those ultra-keen senses might've been shattered beyond repair in the wake of such power.

The rock crumbled; she heard it give way. Then it was a shower, beating down on Orla's shield.

“It's going to collapse,” she shouted to her sister.

They had to take the chance that Mal would see the danger, too. Avyi knew neither of them would die in that tunnel.

Mal.

All she could see was blood.
His
blood. He clutched his slit throat as red gushed from a wound. Only when she united the bow and arrows had she been able to see the clearest prediction of her life.

Mal would die at the Grievance.

She refused to share it with him because she refused to believe it.

She wouldn't let Mal die. She would rip apart the fabric of time if it meant keeping him safe. There was no power short of the Dragon himself to keep her from trying to her last breath.

But she hadn't seen anything about Orla. Her sister, so new and precious, could die in those caverns without warning. That was the burden of Avyi's life: to see the unwanted and to fear the unknown. She choked back the flash flood of grief that threatened to drown her, just when she needed a clear head and even faster limbs.

Avyi and Orla scrambled on all fours toward where the jut of Mal's energy blast was beginning to taper. The hole he left in the earth was considerable where it began, and then narrowed to the width of a body doing a belly crawl. But he had cleared what needed to be cleared.

As soon as he finished with another shout that sounded nearly painful, Orla ditched her shield and began the long crawl. There was no way to get the wide circle of metal through that last meter at the end of the tunnel. Avyi was about to follow her sister, but she caught sight of Mal. He'd dropped to one knee. Something like smoke—no, steam—lifted from his back and shoulders. He was as hot as cinders.

She rushed to his side but hesitated to touch his skin. He was pulsing, vibrating, shimmering with what remained of his gift's powerful explosion. “Mal, talk to me.”

“Hi.”

“Idiot man.”

He lifted his head. She should've seen a charred face, hairless, with nothing but bone remaining, but he was just as handsome as ever. In fact, the extreme usage of his gift added a sheen of otherworldliness that couldn't be defined. Every feature was sharper and even more dramatic. His eyes burned crystal blue, even in the dim light of the tunnel. High, aristocratic cheekbones added refinement to rugged looks made wild by the power that still hummed from his golden skin. The man who'd let loose on that distant labyrinth in Crete was a weakling compared to this living, wildly smiling god.