I feel a jolt low in my stomach-I’m not used to his face. But when I look up, his face is angled toward the tunnel.Įven in the dim light, the gray of his eyes and the sharp lines of his jaw are striking. In the tight space, our arms brush, and he draws a sharp breath. Stop fidgeting, Laia-no matter what’s crawling around in here.Įlias ducks into the crypt after me, his height forcing him into a half crouch. A scim that Darin forged hangs across my back, and its hilt clanks loudly against the stone. I slide into the crypt, suppressing a shudder at the loud crrrk of a resident tarantula. “In,” he whispers, “all the way to the back.” Elias nods to a deep, shoulder-high hole in the wall, hollow but for a stone coffin turned on its side. We reach a fork in the tunnel and veer right. So carefully that I fear to breathe, I mimic him as he turns and heads swiftly away from the voices. The prickling sense of being watched fades-replaced by something worse: the smell of pitch and flame the rise and fall of voices drawing near.Įlias touches my shoulder and points to his feet, then mine. I pull a dagger from my belt and try to hear beyond the clicking of tunnel tarantulas and my own breathing. “Elias,” I whisper, but he brushes a finger against my lips-shh-and tugs a knife free from the half dozen strapped across his chest. I think I hear a growl, like that of some sly, hungry creature. Sweat soaks through my shirt, but despite the rank heat of the tunnels, a chill runs across my skin and the hairs on the back of my neck rise. Any elation I felt at destroying Blackcliff Academy or rescuing Elias from execution vanishes. Together, we peer down the tunnel we just passed through. In another, he is in front, moving with unnatural grace for someone so big. And he is my ally-the only person who can help me save my brother, Darin, from a notorious Martial prison.

He is a former Mask-an elite soldier of the Martial Empire. He is Elias Veturius, heir to one of the Empire’s finest families. His hand is a gold-brown blur as it flies to the hilt of a scim slung across his back.Ī simple movement full of menace. We hear a scrape behind us, and my guide’s pale eyes flick past my shoulder. I know an escape tunnel that leads out of the city.

His armor flashes as he hastens ahead of me through the catacombs. I think I hear the voices of the dead.īe swift, be fleet, they seem to hiss. My eyes dart to the grinning skulls lining the walls. Behind me, the catacombs echo with angry shouts and the screech of metal.

A torch against the night