CHAPTER 27

Cillumn stilled at the sound, his head whipped toward it. Some of the anger fled from his expression. His lips pursed and a crinkle formed between his eyebrows. Any other moment, the surge of attraction Lis felt just then might have concerned her. She wanted this man, despite all reason telling her why she shouldn't.

The new development seemed to set off a decision for him. He nodded once, and then, like Scet, began creeping along the cavern walls, gesturing for Lis to follow. Lis didn't know whether to feel relieved or terrified. There was a part of her, one that she was not very proud of, that told her if Cillumn forced her physically from the situation, then its failure would not be her fault. That part of her was a coward. She stomped it down ruthlessly and took to the cavern wall, careful not to lose her footing among the weird undulations there.

Her mind kept trying to pull her thoughts toward the Master, the mangled dragon that she was moving toward instead of away from. Her heart beat increased to a rapid flutter.

Hold it together. For Adda.

It was all a matter of focus. She diverted her thoughts, working them toward the structure of the cavern. Why was it lit? The Quatori that did not inhabit a body couldn't enter such light—and there was plenty of it, too, which basically split their forces.

Unless that was the point, to keep the more primitive Quatori out.

Cillumn dodged between fat wooden supports, the ones used to hold up the various walkways. The shadows behind them allowed them to slip, unseen, toward the area where the structures...and the possessed...concentrated.

Lis thought she would see the form of a dragon among the others, but there was nothing but long jagged lines of mutilated men and women. Their ability to remain scentless, or leave no trail, was somehow lost within the confines of stone, so that the smell of rotting flesh became nearly overwhelming. Her stomach rioted, and it took great effort to keep it under control. Vomiting beneath the pillars would most definitely draw unwanted attention.

In front of them, facing them, stood a man. Or what once was a man; his skin had been torn, like the others. Lis noticed tattered wings stretching from his shoulder blades and his eye sockets seemed to scan his surroundings, his gathering. A nightmare of a sight.

“They were supposed to be distracting him, what is he doing down here?” Cillumn cursed softly.

Lis flinched at the sound after so long of maintaining silence, but there was nothing close enough to hear the whisper.

“He is the Master?” Lis ventured. Cillumn nodded, but he did not take his eyes from the man, who began to pace the ranks. He raised a fist, and she caught a glimmer from within it. The glyph? It was a triumphant gesture, like the general of an army announcing victory, and the ranks rose a howl in response. An eerie devastating sound. An evil sound.

“Bring them,” the Master commanded.

Lis stood behind her pillar, daring not to move. Somehow, they had happened upon some sort of plot. She felt like a small child creeping into an Alpha's counsel. The lines of mutilated men and women moved, creating a channel between them. From deeper within the cavern, around an outcropping she couldn't see past, eight bodies were led along. They were thin bodies, naked and starved looking. Bruises marred most of them, but there were none of the telltale lacerations of a possession, but one in particular caught her attention.

Cillumn sucked in a sharp breath. “You didn't tell me that you were twins.”

Lis shrugged, ignoring him. It was hardly important, Adda was down there, right there. She knew it, she knew her sister was alive. But whatever this ceremony was, it couldn't be good. Lis could read nothing through the link, only a deep certainty of doom.

“It's like watching you down there.”

Lis grunted, now was not the time. The Quatori might be distracted, but she needed to stop whatever was about to happen. But how? Her smoke poison didn't work. She couldn't have used it even if it had, not without killing Adda, as well. But it made her rethink the use of the other poison she had created; obviously testing was necessary, and not in the heat of battle.

Lis groaned inwardly, leaning a hand against the rough edge of the pillar. Battle, there were at least one hundred of those Shifters at the cavern's center, plus the master, himself. Too many, even if they were all legendary warriors that her people told stories about. Great eagles and bears, panthers and snakes, with even greater powers. Even then, they would fail at this mission, and Lis was most definitely not a legendary warrior.

The prisoners had reached the front of the ranks now and they were forced to kneel, in the semblance of a neat line, before the master.

Lis ran a hand over her face in frustration. There was no time.

And then she looked at it. Something sticky had come away from the wood and remained on her fingers. She pinched them together and then stiffed at it. Resin.

“I have an idea,” she announced before she could think better of it. She shrugged off her satchel taking stalk of the cavern once more, this time focusing on the wooden supports, calculating their thickness.

She found the bottle she sought, a large jar with a single leather strap around it.

“I am not a fighter, but I believe I can cause parts of this cavern to collapse. If I do this...can you save her?”

Lis realized, just then, exactly what she was asking of him. They were in the bowels of Quatori territory, a place where she had charged thoughtlessly and he followed, but there was still a chance of escape with their lives. They might sneak out the exact way they had come in. Even overwhelmed at the entrance—if that was what were to happen—he could become a dragon and fly away. But that is not what Lis asked. Instead, Lis asked that he dive into a swarm of the enemy, to face a number far greater than their own, and one, the Master, that had not been defeated even by an entire Aerie worth of Dragon Lords. It was almost certain death. All for a woman, a Shifter rogue, that he had known less than a week.

“That is the glyph he possesses,” Lis added, hoping to entice him with something other than her own selfish wants.

“I didn't come for the glyph, Lis,” Cillumn met her eyes meaningfully. “I would do as you ask even if it were not present. But I can also see that whatever it is that happens, it is not good for our people...or the world in general. I was given the opportunity to act, and it is my duty to do so.” He studied the gathering once more. “How long will you be? And how will I know when it is time?”

Lis swallowed something that had risen in her throat. A yearning, something not yet explored, that she was at risk of losing. It stopped her from replying for a long moment. She cared for this man. Not just attraction, not for what he could do for her, but because of who he was. He was good, he was honorable, and he believed in her.

“It will take me five minutes, if I can maneuver to where I need without being spotted. You will know when to act.”

***

Cillumn worked his way across the chamber, keeping a wary eye on the master and the proceedings of whatever he was doing. The creatures were concentrated near the back, where the master stood, like a general before his army.

The line of men and women that had been brought out were forced to kneel. The auburn hair of Lis' sister on the farther end of the line. The fact should have relieved him, but he found himself rooted in the same dread he had felt when he had discovered Lis had gone down into the pit.

And now he was leaving her defenseless, in order to stop whatever evil was about to happen. And there was no doubt what was about to happen was evil. So many Quatori lined the chamber he could feel evil in the very air.

Instincts warred with one another. His dragon railed against him for leaving Lis in the midst of enemies. That, too, was a battle he fought as he edged closer. It took a great deal of inner strength to control the dragon and keep it from bursting forth. And it was distracting. He wasn't used to being so at odds with the beast.

But fight it, he did. And he edged closer and closer to the line of victims, ready to act on the signal Lis promised.

There was no announcement when the preceding began. Grim simply moved forward toward the first of the victims, placing the glyph on the man's forehead. He was a black-skinned man, in the prime of his life. A Shifter, Cillumn assumed, and a warrior, too, though his time in the cavern had reduced his muscles and left him too gaunt. What bothered Cillumn the most, however, was the lack of emotion, any emotion, on the man's face. He had already accepted his fate, perhaps long ago, and there was no more fight in him. Not even for his life.

“Nex refused this one. Kill him.”

The master's speech startled Cillumn. It was the second time he spoke, but it was still odd to think the creatures, even one such as Grim, capable of anything but the terrible animalistic cries they usually made.

But it was the words that stilled his thoughts. Nex refuses this one. Something about them seemed familiar. Hadn't he known there would be some form of choosing?

The information slid into place as the first victim was dragged back into the ranks, still blank and emotionless.

He had been warned of this. In the letter he had found outside of the bathhouse. Only he hadn't understood it then. He still didn't understand what was going on, but somebody in the Aerie did.

Someone with connections to his past.

***

No more time for moping. It was time for action. What Lis planned would draw the room's focus to her, there would be no question of her intent once she began. The master was already at the first prisoner, not Adda thank the six. He held the glyph to the poor man's forehead.

“Nex refuses this one, kill him.”

Crap. She couldn't afford to watch the proceedings farther. Adda was in the center of the group somewhere and Lis just prayed her sister had enough time. She had to get to work. The seal on the jar was loose, more of a barrier to prevent the liquid's escape than to keep the vessel air tight like the corks on the poison. Lis dipped her hand in, scooping some of the oil inside and ran her fingers in a circle around one of the wooden supports. When she finished that, she moved to the next one, three supports down and one over; not every beam needed to be disabled and it would save Lis time if she calculated a pattern that would still allow a collapse. Four more pillars led her to the edge of the latticework; now was the difficult bit. The next five, the most important of the beams, were out in the open and spread along this section of the cavern.

She picked the nearest one first, there were no enemies around it. Despite every Quatori she had witnessed within the cabin being blinded, she felt exposed as she crept away from the shelter and shadows beneath the walkways. She knew that some of the cavern's Quatori patrolled along them, for some purpose, and she couldn't help but feel that they would spot her creeping along the cavern floor. She half walked, half crawled, keeping as much of herself in the deeper parts of the shadow as possible. She made it, unaccosted, and wasted no time spreading more of the fluid. Four more, and then she would work her way back.

The next two went in a similar manner, Lis had chosen them for the load that they supported, but also for their isolation from the group. The last two, however, were within the crowd of bodies, and that she hadn't quite figured out yet.

She pressed herself against her current pillar, edging her head to the side. Fortunately, her next target was toward the back of the ranks, and not in the more crowded center. Lis raised her dart launcher. Four darts left, and six enemies; six, if none of the others noticed the disturbance.

She lowered her arm again. It was impossible. She was a great shot, but even she couldn't strike two possessed Shifters with one dart.

The Master had advanced another two victims, the bodies of those before dead upon the ground where they had knelt. A useless, arbitrary death, not a death in battle, not fighting for something they loved, not even to sate the hunger of animal like enemies. Two more and he reaches Adda. Lis would die before she came all this way to watch her slaughtered like that, though it was amazing that she had lasted this long. They must have been waiting for that glyph. Maybe she wasn't supposed to leave it behind. Maybe she had an idea of Bakkus's treachery before even Lis did. Either way, it had kept her alive, until now, but only if Lis hurried.

She studied the pillar once more, mentally going through a list of what she had left in her satchel. There was the poison she had made for the Archon, but she was unwilling to count on something that hadn't been tested...again. The problem was that, once she started shooting, she would have to clear all the creatures in the area before they drew attention and attracted more.

Or, maybe not. Maybe drawing attention could work for her, if she could get it drawn toward the crowd and away from the pillar. Hastily, she picked out her target, one of the larger Shifters standing incredibly still within the group a few rows ahead. Far enough back that her own little group of Shifters should notice when he went down, but far enough ahead that they would have to move forward to investigate. Lis did not hesitate to consider the validity of her plan, or any of the myriad of possible outcomes, there was not time for such things. Instead, she simply shot.

The big Shifter dropped nearly immediately, but, as with the others, he did not die so much as roll around on the cavern floor moaning in agony. As planned, those around him soon noticed the disturbance and oozed toward his position, including those around the pillar she sought. All except two. She shot those, as well, urging them, in her mind, to make less noise than their counterpart acting as her distraction.

She dared not wait for them to be noticed, as well. She dashed in, reminding herself that not being heard was the essential task. The experience was unnerving, none the less; had any of the creatures looked left, she would have been an obvious target, stealing across the cavern right before them.

She reached the pillar and spread her oil without looking up and then paused to gauge the very last. Lis blinked. It was abandoned. That was lucky for her, perhaps, but where had all the enemy gone? The last thing she needed was to come across them somewhere that she hadn't expected, for example, her back.

She checked, but they weren't there, either. In fact, several of the surrounding Shifters had left, as well. She was not at a vantage to see past the rows of those that remained. Instead, she took advantage of her good fortune, praying that perhaps Illaise, or maybe Scet had noticed her dilemma and taken the situation in hand. If not, then she was certainly walking to her doom.

Lis made it to the last of the pillars, smearing the oil carefully in a band; for what she planned, the beams would have to be weakened significantly. Nervous as she was, if she miscalculated, all of this would be for naught and they would all be dead.

The Master approached Adda now. Lis could not see her from behind the Shifters, but she could feel her fear, the certainty of death thrumming through her veins, her heart pounding so loud that it blocked out every other aspect of the cavern. She didn't even remember that Lis was there.

But that was about to change.