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Gripping the rope around Ingram’s neck tighter in vexation, she glared at the back of the womanfor a moment before admitting,There’s nothing I can do to change it.Only one person dying tonight was better than dozens. Besides, there was no time to lose focus.

“The door at the end leads to outside,” Emerie stated. “It’s locked. He’ll have to break it down.”

“You heard her, Ingram.”

With a snorting huff and a nod of his head, his pace quickened until he was swiftly gaining on the woman who had been dictating their pace.

The gasp that tore out of Emerie was so sharp and loud, it punched her lungs on its way out. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her skull when the Duskwalker sprinted through the woman!

She looked back to find her following them closely.She turned into a Ghost!Her entire body had turned colourless and transparent.

Then, before her very eyes, she turned corporeal. Brown skin formed from the tips of her toes and fingers, before quickly spreading up her limbs. Her hair, which had been white, nearly transparent, and floating, slowly dropped around her face and shoulders.

She couldn’t have been a Ghost for longer than a second, but Emerie knew what she’d seen. Knew it wasn’t a trick of the light or her mind.

Emerie’s gaze connected with the woman, who had a stern expression.

Too busy gaping behind her, she almost missed something critical. She only had enough time to lay flat against Ingram’s back after he roared, and he shoulder barged his way through the thick timber door. It broke in half and flung off its hinges, destroyed like it was nothing but paper.

It would have taken at least ten humans with a ram to knock it down over the course of minutes.

Wood splinters flew in all directions, forcing her eyelids shut when they rained over her face. She knew a few would be caught in her long, wavy hair as it fluttered wildly behind her.

She pulled back on the rope around Ingram’s neck while also yanking it to the right. “Watch out!”

He skidded across the ground as he tried to halt before jumping against the mountain wall directly in front of them. He darted to the right, but immediately paused when two rows of Demonslayers stood at the ready with spears.

“Shit,” Emerie muttered under her breath. “They beat us here.”

Then again, the route she’d taken them wasn’t as direct as going through the front doors.

At the back of the two rows of Demonslayers was Wren.

Her glare was as sharp and steely as a sword, and her uncovered face revealed just how pissed off she was. Their leader obviously expected Emerie to give up on Ingram and become used to it, and this turn of events was not something she foresaw.

There was betrayal in her eyes, and regret.

“I’ll take care of them,” the woman shouted as she sprinted forwards. “Get him out of here before he succumbs to bloodlust.”

The woman – who she still didn’t know the name of, or why she was here – leapt. Her cloak fluttered, seeming to make her glide through the air. Then she spun, knocking into spears with her feet to shove them away, as she landed in the middle of the soldiers.

Two barely had a chance to react before she’d slit their throats.

Emerie unthreaded her bow from around her torso, obtained an arrow from her quill, then held onto Ingram’s neck reins. She kicked her heels into his side for some stupid reason, treating him like a horse.

“Go, Ingram! Go!”

The door was just past these soldiers. They just needed to get to it.

He, on the other hand, had a different idea.

He turned to the left and made Emerie scream as he jumped and vaulted off the fortress stone gate, so he could reach a jutting ledge in the keep. She nocked her arrow on her string, pulled back, and unleashed it at a bowman aiming at them from below.

She quickly nocked a second, releasing it and grabbing another. There was no time to be hesitant about killing her fellow guildmembers, no space within her racing heart to feel guilt. She couldn’t; they were too close to freeing Ingram.

The woman had most of the attention of the foot soldiers, besides the odd few that tried to toss their spears at Ingram as he scaled the side wall. He was finding his own way out, and she wondered if he had chosen this path because it had the least potential of death on his hands.

Why did the idea of him keeping his promise to this degree touch her so deeply?