Page 3 of Brimstone

I glared at him flatly. “Speak. Quickly.”

He shook his head. “We need . . . a window.”

When sunlight could kill, a window could be a death sentence; they weren’t so easy to come across. We found one on the next floor up, just a foot wide and a foot tall, the glass smoked to keep out some of the sun’s rays.

The view it afforded could easily have been too narrow to display the source of Swift’s anxiety, but mercifully that wasn’t the case. I scanned the narrow field of the horizon, searching thescorched land that stretched out between Ammontraíeth and the river, not finding—

Oh,gods.

“I thought it was a patch of snow at first,” Swift said.

My heart stalled.

“Then I saw that it was moving. Running. Fast,” Carrion panted.

I took off at a dead sprint, hurtling past Carrion, flying down the stairs. The smuggler followed suit. “I found you as fast as I could! I didn’t know if—I should tell her, or—”

“Just shut up and run!”

“What—what are you doing?” he panted.

“What do youthinkI’m doing?” I snarled. “I’m saving the fucking fox!”

I’d left him in Cahlish.

Not in Irrín.

In Cahlish.On the other side of the mountain.

The Omnamerrin mountain range was one of the most treacherous, lethal ranges in all Yvelia. Its slopes were steep and nigh impossible to climb for a member of the Fae. I only knew of a handful of warriors who’d scaled its jagged peak and survived to tell the tale. Onyx had been born of snow and ice, but even he shouldn’t have survived the crossing. There would have been avalanches. They would have buried him, again and again and again. He would have had to dig his way out. He would have had no food. No shelter from the cutting wind.

He’d left the safety of Cahlish. Forher.

He’d climbed the mountain. Forher.

He’d snuck through Irrín and crossed the river. Forher.

And now he was being chased across the dead fields of Sanasroth by a horde of feeders. He must have been tired and ready to give up, but he was still coming. Forher.

AndIwas not about to let that little fox die.

I sprinted through the palace and down, through the Cogs—the multilevel settlement that had been built over the years around the palace’s perimeter. The cobbled streets were empty for now, but they wouldn’t be for long.

Bill.

I had to get toBill.

The horses despised Ammontraíeth. They couldn’t be kept in the stables. The high bloods kept their deadstock there, and a hungry feeder would pull a wall down with their bare hands to get to warm horse flesh. Bill, Aida, and two other bay mares had been stabled in an outbuilding five hundred feet away from the main yard, just beyond the high wall that enclosed the lowest level of the Cogs. I damn near ripped the outhouse’s metal door from its hinges to get to my mount.

I didn’t bother with bit or bridle. I vaulted onto Bill’s bare back and kicked him out of his stall. My faithful friend didn’t need telling twice. Carrion hadn’t even made it across the courtyard by the time we came charging through the open doors.

“Get back inside!” I roared.

“No!”

“Gods and fucking sinners.” I cursed at him in Old Fae as I galloped past him, reaching down with my right arm. The idiot clasped hold of my forearm and jumped, vaulting up onto Bill’s back behind me.

“Aren’t you going to ask where I learned how to do that?” the smuggler yelled.