Page 34

One of the monsters takes advantage of his distraction and dives straight toward us. Ballast leaps to his feet with a yell and hews the thing’s head off.

I yelp and jump back to avoid its vile blood.

The rest of the monsters stay away, though they seethe with anger in the tunnel, wings a whir of knotted shadows.

Ballast stands there, panting, sword once again loose in his hand. “I wasn’t brave enough,” he says quietly. “I wasn’t brave enough to kill him.”

“But you could have.”

His eyes go shiny in the light of the torch.

“You could have turned the lion on him, instead of—instead of—” I can’t finish. My mouth floods with the taste of bile.

There is such agony in his face that I want to take my words back, to tell him it’s all right, that I understand better than anyone the cruelty and control his father wields. But it isn’t all right. It doesn’t matter that I understand because it isn’t all right .

“You command one of the strongest magics I have ever seen,” I say, “half Iljaria or no. You could have used it to save yourself, your mother. To save us all. But instead you ran. Hid. Left us to our fate.”

Like you left all the others, whispers my own conscience. I tell it to shut the hell up.

In the passage, the monsters hiss and shriek, and Ballast shuts his eyes, lips moving soundlessly.

“What are you doing?” I demand.

“Calling Asvaldr,” he says.

The monsters attack, a whirl of claws and shadow.

Saga wakes with a cry, jerking upright in a tangle of blankets. She sits frozen as Ballast dispatches the monsters with brutal efficiency. Only one makes it past him and into the cave. I kill that one, with a feral shout and a thrust of my knife into its wretched belly.

Asvaldr takes care of the rest, galloping into the tunnel in a maelstrom of teeth and claws. Then all the monsters are dead, littering the floor of the passageway, their blood reeking, their red eyes sightless. Asvaldr lumbers away, unaffected by the carnage.

Ballast turns to face Saga and me, black blood dripping from the point of his sword.

For a moment Saga is perfectly still, but I tense, every nerve alight.

Then a keening, raging cry rips out of her and she hurls herself at Ballast, knocking him into the mess of slain monsters.

“Saga. Saga, stop .” I try to pull her off him, but she shoves me viciously away, tears pouring down her face as she wrenches the sword out of Ballast’s hand and puts it to his throat.

He doesn’t struggle, doesn’t move at all, just looks at her.

“Saga, please,” I beg. “He saved us from those monsters—twice. He healed you. Please let him go.”

But she presses the sword in harder under his jaw, and he winces as it cuts him, red leaking bright down his neck. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you right the hell now,” she snarls at him.

His throat bobs as he swallows, his face smeared with the monsters’ dark blood. There’s a helplessness in his eyes that makes my gut clench. “I can guide you through the labyrinth nearly all the way to Skaanda,” he says quietly. “I can guard you from the monsters.”

She swears at him and he flinches, bracing himself for her killing blow. But she doesn’t drive the sword home. She trembles with emotion, chest heaving. Her face hardens. “You will guide us through the tunnels, and then come to Staltoria City to face judgment for what you did to my kinsman.”

There is nothing in Ballast’s eyes now but despair. “I will not come with you to Staltoria City.”

“Then I’ll kill you now.”

He just watches her, a muscle jumping in his jaw.

“Saga—”

“Stay out of it, Brynja!”

I snap my mouth shut. My eyes flit to the passageway, and I wonder how long we have before more monsters come.

“Swear to me that you’ll lead us true,” Saga orders.

Ballast looks at her. “I swear on the Blue Lady I will not betray you. I swear on her name I’ll guide and guard you true.”

Her eyes go wet and she lowers the sword, letting it slide to the stone floor. I wonder if she’s thinking about Hilf. I wonder if he swore a similar oath when he became her bodyguard.

Ballast stands, slowly, the cut on his neck still leaking red. “We’d better go,” he says. “Before more of the cave demons come to avenge their brethren.”

Saga struggles to stand, swearing as she puts weight on her injured foot, and nearly topples over. I catch her before she can fall.

“I haven’t yet mastered the art of knitting bone back together,” says Ballast apologetically. “I did the best I could, but it’ll take a bit more healing.”

“I didn’t ask you to heal me!” she screams at him.

I’m left thinking how awful it is that Ballast’s magic is strong enough to heal, to preserve life, and yet his father forced him to use it to kill instead.

The distant shriek of monsters echoes down the passageway, and I shoulder my torn pack, hoping it will hold together, while Ballast shoves blankets into a pack he has waiting by the back wall, then shrugs into it.

He grabs the sword and the torch, and offers Saga a wooden staff that was leaning against the wall. She snatches it from him.

He looks like he wants to say something to her, but reconsiders.

Then he leads us out into the passage, stepping over the bodies of the monsters he slew, their blood still wet on his hands.

Saga follows, teeth gritted, staff clenched hard in one hand. I come on her heels, a riot of confused emotions.

Ballast is here.

But I have no more answers than I did before.