The Defiant (The Valiant #2)(29)

When I didn’t move, he huffed impatiently.

“What’s the matter with you?” he snapped. “Come on!”

I blinked at the sound of words spoken in my own language.

“Aeddan . . . ?”

He seemed to realize, then, that the helmet he wore obscured his features. Aeddan reached up and pulled off the headgear. Beneath it, he still wore his dark hair long, but his face was more angular than I remembered it.

“Do you want rescuing or not?” he asked.

For a moment, I didn’t think I’d heard him right. “I—what?”

“I’m rescuing you. What do you think I’m doing here?” He stepped over the threshold of the cell and took me by the wrist, but I shrugged angrily out of his grip.

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” I said. “You’ll only take me to him. To Aquila.”

“That was the furthest thing from my mind.”

“You work for him.”

“He thinks I do.”

“He trusts you.” I pointed to the key ring still clutched in his hand. “How else would you have known where to find me? How did you get those keys?”

“He trusts me because he assumes I bear a grudge against you,” Aeddan said, visibly struggling to curb his impatience. “I can’t think why—I mean, you only rejected me as unworthy of your hand, set me and my brother against each other, humiliated me in front of the entire Circus Maximus during the Triumphs . . .” He shook his head and looked for a moment as if he’d talked himself out of my rescue. “As for the keys, I found them in the desk in the Lanista’s scriptorium. I took them when Aquila was busy rifling through her documents.”

He held them up and I realized that they were, indeed, Sorcha’s ring of keys and not the ones belonging to Thalestris.

“What happened to my sister, Aeddan?” I asked. “Did you—”

“No!” Aeddan turned a withering stare on me. “No, Fallon. I’ve only killed my own sibling. But thank you for reminding me of just how much a monster you think me.”

“I—”

“We have to go.” He glanced down the corridor, then back at me. “Now.”

Still I hesitated.

“Do what you will,” he said, throwing up a hand in frustration. “But if you want out of here, I’m sorry to say that it’ll either be with me . . . or with Ixion. One of us will most definitely take you to Aquila. Eventually.”

That was all the motivation I needed.

I was still half-convinced Aeddan was lying. But I was also half-convinced that this was the moment Arviragus had prepared me for. My one chance for escape. I glanced back over my shoulder as I ducked out into the corridor, but the cell was empty. Of course it was.

He’s not there, Fallon, I thought. He was never there. Arviragus is dead.

I knew that. But it still felt as though I was leaving him behind. Again.

I tugged my cloak close about me to hold myself together—mind and body—and stumbled out of Tartarus behind Aeddan. Once out in the yard, he put an arm out to stop me while he checked around the corner.

“As for your question on how I found you,” Aeddan continued in a low murmur, “the Morrigan showed me the way.”

He nodded down at the tiny half-moon opening at the base of the stone wall we were pressed against. My cell window. I saw Fury, hunched there in the weeds, making short work of the unfortunate rodent she’d caught. When she saw us looking at her, she uttered a breathy little croak and flapped into a nearby tree.

“I’d almost given up on looking when that crow there came flapping through that grate,” he said. “It caught my attention, and that’s when I heard your curses coming from inside that building. I tried my luck with the key ring, and . . . Fallon?” He shook me by the shoulder. “Fallon—are you all right? It’s only a bird. I was joking about the Morrigan.”

“I know.” I knew he was joking. But Fury had saved me. The Morrigan had heard my prayers and given me this chance. Now it was up to me to make the most of it and prove her faith in me wasn’t misguided. “I know . . .”

Aeddan frowned at me in concern, then shook his head. “Come on.”

The air was cool and wet, and I could smell the tang of charred wood as we hurried past the blackened stumps of timber supports, the only thing left of the stables. The ludus chariot ponies were all picketed on a line out in the yard, and one lifted his head and whickered softly when he saw us. We froze at the noise, but other than the horses, the stable yard was deserted.

Aeddan grabbed me by the wrist then, dragging me stumbling after him. We made our way across the midden yard and down a servants’ corridor, toward the gate that led out to Lake Sabatinus. All the buildings were dark, including the barracks, off to our left. I pulled Aeddan to a stop and shrugged out of his grip again.

He glared at me, then glanced around to make sure we were still alone and unseen. “What?”

“I’m not leaving without the others.”

“Fallon—”

“I’m not leaving without the others.”

Aeddan knew me, well enough to know that arguing was of no earthly use. He would either have to help me help my comrades or sound the alarm and have me thrown back in Tartarus.