Reign of the Fallen (Reign of the Fallen #1)(90)

I’ll think of every lost life with every breath I take, always.

Yet as long as I’m alive, I have to keep going. One step after another through this tunnel until I’m back in Grenwyr City to rejoin the battle, a little more broken than before.

For Evander. For my friends and the Dead and the helpless. For me.

All I can do is keep fighting.

*

I fall out of the gate feet-first, toppling over onto cobblestones that are cold and slick with what I hope is rain.

I push myself up using my elbows and stagger to my feet, all the while straining my ears for any sign of the crowd from the hill. Or any of Grenwyr City’s citizens, for that matter. The scents of death surround me, but I don’t hear anything, not a whisper or a scream. I hold my bound hands out, trying to feel the walls of any buildings before I hit them, my stomach churning over the stench I can’t seem to escape no matter which way I turn.

I hurry down what must be an alleyway, a place where the air is cooler and, mercifully, cleaner. Maybe this is a safe spot to catch my breath. But the moment I forget to test the ground in front of me with my toes before taking a step, I trip over the still-warm body of someone large, likely a man, and crash down hard. He’s not breathing.

Gasping for breath, I crawl away. There’s no way I’m going to find my friends, or the frantic people of Grenwyr, if I can’t even walk a few paces without falling.

Still, I made a promise to myself in the Deadlands. I have to get up. I have to keep going.

A gust of warm, fishy breath stops me as I retrace my steps through the alley. I raise my hands to shield my face as a beast growls, and something furry wallops me right in the middle. It knocks me backward, but mercifully, not off my feet again.

“Good boy, Lysander!” Meredy calls. “Odessa, where in Vaia’s name have you been?”

I slump against the bear’s familiar bulk and laugh until my chest aches.

“We’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Meredy breathes, much closer now. “Oh, no. What’s wrong? Danial, get over here!”

A moment later, a slender hand—wearing several rings, by the feel of it—covers my sightless eyes. Danial, preparing to heal me.

“Your mother did this,” I murmur to Meredy.

“What?” There’s shock and desperation in her voice. I try to soften my approach, but the words still come out in a breathless rush.

“You know how she always resented Evander and me for becoming necromancers? Well, she’s one of Hadrien’s biggest supporters.” My voice burns with bitterness. “He ordered her to kill me, so she took my sight and left me bleeding in the Deadlands.”

There’s a long, heart-pounding silence, then: “I don’t want to believe it, but . . .” Meredy sighs. “I know you wouldn’t lie. And after everything I’ve seen in the past few days, not much could shock me. How’d you get out, blind and bound like this?”

I smile at the memory. “Your Firiel. She and some other spirits helped me to a gate.”

Meredy clasps my hands in hers. “I’m sorry,” she says fiercely. “I’m so, so sorry.”

I squeeze her hands, wanting to repay her for all the times she’s steadied me.

“She’s not my mother now,” Meredy adds, her whisper turning harsh. “She’s nothing to me. But Firiel, she—helped you?”

I nod, and Meredy makes a noise between a laugh and a sigh. “She was always so kind. I’m glad to hear death hasn’t changed her.”

Sudden warmth pricks my eyelids. As Danial draws his hand back from my face, his light hazel eyes fill my view. I grin, leaning in to kiss his pale cheeks one after the other, and spot Meredy beside him.

Her blouse and deerskin trousers are torn in a few places, and there’s blood on one of her sleeves, but it doesn’t appear to be hers. Danial’s sturdy white healer’s uniform is torn, too, his kohl eyeliner smudged, and his scraped knee is crusted with bits of dirt and grass.

“You should probably heal yourself,” I whisper to him as we pull apart.

“If only that would work.” Danial grins, his hands shaking slightly. “Welcome back, Sparrow.”

“Where’s—?” I start to ask, but Meredy interrupts.

“Valoria’s out of the dungeon and still in one piece,” she says quickly, anticipating my question. “One of Hadrien’s guards tried to kill me on the way there, but after I stabbed him . . .” She lets the words hang in the air, grinning wearily, and perhaps a little proudly. “He told me where the princess was. And that’s where I found Danial, protecting our Valoria from the unruliest prisoners.”

“We were in the middle of lunch when Hadrien ordered the guards to seize her,” Danial explains, his eyes glinting with a fierceness I’ve never seen in him. “Apparently protesting a wrongful imprisonment earns you a spot in the dungeons these days. That, or they didn’t appreciate me trying to stab them with my steak knife while they were leading Valoria away.”

I gaze past Meredy to the mouth of the alley, where muted gray afternoon light covers the city, half expecting to see Valoria dashing toward us. There are far fewer bodies on the ground than I imagined, and the sight of the calm street gives me hope. “Where’s the princess now?”

Meredy exchanges a glance with Lysander, who delicately pokes a claw into the shackles around my wrists. As they spring open, she gives a fleeting smile. “Last we saw Valoria,” she says, somber once again, “she was heading for the harbor. She heard a rumor that Jax and Simeon were drowned there.”