The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(31)

“Nakhgor,” Irina shouted as the cobblestones shook violently.

Lorelai and her brother reached the catwalk that led to the harness maker’s workshop as long jagged cracks split the cobblestones beneath them.

Sprinting across the catwalk, Lorelai scrambled up the harness maker’s roof and half slid down to the other side, Leo right at her heels.

“Kaz`prin.” Irina’s voice filled the air. The cobblestones cracked and crumbled as her spell gained strength. “Bring them to me to face their punishment.”

Lorelai was halfway across the catwalk that led from the harness maker’s to the weaponsmith’s when a score of thick black vines exploded out of the ground.




TWELVE


LORELAI FROZE ON the catwalk, Leo right behind her, as the thick black vines of Irina’s spell burst out of the cracks in the cobblestones, rushed toward the buildings, and plunged through windows and doorways, leaving shattered splinters of wood and glass on the ground. The shops shook, joints creaking, as the vines surged forward, scouring the insides for anyone foolish enough to be hiding from the queen.

The catwalk shook as well. Lorelai braced herself and looked back to meet Leo’s gaze.

They weren’t going to make it to the apothecary’s. They weren’t going to get help for Gabril. She absorbed the blow and swallowed against the grief that thickened her throat.

She couldn’t save Gabril, but she could still save Leo.

Her voice nothing more than a breath on the wind, she said, “Stay with me, Leo. Don’t fall behind, don’t veer off course, and don’t look back. Just stay with me, and I’ll protect you.”

His voice shook at the edges. “We’ll protect each other.”

More vines exploded out of the ground, but instead of rushing toward the buildings, these vines shot straight up until they were nearly eye level with Lorelai. The band of fear around Lorelai’s chest felt like it might crush her as the vines hung in midair like muscled snakes with serrated leaves. Slowly, they turned, the bulbous end of each vine lifting slightly as if testing the wind, searching for its prey.

Lorelai took a frantic gulp of air, her gaze glued to the vines, her body trembling. These weren’t the snakes from her nightmares. These weren’t the things that had killed her father, and yet the screams she heard in her dreams seemed to echo inside her head as she watched the vines twist in the air.

Leo wrapped his hand around hers, his grip steady. He nodded at the path in front of her, and she slowly nodded back, pretending she didn’t hear screams inside her head. Pretending she could breathe past the panic.

Lorelai took a single step forward and then froze as the vines closest to the catwalk swung toward her and cocked their heads. Like they could hear her. Like they were waiting for another sound to give them her exact location.

The band of panic around Lorelai’s chest felt like it was crushing her, and her hands were burning with magic she didn’t dare let loose. She reached for Gabril’s voice, for the instructions he’d mercilessly drilled into her over the past nine years.

Don’t get caught.

The band loosened a little as she focused on the goal.

Be unexpected.

Irina thought she was hunting a few rebellious villagers. She had no idea what Lorelai and Leo, even without magic, were capable of doing.

Use your surroundings.

Rooftops. Catwalks. Chimneys. Pipes.

Vines.

Lorelai catalogued the options without taking her eyes from the snakelike things that were still facing her, waiting for one wrong move.

Fear still clutched at her, but Gabril’s voice had broken through the worst of it.

Lorelai looked at her brother, who was staring at the vines with fierce determination on his face, and added one more instruction to Gabril’s list.

Save Leo.

Slowly, hardly daring to breathe, Lorelai met Leo’s gaze and then looked pointedly at the solid square chimney on the weaponsmith’s roof. If they could sprint to the chimney and hide behind it as the vines struck, they’d have a few seconds to get to their next hiding spot before the vines could strike again.

She hoped.

Leo nodded. Lorelai tensed, practiced the run in her mind once—leap from the catwalk there, plant her foot there, avoid that loose shingle there—and then she sucked in a deep breath and ran.

The catwalk screeched in protest as Lorelai sprinted, Leo right at her heels.

The vines whipped toward the pair and struck, slamming into the iron catwalk, wrapping around it, and tearing it from its moorings with a deafening shriek of metal being ripped asunder.

As the catwalk disappeared beneath their feet, they lunged for the weaponsmith’s roof. The second her feet touched the shingles, Lorelai raced forward, her boots flying over the rooftop, her eyes on the chimney. Behind her, Leo took a running leap and was knocked to his stomach by the vicious swipe of a vine.

“Roll!” Lorelai yelled as she slammed into the chimney, grabbed it for balance, and then watched, her heart pounding in terror, as Leo heaved himself to the side seconds before a trio of black vines burst through the roof right where he’d been lying.

“Get up!” She ducked, and a vine smashed into the chimney where she’d been standing, scattering shards of brick. The vine wrapped itself around the chimney, its bulbous head whipping from side to side as if looking for her before snapping its black jaws around the hem of her coat. She shrugged out of the garment and leaped to the side as another vine burst out of the workshop below her and began slithering over the roof. A quick glance at the path between the chimney and the next catwalk made her stomach sink.