Nameless (Nameless #1)(32)
After an incalculable amount of time, the guard carrying Zo stopped and set her on the ground. When Zo found her feet she resisted the urge to force her knee into the man’s stomach and run. A cold knife slipped between her wrists, cutting the ropes with ease. “Take hold of the ladder and start climbing.”
Zo grasped the rung of a rope ladder. “What do you want from me?” Her throat was a desert and she didn’t trust her legs to stand without keeping a firm grip on the ladder.
“Climb.” The voice sounded younger than she expected.
Obeying, she reached blindly for the next rung and began the vertical climb. The ladder swayed and jerked as someone followed her. After several minutes of climbing, Zo had to stop and rest. How high was she? Her breath came hard as she hugged the ladder. The muscles in her forearms throbbed. Someone below tapped on her boot. “It’s not much farther.”
Zo nodded through her hood and reached for the next rung. Her boot missed its footing and her arms couldn’t support her weight. She screamed as she fell, knowing she’d already climbed too high to survive the impact.
The fall lasted both a lifetime and an instant. The person below caught her around her middle with one arm. The wind rushed from her lungs and she cried out in pain. The man growled with effort as he pulled her between himself and the ladder. “Quick, I’m going to lose you.”
Zo grasped the rungs, grateful for the support at her back. She felt herself crying, but didn’t have the breath to sustain the emotion, making her sound more like a barnyard animal than a girl who had just faced her own death.
“We need to get off this ladder. Climb with me.”
Together they worked their way up another dozen rungs before a pair of hands wrapped around her wrists and hauled her onto a platform. She clung to the man who held her, desperate not to accidently step off the ledge. Her stomach churned as vertigo set in. She felt like she was falling to one side even though her feet were planted on the floor.
“This way,” the man said.
The planks of the floor moaned beneath her clumsy feet. The sound increased as others behind her reached the platform and followed. A heavy wool curtain brushed her arm as she walked into a space where the sounds of the forest muted. A room? They pushed her to sit on a soft sort of pillow and pulled the hood from her head.
Zo squinted against the light of a single candle burning in the center of a room. The walls were a patchwork of dark wool that moved like water from the wind outside. A motley group of men and women sat in a circle surrounding her.
“Who are you? What do you want with me?” She could tell they weren’t Ram by their worn clothing and the dirt that lined the wrinkles of their skin. But they also didn’t carry the defeated expression of the Nameless.
A tall man with heavy arms clasped his hands together. He leaned forward. “I am called Stone.” He gestured around them. “Welcome to the Nameless Nest. It was built by my late friend, a Raven, whose death you witnessed in the last prizefight. Do you remember him?”
Zo swallowed down the bile rising in her throat as the gory images of the prizefight assaulted her thoughts. She nodded, her mouth dry. “I remember him.”
“We’ve been watching you, healer. We watch all the new Nameless when they enter the Gate. Even your little sister.”
Zo’s fingers curled into talons. “Don’t. Talk. About. My. Sister.” Adrenaline poured into every crevice of her being. She was tired of being bullied. No more! “Just tell me what you want.”
The man stared. Five seconds passed. Ten. “You’re different. It’s more than just your healer status. I can almost sense the fight in you. You are not really a Nameless, are you?”
The ragged men and women in the circle leaned forward to hear her answer.
“Why else would I come to the Gate?” Zo’s voice barely carried over a whisper.
Stone’s brow lifted, accentuating an uneven scar along one cheek. “There are rumors that the clans outside the Gate are working together.” The light of the candle danced across the planes of his wide face. He inched closer and dropped his voice. “You’re fresh from the outside, healer. Tell us what you know.”
“I don’t know anything beyond rumors.”
Zo wanted to tell them everything about the Alliance of the clans, of her work as a spy inside the Gate, but how could their knowing help her cause? All it would take was one Nameless to talk, and Zo and Tess were as good as dead.
The leader reached out and grabbed her arm. “Will the clans unite against the Ram?”
Zo yanked her arm away. “I don’t know.” The lie was a mountain crushing her chest. All these rebels wanted was a little hope. They defied the Ram enough to meet. Didn’t that qualify them for at least a portion of her confidence?
This is not my fight, she reminded herself.
The man’s lip curled in disgust. “I don’t believe you. And if you can’t provide us any information, we can’t afford to let you live.” At a wave of Stone’s hand, two men stepped forward and took Zo by the arms. “Throw her off.”
Zo bucked and pulled against the men, but they managed to drag her out of the wool tent. Outside, the night bent to early morning, giving just enough light to see the staggering distance between the platform and the ground below. “Please, don’t do this!” They brought her to the edge and Zo went wild, grasping at their arms and shirts, anything to keep her from being thrown over.