Alex Lidell - The Cadet of Tildor

Savoy swallowed. “Rip your pants for face masks and wet them in the drinking pail,” he repeated, this time to a silent audience. “You will climb out after I remove the barbed wire.” Taking the referee’s rope to attach to the top of the cage, Savoy began to climb.

Renee’s troops made headway against the flames. A wide, wood-free wedge of cleared floor reached halfway toward the exit. Cory and his bucket brigade reached them from the other side. Faces she recognized from Atham’s guard had joined the cause, dispatching the remaining flames and directing the surviving spectators toward the narrow exits. News of the fire had spread faster than she’d expected. Renee blinked. How much time had passed? She didn’t know. Bodies lay sprawled, some charred beyond recognition, others crushed by the crowds or collapsed ceiling beams.

“Who started the bloody fire?” said a familiar voice.

She turned, regarded Savoy for a breath, and threw her arms around him. “Your uncle,” she said into his shoulder.

“I don’t hug,” said Savoy.

“Idiot.”

He chuckled and pushed her away. “What uncle?”

Cory cleared his throat. “If you permit a wee interruption, rumor seems to have assigned us a bit of a rescue mission. An irrelevant matter of child hostages.”

Savoy squeezed Renee’s shoulder and moved away, his back relaxing into a commanding presence no less steady for lack of uniform or lost weight. He accepted a flask of water from the sergeant and drained it.

Renee’s fingers brushed her sword hilt. The coming hostage rescue rested on the quality of her information, the accuracy of her maps. “I can guide us through the tunnels, sir.”

Savoy’s jaw tensed and he looked from her to his sergeant.

Cory shot Renee an apologetic glance but spoke to Savoy. “I have Renee’s maps memorized, sir. The Crown’s forces are already securing the perimeter and the arena.”

“Very good.” Savoy spared Renee a glance. “Continue clearing everyone out until relief arrives.” Without waiting for her reply, he called out something about an amulet to Den, and the three jogged up the smoldering rows, leaving her behind.

Renee stared after them, then kicked a charcoaled bit of wood against the remains of the column.

“You’re just as useless as I am.” Jasper laughed bitterly.

She turned to the corner where the boy mage still huddled, although not so cowed as before. His color returned as Savoy’s receding back disappeared from view.

She stilled her face. Jasper did not realize how wrong he was. He was the son of the Vipers’ Madam herself, a boy with insight into vital operations of a major crime group. His usefulness was beyond measure. To the Crown.

Renee tasted blood and realized she had bitten the inside of her cheek. She befriended Jasper to rescue a soldier the world had abandoned, not to turn Jasper prisoner for giving her his trust. Savoy was free. Mission accomplished. Yet her renewed pledge to King Lysian now made the boy her enemy.

Jasper rose to his feet, a sneer spreading over his sweaty, soot-covered face. He turned around to survey the arena. The side door through which he had entered once more had a clear path.

Renee blocked his way.

Cocking his hand, Jasper threw a palm full of ash into Renee’s eyes and dashed past her. Bastard. She cleared her face in time to see him disappear through the side door. Renee ran after him, following his receding footfalls into the blue-tinged darkness of the tunnel. The abrupt chill of the underground felt strange after the furnace of the arena.

Jasper headed north, where Renee had never been. She sprinted behind him, catching glimpses of his leg or arm turning one corner or another. Twice, only the sound of his feet pounding against the stone helped her keep the path. Her lungs stung.

Jasper’s tunic disappeared behind another turn. Renee ran to the corner and stopped. Her target was trapped between her and a locked door. She sent a prayer of thanks to the gods.

Drawing her sword, Renee stepped toward him. The charade of the last few weeks had come to a close. She served law and the Crown. He served a crime group that threatened Tildor’s rule. There was no compromise. Jasper was too valuable a hostage. “Commander Savoy and his team are storming these passages as we speak. They will free the weeds and all the other slaves you hold.”

The boy chuckled and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “The weeds will die like chickens freed from a henhouse. The slaves too. You’ll see.” Bits of blue flame crackled between his fingers. “If you touch me, I’ll make you scream just like that idiot Cat did.”

She halted her advance. “ ‘Cat’ is Commander Korish Savoy. You don’t wish to toy with him.”

“He’s a craven loon.”

“Your words or your mother’s?”

Jasper flinched. The blue fire around his hand flared in wild gasps. “You forget what a mage is, blinder. I can melt your eyes and watch them drip down your face.”

Renee tightened the grip on her sword. The sweet, smiling Jasper, who had offered friendship in exchange for words of kindness, was gone. A monster stood before her. Footsteps echoed in the tunnels behind them. She licked her lips. “Join me, Jasper. Come to Atham. I will speak on your behalf.”

He sneered. “Why would I trust you?”

The footsteps grew closer. “Have I not stood up for you? King Lysian’s little cousin cowers in these tunnels. Her name is Claire. Let us use her to guarantee your safety. Let us use her to stop the coming war.”

He hesitated, the flame calming to a simmer. “Stop a war?” He spoke the words as if trying them on for size.

“The Crown brings soldiers to wipe out this Viper nest. We can stop the fighting before it starts.”

He tilted his head.

Renee held her breath.

“Of all the brainless vermin lurking in the dark, why does your useless presence not surprise me?” A cool female voice spoke behind her. The Madam, now wearing a sword across her back, ignored Renee, directing her words at Jasper. The weapon’s hilt reflected bits of blue light that matched tiny glowing studs in her ears. “Bloody gods, boy, stop staring as if the door was a novelty and open the lock.”

Twisting to place the wall at her back, Renee moved her blade between the two adversaries now before her. The sent of tobacco drifting from the Madam filled Renee’s nose. Jasper shied toward the door and extended his hand. The pitiful mage flame flickered and died.

“Impotent idiot.” The Madam pulled an amulet from her pocket and strode forward.

Renee raised her blade, blocking the woman’s way. The world shrank to a hum. The Vipers’ Madam—the woman running a criminal enterprise so powerful, it threatened to throw Tildor into civil war—now stood within reach of Renee’s sword. “If you please, Madam.”

The woman turned to her with an expression one gave to a pigeon flapping its wings.

With speed that rivaled Savoy’s, the Madam drew her sword. Renee did not register the movement until the blade’s hilt whistled by her head. A dull pain exploded in her temple and the world turned dark.

“Renee.”

The coolness of stone seeped through the back of her shirt.

“Renee,” the voice repeated. “Renee!”

She dared a breath. A blaze of pain exploded behind her eyes.

“That’s good.” Alec spoke with a gentleness he usually reserved for hurt animals. “Take another.”

She obeyed while his fingers explored her scalp. Something soft and damp pressed against her temple. “How . . .” She strained to catch words and thoughts that kept slipping beyond her reach. Alec had bowed out, hadn’t he? “How are you here, Alec? You foreswore the Crown.”