David Dalglish - A Dance of Shadows

But escape was not the only thing on her mind.

“Where is Daverik?” she asked. “Is he in his room?”

The old man shook his head.

“I passed him on my way down. He said he felt unwell, and needed fresh air. He was hiding something, I could sense it. Looked troubled. Did you say something to him, little doll? Did you make him doubt himself?”

She tried to cut across both his eyes, but her dagger caught on the bridge of his nose so only one was split in half. When she pulled it free, Vrashka screamed, and her hand did little to muffle the noise. Knowing time was short, Zusa hoped that the scream, if heard, would be mistaken for hers instead of his. Blood was pouring from his face now, and Vrashka’s strength drained with it. Despite all the pain he must have felt, he bore a smile on his face.

“You… you make me sad,” he said when she flung him to the floor. “You could have withstood so much. Breaking you would have been my greatest accomplishment. Even the gentle touchers would have been proud.”

He stared up at her with his lone eye, and she could tell he expected her to take his life. She almost obliged, but something about the sick satisfaction on his face turned her stomach. It was as if he viewed dying to her as a privilege.

“You’d never have broken me,” she said, grabbing the handle of her cell door. “But I broke you in seconds.”

“You’ll be back,” Vrashka said, laughing as she left. “You’ll still be mine, little…”

She flung a dagger through the air, straight through his remaining eye. Walking over to it, she yanked it out and shook off the eyeball.

“Stupid bastard,” she said. “You could have lived.”

Taking a deep breath, she ran out of the cell, hooked a right, and then charged straight down the corridor. There were only four cells, with each door on her right. From what she could tell, she’d been put in the farthest from the stairs. At the far edge of the stone corridor was the exit Vrashka had spoken of. Five men stood guard, each with a lion painted across the front of his armor. They wielded a combination of short spears and swords, and four scrambled at the sight of her to form a defensive line. The fifth rushed up the stairs, no doubt to signal an alarm. Zusa sprinted faster, her breaths blasting in and out of her lungs.

“Halt!” one screamed.

Laughing at his cluelessness, she launched into the air, her body twisting like a dancer’s. Spears and swords pierced the gaps between her arms and legs, catching nothing. Zusa shoved one dagger through a neck, and the other she rammed into the stomach of the man she crashed into. Together they fell, a heap of arms and legs. She rolled free in a heartbeat, spinning so the nearest guard’s downward stab hit stone instead of flesh. Her heel caught his jaw, her left arm parried a desperate thrust, and then she was running up the stairs after the fifth, leaving the confused rest behind.

He in his heavy armor, she in her wrappings, there was no chance, not for him. Her daggers pierced his back before he could open the thick door at the top. Pushing the body behind her, she let it roll and tumble as an obstacle to the others chasing after. The door was not locked, and she flew through it. Beside the door was a heavy bar, and she wedged it into the nailed handles on either side of the entrance. The dungeon sealed, she had time now, perhaps enough to escape.

For a moment she forced her exhausted mind to think of the layout, to piece together where she was. The dungeon was located near the back of the temple. She stood in a short hallway, one way leading toward storage for various supplies and dried foods. The other went toward the barracks. Fists pounded on the opposite side of the door behind her, but she laughed at their helplessness. The temple was dark, quiet. Getting in might have proved difficult, especially with a trap laid for her. But getting out?

She ran, nothing but a shadow. She slipped through the barracks, with only a single young priest walking the halls. He never saw her coming. Her dagger cut his throat, and her hand muffled his dying gasp. On she ran until she reached the grand worship hall. Peeking out from a door, she saw three men kneeling in prayer at the statue of Karak, his enormous presence bathed in purple fire. Zusa thought to kill them, but escape was her priority now, not vengeance. Crawling along the floor, she slipped through the pews, careful to make not a sound.

Two guards watched the door, spears in hand. When she reached the final pew, she sprinted out, deriving sick pleasure at the stunned look on the guards’ faces at her sudden appearance. In such close quarters, the spears were useless against her daggers. She cut them down, kicked open the door, and then rolled to avoid the bolts of shadow that leaped from the hands of the three priests who had been at prayer.

Now that she was in open air, nothing would stop her. She ran across the courtyard, vaulted over the gates, and then left the temple far behind.

Zusa wanted to return to Alyssa, ached to be in a place she could call home, but did not. Vrashka had said Daverik felt unwell, and sought fresh air. Zusa knew there was more to it than that. With her balance teetering, she ran, weaving from side to side through the street as if she were intoxicated. Her stomach ached, her tongue thirsted for water, but on she went, until at last she reached the secluded gap by the wall where they’d first met.

Just as she thought, Daverik was there, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Instead of his robes, he wore the plain clothes he’d had on when first meeting her.

“I hope you didn’t kill too many,” he said, smiling at her arrival.

“Why?” she asked. “Why tell me how to escape?”

Daverik shook his head.

“It saddens me you have to ask. Do you think I lie to you, Zusa? That my feelings are false? I traveled across the entire continent to see you once again. I have slept with nightmares of our last moments together for ten long years. To see you beaten, humiliated, tortured into submission…” He sighed. “You know I can’t do that. No matter the blasphemy you might speak. No matter how hardened your heart is against me. And you were right, Zusa. Even if you came back, they’d kill you. I can’t accept that. I won’t. They’re wrong about that, wrong about you, and I will stop them.”

Zusa bit back her retort, unwilling to spit in the face of the man who had helped her escape.

“What is going on?” she asked. “What role does the temple play in all this?”

“The temple has nothing to do with this, Zusa. To be honest, most of the priests here in Veldaren turn my stomach.”

“Then who?” she asked. “Who is behind all this?”

Daverik uncrossed his arms, and he looked to the sky so he might stare at the stars when he spoke.

“I agreed to come here as a favor to an old friend, someone who’d been in a similar situation to my own when I was banished from Veldaren for our indiscretions. He has a contact here, a young man named Laerek who came with me from Mordeina. He was to meet with me tonight, very soon, but I’m tempted not to go. This role as taskmaster over the faceless is not one I cherish.”

Zusa clutched her daggers tight, and had to fight back her excitement at finally having a name, a person to hunt.

“Tell me where he is,” she said.

Daverik shook his head. “Not yet, Zusa. Things are not quite that simple. You have a choice to make first, and it is one I fear you won’t be willing to make.”

Something about the sudden shift in his tone made her throat clench.

“What do you mean?”

“It’s simple,” he said, pulling his gaze back down from the stars to her. “If you come with me, we can flee the city tonight, hide where not even the temple can find us. I’ll leave all gods and kings behind. No one will know, no one will have reason to think you didn’t vanish into hiding back at Alyssa’s.”