Ash

Her ears twitched. “I seem to have some connection to the earth that mimics Lark’s. I could feel you connect right then.”

I glanced at her. I’d forgotten she’d started to take on traits of Lark’s. Then again, it wasn’t like she used them often, only when absolutely necessary.

As we neared the top of the stairs, I crouched, then flattened myself on the steps, creeping forward in full body crawl. There were no voices above us, no sounds of subtle movement like the creak of leather or the slight jangle of metal on metal.

That didn’t mean no one was there waiting, and I was not so young and foolish to run into things. I motioned for Peta to go up ahead of me and she shifted down to her housecat form. Taking the stairs two and three at a time, she raced up the last few steps and peered out around the edge. She ducked back fast and shook her head. Hurrying to my side, she put her mouth right to my ear, her whiskers tickling my face. “Two Enders outside of the Traveling room. Hopefully no one on the other side as the door is shut tight.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, thinking. The minute they saw me, they’d raise the alarm and the rest of the Enders and whatever Rim guards were with them would be on us in the matter of a minute, if they were waiting on the top level of the barracks as Blossom had said.

I crept the rest of the way up the stairs, and then slid to the side, putting the wall to my back. I stood and did a quick check around the corner, so fast they didn’t even notice me. Jace and Chive. Two of the youngest Enders. They had been in training before I’d left to find Lark, not yet raised to the position. Damn it.

I wasn’t worried because I couldn’t take them.

I was worried because neither of them would give up. They would fight until the bitter end if for nothing else but to prove themselves. Both of them were hard-headed, and nowhere near the humble men I needed in order to raise them to the position of Ender. Yet on my quick glance, I could see that someone had done just that.

They’d been raised long before they were ready. Double damn it. Believing they were truly Enders would only add to the difficulty in dealing with them. Jace and Chive would have something to prove.

I took one more quick look.

To either side of the two of them, torches were set above their heads. I put my hands against the wall at my back and connected with the earth.

Though I couldn’t have done what I was about to attempt before my imprisonment, my time working with my power between the Veil had opened me to new possibilities. Like manipulating the earth even when I wasn’t looking directly at what I needed to do.

I closed my eyes and imagined the two torches and the earth over the Enders’ heads. With a gentle urging, the soil above them was easy enough to loosen, but I did not release the now-hovering dirt. “Peta,” I barely breathed her name. “Lead me through the dark.”

She blinked her green eyes up at me and gave a tight nod before she leapt up, forcing me to catch her with one arm. She clawed her way up to my shoulder. “From here I can guide you.” Her words were again in my ear. Her claws dug into the leather of my vest and she swayed there, the same as she had done when she was with Lark.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” she confirmed. I took a breath and released my hold on the loosened dirt.

Pebbles and soil cascaded down from the ceiling all around the two young Enders.

“Stop dicking around, you,” Jace said. “You’re going to put the light out, you idiot.”

“I’m not doing it,” Chive snapped.

I pulled hard on the earth above us and the torches went out, plunging us into total and complete darkness.

Shouts came from below us in the dungeons, and above us in the training room.

Now or never.

CHAPTER 5

he darkness was all-encompassing, except for the burning embers that had dropped from the torches and scattered over the floor.

“Run,” Peta said, and I bolted forward, trusting her completely. I had to, there was no choice for hesitation; and the truth was, I did trust her. After two years working together to find Lark, we had an easy understanding of one another.

The distance between the stairs and the Traveling room doors was not that far, and yet in the dark it felt like I was stuck, trapped in tunnels I couldn’t escape. As if I were in an oubliette once more. The panic of being held down, trapped and kept from the light sent my adrenaline into overdrive.

I forced those thoughts away. I had to, or I would end up making a mistake.

“Your left,” Peta said, her voice the only guide I had. I swept my sword to the left, turning it at the last second so the flat of the blade smashed into Jace’s head, sending him flying. But the blow would not kill him. I might come to regret not ending his life later, but I refused to kill a man I’d trained when he’d been led astray by Raven. Not unless I was forced to.

There was a thud of his body hitting something solid and then I was tackled from the right. Peta screeched and Chive screamed. We still fell to the ground together, Chive on top of me. Peta was thrown back somewhere into the darkness.

“Ender Ash, stop fighting!”

I answered him with my fists, driving one into the side of his neck, landing a second blow over his kidneys. He grunted, but he didn’t let go. The sound of a weapon being drawn, the sudden jerk of his body and the piercing pain of my flesh parting for a blade stole the wind from my lungs.

The shouting was getting closer, the voices clearer and more defined.

Voices I knew, most of them I’d trained with, if not flat-out trained. These were my friends, the family I clung to when my own was killed . . .