Burning Skies (Guardians of Ascension #2)(105)
Author: Caris Roane

She kept her eyes closed because she could hear the rhythmic slam of hammer to metal. So the bastard was still in his forge making more shackles. That much she could remember. She was shackled, she was in Crace’s forge, and the bastard had kidnapped her.

She thought about folding the hell out of there but she couldn’t. Oh, yeah, she’d tried before. Whatever drug Crace was giving her kept her so weak mentally that she couldn’t hold her thoughts together long enough to do what she needed to do. She needed less of the drug in her system if she had any hope of escaping—but what was it she wasn’t supposed to do?

She struggled to think, to remember.

She leaned her head against the stone wall. She still sat on the low wooden bench, her legs stretched out in front of her. How long could she survive like this?

The truly horrifying thought shot through her mind. Indefinitely. If Crace cared for her body well enough, she could serve as a supplier of her unique blood without end. She could even become the source of experiments if he wanted to go that direction. And why wouldn’t he? He was a death vampire. He had no conscience.

She remained very still.

She tried to recall how many times she had awakened and what happened each time. Oh, that’s right. Crace would walk over to a machine on her right, punch a button, and tell her nighty-night. Within seconds she’d black out.

That’s what she was struggling to remember, not to appear to wake up. She could do that.

She kept her breaths slow and even. Slow and even.

She set what was left of her mind to figuring out how to get herself out of this mess.

From what she had seen, she was in some kind of underground cavern, an enormous space probably blasted out of rock.

She stilled her mind and relaxed. Her body ached fiercely but she had to keep from moaning. If she moaned, more drugs.

Her mind drifted back to Crace’s appearance and the bomb.

Her thoughts became fixed on Marcus.

He couldn’t have survived that blast. He had turned to run but the bomb had gone off at the same moment that Crace folded her here to this place.

She took a breath. She had to face something here, something horrible—Marcus had probably died in the explosion. But he had run away from all those people, toward the lake. Her man, her warrior had died saving a host of ascenders.

The awareness that she had undoubtedly lost him sank in deep, taking her mind first, then dipping low to clutch her heart. Only with great effort did she keep from howling like a wounded animal. Tears dripped from her closed eyes. She only hoped Crace didn’t notice.

Marcus. Gone.

The words didn’t mesh in her mind. She rejected them even if they were probably true. Searing heartache rolled through her. Combined with the drugs in her system and the ache in her body, she must have passed out again.

When she came to, her thoughts immediately returned to Marcus. Again, she kept her breathing slow and even, her eyes closed. She regulated her mind. She ignored the pain.

She thought back on the past several days, then the past four months.

The big questions of life came to her: Why am I here, what is my purpose, why so much suffering?

A memory surfaced of her husband. The fever had caught him hard. Their little girls were already buried in the earth and she knew she’d soon have a grave to dig herself. She had wanted to die.

But when his death approached, he had somehow found the strength to clutch her hand and to look at her. “Live, my darling. Live. Live for all of us.” The words so faint, the last he had spoken.

An hour later, he was gone.

Live, my darling.

Live.

Live for all of us.

The words echoed through her head, fierce and strong as though something of his wonderful spirit remained within her.

That was a hundred years ago and a million tears later.

She thought of Eric. She had been willing to risk her heart with him, to try to live again, but Eric had died and with his death something in her had died as well, some willingness to press on. Yes, she worked … she worked hard. Yes, she was committed to making a difference in Endelle’s administration and in the war. But she had not been committed to life, to living. That was what Marcus had been trying to tell her, the reason he believed she couldn’t easily do a split-self. The only time she’d succeeded was when he’d held her in thrall and she’d been able to let go.

And now Marcus was dead.

Grief threatened her once more but this time she refused to let it come. It seemed to her that in this dark place, where she was imprisoned deep in the bowels of the earth, where the heat kept her sweating and she was chained to a wall, where she would no doubt be bled frequently for the properties of her blood, she had a choice to make here and now. Would she live or would she disappear behind the safety of her walls, of her half-lived life?

Live, my darling, live.

Sometimes choices came at the oddest times and the most impractical.

While chained to a wall, for the first time in a hundred years, she chose to live, to really live.

And in that choice came a powerful determination to somehow find her way out of this mess, this evil imprisonment. That no one had come before, not Endelle or any of the Warriors of the Blood, told her that Crace’s forge was shielded. If she wanted out, she’d have to be the one to get herself out.

Her mind, as weak as it was, flashed over one truth. If she could split into two selves, both parts corporeal, she could find Endelle in the darkening. If she found Endelle, they could work together to figure this out, how to bypass the shields, everything. But it was up to her.

* * *

Marcus was going out of his mind.

He had recovered fully. Three hours had passed from the time Horace had declared him healed. Three hours and they still hadn’t located Havily. He was pissed as hell! He’d eaten a whole cheese pizza and drunk a quart of f**king Gatorade, but Endelle, even with Parisa’s help, had been unable to get to Havily.

He moved restlessly, pacing the ground, his hand at his side as though clutching the hilt of a sword. The blast had destroyed his battle gear but he had backups, plenty of backups, and wore one now.

He was still surrounded by his warrior brothers, each armed with sword and dagger and patrolling the perimeter. Endelle was nearby, in a meditative state and hunting through the darkening, but his nerves were raw. She was convinced that all of Greaves’s underground military sites were cloaked with heavy shields so that even though Parisa sent a continuous stream of Havily’s location, Endelle still couldn’t get to her, still couldn’t find her.

At least Parisa kept letting him know that Havily was still alive.