Ash Princess (The Deviant Future #6) - Eve Langlais Page 0,18
poison ill-prepared. Not that those who actually prepped for Diamond survived it either. There was a reason—a few of them actually—that no one could escape.
“Check this out.” Milo had found the man’s weapon, which Kayda had left alone. Her scavenging friends weren’t as restrained.
“That’s definitely not Ruby or Diamond Kingdom made. I don’t recognize the maker at all.” Gorri handled the gun next, turning it in his hands.
“Blade’s not from here or Ruby either.” Lila held up the dagger, balancing it on her finger. Sharp things were her specialty.
“How can you be sure?” Because to Kayda one dagger looked like any other.
“The color of the metal.” Lila laid it flat on her palm. It glinted in the glowing lichen that provided the light. “The metals that come out of Ruby all have a hint of bronze in them. And the stuff our parents used to make all had traces of obsidian.”
“That doesn’t leave many options. The only other place that borders us is Sapphire,” Kayda declared with surprise. She’d never heard of anyone who’d managed to make it past the rift that bisected the land. The huge lava river that separated them from the Marshlands apparently flowed into the sea. Not that anyone went checking that information. The crevices were the most dangerous spots to be around day or night.
“No way is he from Sapphire,” Lila scoffed. “He would have been long dead if he came from there.”
“He appears to have been well equipped,” Milo pointed out.
“Lot of good it did him.” Lila, their group naysayer, had a hard time seeing anything positive.
Then again, given how she’d had to grow up, born in a dying kingdom where food was scarce, danger plenty, and the hope for a future nonexistent… At times it was a wonder any of them still tried.
“Say he does live, what are you going to do with him?” Gorri asked.
“I don’t know.” Kayda hadn’t really thought past the fact she couldn’t walk away and let him die.
“Maybe he can tell us what’s been happening outside our boundaries. I, for one, would like to know the whole world hasn’t gone to shit,” Milo claimed.
“I’m more interested in how he got here and if we can use that same route to get out.” Gorri still hadn’t given up hope they’d one day find a way to escape.
“And how many will die if we try? We’re stuck here,” Lila snapped.
Kayda felt as if she had to refute Lila’s statement. “You can’t give up hope.” Even if, at times, the despair almost drowned her.
“Why not?” Lila scoffed. “No one’s managed to walk out of here and survive.”
“We don’t know for sure they all died,” Gorri pointed out as he pulled his ever-present rope from his belt.
“None have ever come back.”
“Would you if you escaped?” Gorri knelt and began feeding out his rope.
“I’d fucking well try,” she snapped.
And that was the truth. No one who managed to leave Diamond would abandon those left behind. Or so Kayda liked to think.
Gorri and Lila quickly lashed the man in such a way that they all could carry him, loops of the rope slung over their upper bodies, leaving their hands free. Only idiots weren’t ready to fight when they left their secured home. The tunnels in this area were relatively safe, having had their passages blocked to prevent the predators from making a home in them, but that didn’t mean the creatures wouldn’t find new paths.
“Everyone ready?” Gorri asked as he looked back at them.
At the chorus of yeses, they all stood. Even with his weight dispersed among the four of them, the stranger proved hefty.
“Someone is used to eating well,” Lila grumbled as they set off.
Kayda didn’t know if it was well, but he was obviously nourished and used to living in the open, given his tanned skin and the thick strength of his body.
“I didn’t find any food on him,” Milo remarked from his spot at the back.
“Maybe he lost his pack when he fell,” Kayda surmised.
“How did he fall in the first place? That would imply he climbed a mountain,” Gorri said, his keen gaze scanning their left.
Kayda, on the other side, kept an eye on their right. They were coming up to a junction. A good place for an ambush. They remained silent until they were past it.
“I doubt he climbed. Judging by his wounds, he was probably flown there,” she suggested.
“And just missed getting eaten.” Lila snapped her teeth and uttered a dark chuckle.