Endure - Sara B. Larson Page 0,61

if a fist had pushed below my ribs to squeeze my heart. Eljin was physically healthy, but powerless. I wasn’t expecting that.

My guards turned me to face the door across from Eljin’s. I took a deep breath as I stepped toward it — toward Rylan. Would his leg be healed? If it wasn’t …

Akio nodded at the guard, who reached for his key ring again.

My hands grew slick with sweat as he shoved the key into the lock and turned it. When he pushed the door open, I haltingly stepped forward.

Rylan jumped up from the bed, his dark eyes widening when he saw me. “Alexa?”

My eyes flew to his leg — the bandages were gone; he was standing on his feet with equal weight. When he stepped toward me, he did have a slight limp, just as I’d feared. But he was as healthy as possible at this point.

“Is this your doing — are you the one who convinced them to heal me? I’ve been so worried about you —”

“Yes.” I cut him off, resolve settling in me, familiar and powerful. “I needed you to be healthy so you could help me.”

Rylan’s eyes widened as Akio stiffened next to me.

Before he could react, I spun and brought my arms up so fast my guards couldn’t pull me back. Akio didn’t have time to do more than gasp before I slammed the iron shackles against his temple. He crumpled to the ground as Rylan lunged forward, leaping to tackle the guard next to me. They tumbled to the floor, but the other hooded man at my side pulled out his sword, and I leaped back just before he almost impaled me.

“Your king might be less than happy if you kill me and waste all my precious blood,” I taunted as I spun away, out of his reach. I couldn’t go too far; Akio had been holding my chain and his hand was still gripping it beneath the weight of his unconscious body.

I spared a glance to see Rylan manage to get a good punch in on the guard he’d attacked, but then his body went flying and slammed into the wall. He hit the ground hard.

A sorcerer, then. But was he a black sorcerer?

The one I was fighting obviously wasn’t. I barely twisted out of the way of another jab from his sword as the other guard climbed back to his feet. Desperation burned through me as the third guard — the one who had the keys to the doors — grabbed me from behind.

The sorcerer lifted his hand, letting the robe fall back to reveal the jeweled glove he wore — identical to Iker’s. Fire burst above his open palm as I kicked back as hard as I could, hitting the man behind me in the shin while simultaneously elbowing him sharply in his side, near his unprotected internal organs. He grunted, his grip loosening a tiny bit, just enough for me to suddenly let myself drop. Using his own weight against him when he got pulled forward to keep his arms around me, I managed to twist out of his grasp and spin around him, so that his body blocked me just as the black sorcerer threw his fireball, hitting the guard instead. His body jerked, and then he collapsed, leaving me exposed once more; the stomach-turning stench of burned flesh filled my nose.

In my peripheral vision, I could see Rylan fighting the other guard, blood dripping down his face, dodging the robed man’s sword and trying to get hits in with his bare fists. The black sorcerer had already called more fire into his hand, and I had to throw myself to the ground when he hurtled it at me, rolling as fast as I could to avoid his next blow, tangling myself in my chain. It exploded against the wall right above my head with a dull boom. I could only hope we were far enough away from the other guards — and that the thick stone walls that divided the cells would be enough to keep the sounds of our fight from alerting them to what was happening.

As I scrambled to untangle myself from my chains, the black sorcerer stalked forward, more fire already rising in his palm.

“You can’t kill me,” I reminded him as I fought with my chains.

“But I can maim you,” he retorted in heavily accented Antionese, pulling his hand back to throw the fire at me.

There was a dull thud next to