way up to the gate, and there the drop was only three stories high. Still too great.
The gate. Her head snapped to her left. There had to be a lever or wheel or something that would open the gate. There had to be. Maybe she could . . .
“Atradir!”
Nelle started, turning. Armed figures swarmed up to the wall from various access points and marched toward her, lances readied. She cast one last look down the wall, trying to believe there could be handholds and footholds, trying to believe she could scramble down that sheer surface like a scuttling spider. It was useless.
Swallowing a cry of despair, she turned and ran for the gate arch, her thin skirts billowing behind her, her legs bare, and her unprotected feet screaming in protest as they slapped on the harsh stones. Before she’d taken more than twenty paces, she saw more armed figures approach from the opposite end, cutting her off. She stopped, sagging against a crenellation.
This was it then. Her mad getaway was over. Kyriakos would never be caught off guard again.
Would he drag her back to the tower and that red room? Or lock her deep in a dungeon somewhere, shackled and helpless?
With a sob caught in her throat, Nelle turned away from the oncoming figures and gazed out across the darkness-stricken landscape. There was the shore, the sea, not half a mile away. And was that the outline of Roseward her magicked eyes spied through the dense gloom? Or was it only her wishful thinking?
Wind from the sea blew in her face and, when she lifted a hand to push hair from her eyes, something flashed—a little band of gold threads wrapped around her thumb. A spell-band, almost invisible, almost forgotten.
“Wear this on your finger, and a thread of connection will remain linked to me.”
Nelle clenched her fist, her thumb and the ring pressed tight against her curled fingers. It was useless, hopeless.
But what did she have to lose?
Pounding feet drew near. Lances gleamed in her peripheral vision. Harsh voices barked words she did not understand.
Nelle closed her eyes and felt the thread of connection stretching from the ring out into the darkness. Out to that churning sea. She flicked her wrist three times, tugging the thread. The ring burned hot against her skin.
Then hard hands took hold of her arms and shoulders, and the rod of a lance struck the backs of her legs, collapsing her to her knees. She bowed her head and, for the moment at least, did not attempt to fight.
Now that he knew it was there, Soran felt the shimmering curse, a pliable but unrelenting wall of resistance. It wasn’t particularly strong, but in that moment, neither was he. His powers, both physical and mental, were stretched to the limit, and he lacked the strength to break through. Every time he thought he found a weakness, the spell concentrated in that area and pushed him back again.
The last push was hard enough to knock him off the rower’s bench. He dropped one oar and scrambled only just fast enough to plunge his arm into the waves and catch it before it was carried off. He hauled it back into the boat and collapsed, soaked and gasping.
He felt like a fly desperately buzzing to break through the spider’s web. Only he was much stupider than any fly. After all, he wasn’t trapped. He could turn away whenever he liked. As soon as he was ready to admit defeat.
Raising his heavy head, Soran gazed out to the Noxaur shore. It looked closer. His efforts to push through the curse weren’t entirely in vain. But even if he succeeded, it had already taken too long.
There was no chance he would reach Nelle before . . . before . . .
Spitting expletives through clenched teeth, Soran clambered back up onto the bench, fixed the oar into position, and set to rowing. Again his senses probed the curse, searching for the next thin place where he might push through.
Something tugged at his heart.
Soran stopped, surprised, and blinked down at his chest. But there was nothing to be seen. At least, not with mortal eyes.
A second tug followed, harder than the first. He gasped out loud at the sensation of . . . not quite pain but similar.
At the third tug, he realized what it was.
Lifting his head, he turned and looked back at Noxaur. Only now he saw not only the dark, forbidding shore, the obscuring darkness of a night-shrouded landscape,