Rage boiled through her veins and the wraith slowly gained another step . . . on feet that were like spikes and knives. Scooting down, she gripped Ardyl’s thigh even as the warrior shouted her name and reached for her.
Lizzan snapped her foot into its stone chest. Its hand slashed down, claws shredding her brocs but gliding over her skin. Unbalanced, it tipped back. With a triumphant snarl, Lizzan slammed her heel into its chin.
It tumbled, clattering as it hit the wall and bounced, carried by the gale, skidding and falling out of sight around the spiral. The wind howled on and on, then suddenly failed—and still she could hear the distant clatter and crash continue down the stairs.
“We will not have long,” Preter said, panting.
Her legs trembled like leaves in a storm when she climbed to her feet again. They were almost at the top, she saw, but even a half-dozen steps seemed impossible until Ardyl gripped the back of Lizzan’s hood and began dragging her along.
Aerax transferred the unconscious man over to Kelir, then turned just as Lizzan flung her arms around him. His mouth found hers, hot and hard—and then they could wait no longer. Their boots pounded the floor as they raced through a great dining hall with long rows of tables carved from the same stone as the walls. The light overhead had warmed to a soft orange.
Oh, Temra be merciful.
“Find torches!” Lizzan called out. “The sun is setting!”
A new nightmare it became then, running through darkening corridors and chambers, shadows deepening on every side as night set in. So dark it became that they could only see within the glowing circle of their torches, for although Preter had said lighting them was a simple thing, it would mean he had to stop in each corridor and chamber long enough for him to focus and cast the spell, and no time did they have for that.
“Where is the moonlight?” Tyzen panted as they stopped again. “Vela rises full this night.”
“A cloud . . . perhaps,” Preter gasped.
That rest was almost no rest at all as a screech echoed through the dark corridor, and they could not see if it was near or far—and could only run again. Over and over they ran, stopping more frequently but never long enough. Another set of stairs felt to Lizzan twice as steep as the first, and though there were not near as many steps, each one seemed its own mountain.
They ran down another passageway and abruptly into a larger chamber that—for the barest, most joyful moment—Lizzan thought was the great hall.
Abruptly Preter swung back. “Help me with these doors!” he cried, moving to the enormous wooden door beside the corridor’s opening.
Together they all pushed. Wood groaned and finally closed. A stout beam swung into brackets to brace the doors even as the wraith’s muffled shriek sounded on the other side, and the terrifying scrape of claws that meant the creature would soon be tearing its way through as it had every other door they’d thrown into its path.
But to her surprise, Preter laughed breathlessly and leaned back against the door, sliding slowly to the ground.
“Is it spelled?” she asked him, hope swelling through her heart.
He shook his head. His hands lifted but he seemed too breathless now to explain.
Instead it was Ardyl, who collapsed beside him. “It is made of blackwood. It will get through, but not quickly.”
The siege wood that many fortresses in the south used. Never had Lizzan seen it before, but she was glad to see it here. She looked to Aerax, who with Kelir was carefully laying the scarred man on the floor. He caught her in his arms then, and together they sat with Lizzan braced against his chest and his back to the stone wall. For the longest of times, not a word passed between them, and even the muffled scrape of the wraith’s claws seemed so very far away.
Then from her position lying flat on the floor, Ardyl turned her head to look up at Preter. “Never have I seen anything such as that wind. It was extraordinary.”
Even in the orange glow of the torchlight, his blush was fierce. “It is thanks to the narrowness of the stairwell. If I had done the same spell in this chamber, barely would the wraith have felt it at all.”
“It is not thanks to a stairwell,” Aerax said gruffly, tightening his hold on Lizzan. “It is thanks to you.”