It was as if no time had passed at all. Her sister was still the same tall, proud girl with wide eyes, thick lips, and a straight nose that was a little too large for the rest of her face. She looked down it now, at her sister on the floor, though hopefully not realizing who it was that she was scowling at with such contempt. Rayne felt a brief surge of pride in her sister’s bravery before hot hands wrapped around her ankles.
“Get back!” Danyll shouted, dragging Rayne away from Edlyn. He swung a boot at her stomach and even through the sudden pain, she caught his foot and twisted, sending him sprawling beside her. They were both on their knees then, swinging wildly in the dark. She knocked his arm to the side and he lost his balance so she swung low, her dagger burying itself in his leg. He grunted but still swung for her, his own knife slicing through her leather jerkin and opening a shallow gash in her abdomen.
They were both pulling themselves to their feet when a wordless cry echoed down the hall and another figure launched itself out of the darkness at the prince, knocking him back off his feet. Both figures skidded across the ground, far enough away to be out of sight. There was grunting and then the loud crunching sound of a body against stone. Torn between going after her sister and defending herself, she hesitated before swinging around, thrusting her knife in the direction of the noise.
A tall form lurched out of the darkness, but when he spoke, Rayne relaxed. “What are you doing?” came the familiar voice.
“What are you doing?” Rayne snapped back at Merek. She pressed one hand to the cut on her stomach. It was warm and wet with blood.
“You should have been done by now.”
“Oh, is that right?” Rayne quipped.
Merek squinted at her and then over her shoulder at the stone door. She didn’t know what he saw on her face, but he puffed out his chest and said, “Fine, I’ll do it.” The door was still open, though Edlyn was out of sight. Before she could stop him, Merek had shouldered his way past her and put one foot across the threshold.
That was all it took. The spellwork protecting her sister threw Merek backward as if he weighed nothing. He landed a few feet in front of the door and collapsed to his back. The tunnel trembled, not like it had when she had been fighting Danyll, but something deeper, as if the walls were crumbling from the inside out. At the very edge of her vision, Prince Danyll was emerging from the darkness, stumbling and rubbing his head.
“What have you done, you idiot?” He was bracing himself against the wall, blood oozing from the gash in his thigh. His mask was gone and he looked human for the first time.
“Danyll? What’s happening?” Edlyn’s voice came from behind the door. Rayne longed to push him aside and go to her, but she was losing a lot of blood and barely able to keep her feet.
“Die knowing that you have failed, rebel.” His voice was as hard and as cruel as his eyes that held her pinned in place, panting, bent over with her hand clutched to her middle. She watched him, her mouth open as if to speak but finding no words, as he disappeared behind the stone door. It closed behind him with an audible click. Edlyn’s room must have protection on it that would keep her safe from the collapse. Rayne looked between Merek and the door. She could open the door again. The prince was wounded and weak, but so was she. And if she did that, Merek would die, crushed in these tunnels.
Making her decision, she dropped to her knees and slapped Merek's cheeks to rouse him. He was unresponsive.
“Merek, please,” she begged. He stirred at the sound of her voice. He easily had fifty pounds on her, and she would never be able to carry him in this condition. “Merek!”
Just as she was struggling to pull him to his feet, there was a tremendous cracking overhead and she flung herself backward just in time to avoid a massive boulder which fell just where she had been standing, right in front of the stone door. Merek screamed and in the light of the snow clouds that filtered in through the new hole in the ceiling, she saw why. The boulder had landed on his legs, trapping him. A smaller stone pelted her in the shoulder, but she hardly felt it.
“Merek!” She threw herself down, her own pains forgotten, her fingers tearing at the rough rock.
He was gasping for air, groping at his own legs, feeling where the rock had crushed his thighs. “Go,” came his faint reply. “Just go. They still need you.”
“But—”
“Go!” he shouted more forcefully this time, wincing with the effort before collapsing back on the ground and closing his eyes, turning his face from her.
She stopped and stared, her fingers scraped raw and bloody. It was the Knights’ philosophy—to sacrifice one for the good of the many. But it should have been her. She should have killed her sister when she’d first opened the door, even at the cost of her own life. Then Merek never would have come looking for her, and she wouldn't have to return a failure.
“Merek,” she said, quieter this time.
He didn’t answer. His hands were balled into fists at his side and she remembered the way they had felt as they worshiped the curve of her shoulders, how his lips had felt, gentle and soft on her neck. Her failure had cost him his life. Who was she to have been given that responsibility? She wasn't a Crowheart or a Knight, or a Duskan or a Shaddern. She lived a life in between, not really belonging to any particular place. She was nobody. A nobody who desperately longed to be a somebody, though she would never have admitted it.
The trembling intensified. Overhead, through the gaping roof, people were screaming, their footsteps causing the ceiling to quake and crumble, sending bits of dust down on her and Merek. She shoved the boulder again but it didn’t move. She strained against it, feeling blood soak her stomach and drip down her face from the open cuts there. What she wouldn’t give for a bit of magic, for something that would let her move the stone, for something that would get them out of this situation.
A loud crack was the only warning she had before the ceiling collapsed. She scrambled away and when she looked back, Merek was gone, buried beneath the rubble. Rayne ran, not the way she had come but in the opposite direction, away from what she had done and what she had to leave behind. Rocks fell, pelting her from above, bruising her arms and her shoulders, sometimes sending her toppling to the ground. Time and again, she got to her feet. Her face was wet with tears and sweat, her vision blurry so that when she came upon a wooden-runged ladder leading to a door in the ceiling, she nearly passed it and had to backtrack.