I tripped, hitting the ground.
“Anya, watch out!” Helgi was running toward me. “Roll!”
I rolled to the left, crying out as the edge of the rock monster’s fist connected with my side.
“Anya, roll!” Helgi shouted again.
But I couldn’t move. The pain, my fucking ribs. I flipped onto my back, screaming as fire raced across my ribs, and then screamed again as a gray foot hurtled down toward me.
A gust of air blew dust into my eyes and then a black form was standing over me. Vesper in dragon form, shielding me with his body.
“NO!”
White power like lightning lit up the world. There was a crack like thunder and then Vesper’s weight was on me, pressing me into the ground, shielding me with his body as the sound of rock smashing into the ground filled the air.
Silence followed and I was acutely aware of his breath in my ear and his arms wrapped around my head to protect me. His heart beat hard and fast against my chest in time to mine, and then it slowed, increment by increment, taking my pulse down with it.
He raised his head to look at me, and I caught the dregs of terror in his cobalt eyes before he blinked them away. “Are you okay?”
He’d saved me. Shielded me with his body. He’d been prepared to be crushed to protect me. My heart felt too full. Words tangled on my tongue—gratitude and strange emotions I wasn’t ready to examine.
“Anya?” Vesper touched my face lightly with his fingertips. “Say something.”
“I think my ribs are broken.”
“Your Grace!” Lorance’s face hovered above us. “I’m sorry, so sorry. I should have been here. I needed to use the facilities, and since there were none, I took a walk and…Oh dear.”
Vesper gently hauled me to my feet. I bit back a yelp at the pain in my chest.
“It’s not your fault,” Vesper said to Lorance. “Rockals are meant to be dormant; the fact this one awoke is a bad sign.”
“The Jotunn…” Lorance said.
“Yes.” Vesper looked grim. “A reminder that our time is almost up.”
“Yeah?” Helgi said. “And what about the fact that it had a hard-on for Anya.”
Vesper’s mouth twisted wryly. “I don’t know.”
I clutched my side, breathing evenly as my rib healed, and sighed as the pain ebbed. “That’s better.”
“You’ve healed?” Wex asked. “Already?”
I shrugged. “A Skin boon.”
“Not all Skins.” Bran winked. “Not that fast anyway.”
“I guess it’s my special gift.” I said it dryly, but Vesper was still watching me speculatively.
Okay, his intense regard was making me uncomfortable; in fact, everything about this encounter was making me uncomfortable. He could have died. He’d put himself between me and a rock monster.
He would have died if not for Lorance.
Helgi patted her weapons belt. “I lost a blade.”
“I think I dropped Jezebel.”
“Here.” Bran handed me my axe.
The key. Shit. I patted my pocket. Empty. “The key, it must have fallen out of my pocket.”
“Fuck!” Vesper looked up at the rapidly setting sun. “Everyone search. Now.”
We began to scour the ground, shoving rocks out of the way, getting on our knees and running our hands over the rumble-strewn earth. Shit, shit, shit.
“Over here,” Lorance said. He stood a couple of meters to my left, composed and regal in his folded-arms pose. The rocks around him hovered a couple of feet in the air. “I see it.”
Vesper plucked the key off the ground with a heavy exhalation. “Good work, Lorance.”
Lorance inclined his head.
I held my hand out for the key. For a moment I thought Vesper was going to keep hold of it, but then he handed it over.
“Don’t fucking lose it again,” he snapped.
“I didn’t lose it. I was attacked by a rock monster and it fell out of my pocket.”
But he was already walking away from me. “Get ready to leave. The sun will be set in a few minutes, and then we take the leyroad to Sector 8.”
I tucked the key in my pocket and stared at the pieces of the monster. The monster who’d gunned for me. There was something very off about this encounter, and once this mission was over, I was going to find out exactly what.
Chapter Fifteen
The sky was clouded, obscuring the moon. Thank goodness for my excellent night vision.
“Dammit,” Helgi said. “I need moonlight.”
The clouds parted as if on cue and the shrubbery-covered terrain ahead was illuminated. We were on a dirt track that wound through the woodland. This had been lush ground once, a place where humans had come to relax and picnic. It was a tangle of nature now, hanging on by a thread. But the bushes and twisted trees provided enough cover to keep the drones at bay. It was the perfect spot to hide an entrance to the Arc. Brambles scratched my hands as I shoved branches aside.
“Fuck.” Bran cursed softly behind me.
“Watch out for the thorns,” Vesper warned from up ahead.
“Bit late for that,” Helgi muttered.
The brambles grew thicker, and I pulled Jezebel from my back, ready to cut our way through, then stopped. This was a deterrent; there had to be another way in. My assessment was confirmed a moment later when Vesper swerved to the left and dipped out of view. The other guards followed, and then it was my turn. The ground sloped into a bank ending in a dried-up riverbed. Vesper stood at the mouth of a cement arch that was built into the bank.
The tunnel.
We scrambled down to join him.
“A quarter of a mile,” Vesper said. “You can’t miss it.” His expression was somber. “We’ll be east of the wall, ready to create a fiery distraction if we don’t hear from you in two hours. Otherwise radio us when you’re on your way back to the tunnel. We’ll meet you
