Phoenix Unbound
Page 77

“You don’t have a key!” one not-so-helpful voice chimed in.
“No, but I know of a way to get it. We’ll have to work together, and I’ll need one of you to scream as loud as you can.” Her gaze settled on the woman whose shrieking had brought the guard and his threats in the first place. She bowed her head and hunched her shoulders, doing her best to make herself as small as she could.
“That will bring the guard back,” another woman said.
Gilene nodded. “I’m counting on it.”
A tall woman, of similar height to Gilene, sporting vibrant red hair streaked with gray, stepped forward. “I’ll do it. The gods know I’ve had plenty of practice with that worthless husband of mine.” She grinned.
The woman who warned of the guard’s return frowned at Gilene. “Why don’t you scream instead of her? This is your idea.”
“I don’t have a strong enough voice.” And she needed it in working order to invoke her illusions. She glanced at the redhead. “Scream as loud as you can. When the guard arrives and demands to know who’s making noise, I’ll say it’s me.”
“What will you do?” Bird Woman stood in front of her now.
“What I should have done a long time ago.” Gilene gestured to the hallway beyond the cell’s bars. “Which way to the tunnels?”
Bird Woman pointed straight down the hall. “Two cells past these and then to the right. A short passage leads to a row of storerooms. At least it did then. The last one takes a person to the tunnels.”
“Is it guarded?”
Bird Woman paused, as if listening. “No.”
Someone in the crowd protested. “We’ll die if we try to escape!”
Bodies moved out of the way until Gilene had a clear view of the frightened speaker, a young girl, no more than fourteen. She stared at Gilene, face pale with terror.
Gilene wished she could offer something more encouraging to buoy the girl’s courage. But there was only hard truth to cling to if they had any hope of making it out of the catacombs alive.
“We will die if we don’t try. If we stay in this cell and do nothing, we won’t see the sun set today.” The girl blanched even more and whimpered. “I wish I could tell you otherwise.”
The redhead came to stand next to the shade speaker. “What do you want us to do?”
Gilene’s heart beat hard in her chest. Fear, resolve, even a sense of relief. These women and children might survive today. She would not, but she would die knowing that at this Rites of Spring, she helped people to live instead of to die.
“Remember your instructions,” she said. “Most important, back well away from the door, no matter what.” She pretended not to see the curious looks those peculiar words inspired. She turned to Bird Woman and the redhead. “I’ll get the key. Once I have the door open, lead the others to the tunnels. I’ll take up the rear and hold off any guards who might give chase.” She didn’t have much hope they’d follow her next directives, but she had to try. “If you face a guard or guards at the storerooms, you will have to kill him. He can’t get away. You can’t just injure him. He’ll warn others. You kill him. Or them. Whatever it takes.”
The redhead’s stare raked her. “And you plan to guard our backs? By yourself? You don’t look like a warrior. How do you plan to hold off a couple of Kraelian guards?”
Magic burned under her palms, eager, waiting. “You’ll know soon enough.”
Gilene glanced at the movement of the shadows created by the sunlight spilling across the wall. It grew brighter with each passing moment. It wouldn’t be long before midday arrived and a retinue of guards came for the sacrificial tithes. She nodded to the redhead, whose first shriek made everyone wince and clap their hands over their ears. The small children and babies, frightened by the noise, added their voices to the cacophony.
The woman even rattled the cell bars for emphasis, all the while wailing at the top of her voice, “Let me out! Let me out! I’ll die in here! Let me out!”
As Gilene had hoped, the guard who had threatened them earlier returned, rounding the corner of the corridor, his face savage, the whip already half-unfurled. Gilene waved the women back and took the redhead’s place at the bars. She lowered her head and whispered a spell under her breath before raising her head again to meet the guard’s furious gaze. Shocked gasps rose behind her.
What had been simple rage instantly changed to feral lust. Gilene’s illusion spell had done its job, transforming the plain mask she wore to a visage of breathtaking beauty, even through the layer of grime covering her.
She rattled the bars as the redhead had done. “Please,” she cried out in her most plaintive tone, hoping to coax him closer. “I can’t stay in here. Just a moment in the hallway. I’ll do anything.”
He couldn’t unhook the key ring off his belt fast enough, fingers fumbling as he cursed his clumsiness. “A moment, no more. And I’ll put that mouth of yours to better use than screaming me deaf.”
The whip unfurled at his side as he unlocked the cell door and pulled it open. His bleary-eyed glare swept the cell’s occupants. “The rest of you stay there and keep quiet.” With that, he grabbed Gilene’s arm and yanked her out of the cell, slamming and locking the door behind her.
Several gasps echoed in the hallway, and Gilene prayed no one would give away their plan. She had kept her part of it mostly secret for just that reason. She stumbled after him as he led her toward the center of the corridor, the grip on her arm unyielding. He finally stopped and turned to face her.
It took every bit of control she possessed not to lurch away from him. She’d helped cover cesspits cleaner than this man. He didn’t let go of her arm but dropped the whip to free his other hand so he could unlace the placket at the front of his breeches.
“Aren’t I lucky that the stupidest one in the cell was also the prettiest. Too bad you’ll burn later, but I’ll make good use of you now.”
The startled squeak he emitted when she suddenly stepped closer to him would have made Gilene smile if her skin wasn’t threatening to peel itself off her bones and flee of its own accord. This close, and his reek nearly made her pass out. She rested her hands on his shoulders and smiled into his eyes.
“Today you will burn with me.”
The fire had surged against the cage of her will for so long now, it needed no coaxing to surface. She simply let it go, and the magic of flame burst out of every pore, enveloping her and the guard in a conflagration that doused the floor, ceiling, and walls around them in a tight radius before roiling back toward its source and its victim.
The guard died instantly, that surprised squeak the last sound he made before Gilene’s fire immolated him in a flash of heat and light, leaving him nothing more than a pile of ash and charred bones at her feet once the flames died around her. She bent to retrieve the key ring, glowing hot but not yet melted. To any other but a fire witch, the metal would have fused into her palm.
Gilene blew gustily on the key ring to cool it before kicking aside the cremated ruins of their jailer. She cast her illusion spell once more, returning to the nondescript appearance the other women recognized. They pressed themselves against the cell’s back wall as she drew closer.
She had felt nothing except triumph when she killed the guard, but the sight of her cellmates’ terror made her cringe. “I mean you no harm,” she assured them and held up the smoking key ring. “You must hurry if you want to get out of here.”