Defiance by Skye Malone

Author:Skye Malone [Malone, Skye]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Young Adult, kindle
ISBN: 9781940617619
Google: sR6MDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: B07PGZJ4RM
Barnesnoble: B07PGZJ4RM
Goodreads: 44438145
Publisher: Wildflower Isle
Published: 2019-06-06T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Ari

We traveled for hours, and the entire time, I didn’t feel like I could breathe. The strakirin could be anywhere. I couldn’t hear them, feel them, or see them at all, but it didn’t matter. They’d almost found me. Us. They’d chased us at impossible speeds while Noah carried us through the water, and they’d come so close. So horribly close.

I didn’t think I’d ever stop looking over my shoulder. Not till the hive mind and the judges and all the dehaians helping them were gone.

Maybe not even then.

A cavernous opening appeared in the seafloor ahead of us. The dehaians dove toward it and didn’t slow even when another form materialized from the depths.

“Commander Damerion.” The person came into view. A soldier of Yvaria, with weapons strapped to his back.

“Activate all garrison defenses,” Damerion snapped. “Now.”

The man nodded fast and then darted back into the canyon. Damerion and the others followed him. Wariness bubbled through me as we passed over the ledge. Below us lay a cliff wall, pocked by caves and not much else. There were no stands of plants like I’d seen in the village or the capital. A few dehaians slipped from the cave entrances only to dart back into others. It appeared that the “garrison” was nothing more than a bunch of people hiding in caves on the edge of an abyss.

And then we drew closer, and my confusion turned to alarm.

Magic glistened on the stone wall, like the teal shimmer on that boulder Damerion had somehow used for a video conference, only about a thousand times larger. It was faint, and you couldn’t see it till you were right on top of the place, but the entire canyon wall was coated with magic like a defense.

My eyes tracked over symbols carved into the rock. Formed of chiseled dashes and swirls intermixed with jagged lines, they didn’t look like anything I’d seen the ruanir use. The purpose behind them was anyone’s guess, though it wasn’t a stretch to imagine it was unpleasant.

Several dehaians swam from one of the cave entrances, hurrying toward us. Everything about them screamed soldier, and the way they regarded Damerion only reinforced the impression. While the ones at the center of the group waited for Damerion’s orders, the rest scanned their surroundings for enemies and barely looked toward us.

“Take this one to a cell,” Damerion ordered, motioning to the dehaian prisoner. “I want everything he knows about this, understand?”

The soldiers nodded. Two of them grabbed the man, while a third led the way back toward the caves.

“Escort the girl to a secure room,” Damerion continued to several other guards. “Post soldiers outside every entrance.”

“Dammit, Damerion,” Noah protested, “your king told you she wasn’t a prisoner—”

“I know exactly what King Zekerian told me. And that includes keeping this girl protected from her own kind. If those strakirin come here, what would you prefer? For her to be in a secured location or in a tent on the canyon top?”

Noah glowered.

Damerion turned back to his soldiers.

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