They.
“If you’ve been with them for five years, does that mean you knew my mother?”
Rhess said nothing, before clearing her throat and replying, “I did.”
Those two words were loaded with feeling, very little of which was good.
“I didn’t know her well,” Rhess went on. “Tilda was very . . . fixated. On her goals. By the time I joined the rebels, she wasn’t around much, leaving the camp often with Zuleeka. Tor was miserable. He felt like he’d lost both his sister and his mother, but he channeled that into his training, growing stronger and more skilled, and making the rebels fall in love with him in the process. I think that, without him as their general, they’d crumble under Zuleeka’s leadership. She’s the cunning, he’s the heart.”
Another snap of ropes, and Kiva could wiggle her hands more.
“Nearly done,” Rhess said.
Determining to think about her messed-up family later, Kiva said, “Once I’m free, we’ll have to hurry.” She looked toward Tipp. “Has he regained consciousness?”
“For a few minutes. He knew his name, remembered what happened, asked about you. But then he passed out again.”
Relief swept over Kiva at hearing he’d been lucid enough to talk. “We need to get him away from here and properly looked at. Any ideas for how we avoid our abductors on the way out?”
“We’ll just have to wing it,” Rhess said. “Tor will know something is wrong by now, so he should be looking for us. I was meant to meet him just after lunch, and that was hours ago.”
“Tor’s in the city?”
“Him and Zuleeka,” Rhess said. “For the party.”
In the turmoil of everything else, Kiva had forgotten that Mirryn had invited her siblings to the masquerade, and she cursed inwardly at her unending nightmare of a day.
“If we can get out of here, we can find him and —” Rhess cut off with a triumphant sound, and an instant later, the ropes around Kiva’s hands were gone.
“Thanks,” she said, grimacing as she rubbed feeling back into her fingers.
“You carry Tipp,” Rhess instructed. “I’ll need my hands free in case we have to fight our way —”
She stopped abruptly at the sound of heavy footsteps approaching, her wide eyes telling Kiva to return her arms around her back and act as if she were still bound.
“Oh, look, lover girl is awake,” the tattooed man said after reappearing from behind the same stack of crates with his pale companion. “No word from your prince, yet. We’re having trouble getting our messages through with how busy the palace is. You better get comfortable, girlie, because —”
Whatever he’d been about to say was interrupted when Rhess launched herself at him, barreling the full weight of her body directly into his gut. He doubled over and snatched for her, but she pulled back quickly, his sword in her hands and slicing through the air.
She was fast, but his pale companion intercepted her blade with his own, returning with a thrust that barely missed slashing open her throat.
Despite having next to no training, Kiva couldn’t let Rhess take on the two massive men alone, so she scrambled to her feet. She’d barely made it three steps before Torell came flying out from behind the crates, his Jackal mask on and a sword in each hand, shouting, “Stay there!” to Kiva as he dived straight into the melee.
The clash of blades rang in Kiva’s ears as Rhess and Tor faced off against the Mirravens, the sound drawing more men and women, all of them wearing the same gray fighting leathers as their abductors.
Kiva lunged for Tipp, dragging him as far away as she could, stopping only when they reached a cluster of wooden barrels pushed into the corner of the warehouse, where she hovered protectively over him, watching the battle unfold.
Tor and Rhess were outnumbered — by a lot.
And yet they were holding their own, fighting back to back, their swords blurring in the air, bodies falling in their wake.
They’d done this before.
It was clear in the synchronized power of their attacks, in the way they covered each other’s vulnerable sides and yelled instructions to each other — “Duck!” “To your left!” “On your right!” “Jump!”
Kiva watched in awe as their enemies continued to fall. Her confidence grew with every slain body, but she still remained on edge, fearing the two rebels, no matter how good, couldn’t keep up their defense against such an unrelenting force.
But then the Mirravens started to thin, with more of them on the ground than were standing, many groaning, many more still. Rhess and Tor were moving slower now, numerous cuts and slashes over them both, but still, they fought on.