Page 19 of The First Scar
I wanted to see her face when she realized she'd run straight into my trap.
Her footsteps echoed toward me—urgent, ragged.
The footsteps grew louder.
Come, little fox. I've been waiting.
AMARIA
The junction opened ahead—three tunnels splitting off into the dark. Wider here, the ceiling high enough to stand straight. Water dripped from somewhere above into a puddle that trapped the faint grey light from a storm drain. My lungs burned but we were close. I could smell the shift—the draft from multiple exits pulling at each other like they were competing.The river passage was straight ahead. A dozen ways to surface. A dozen ways to vanish. For once, the odds looked like they were in my favor.
"Almost there," I breathed to Serenya. "Thirty more seconds and we—"
Skittering. Faint at first, then building—a tide of small bodies rushing toward us through the dark. Rats poured from the river tunnel like the stone itself had vomited them up, matted fur and gleaming eyes, dozens of them climbing over each other in their frenzy to getawayfrom something I couldn't see.
Serenya huddled against my back, blade drawn. "What—"
"Go." I grabbed her wrist and hauled her left, away from the writhing mass, toward the only passage still clear. The one that angled up. Toward the Square of Names.
Every instinct I had screamed at me to turn around. But the rats kept flooding the other routes and my skin was crawling with something worse than vermin. The prickling certainty of being watched. Of beingherded.
We ran. The tunnel narrowed and sloped upward. The distant rumble of the city filtered through the stone above us—foot traffic, cart wheels, the muffled percussion of a world still moving. Almost there.
I burst through the tunnel mouth and skidded to a halt so fast Serenya plowed into my back.
He was already there.
Not chasing. Not catching up.Waiting.
The Crownforged leaned against the curved wall, one shoulder resting on the damp surface, arms crossed over that slate-and-obsidian plating—calm, unhurried. The same coiled stillness from the square—a predator who didn't need to move because his prey had already walked into the trap.
The burst pipe. The pebble in the dark. The rats.
Every turn I'd thought was mine, every instinct I'd trusted—he'd been three steps ahead, herding me through this labyrinth like a shepherd with a wayward lamb.
My chest seized. My fists clenched.
His head tilted. I couldn't see his eyes beneath the helm's shadow, but the weight of his attention sank into me like a hand already closing around my throat.
"Took you long enough, little fox."
The words were almost lazy. He'd beenplayingwith me. And I'd run exactly where he wanted.
My daggers cleared their sheath and I was swinging—fast, vicious cuts aimed at his ribs.
He captured my wrists.
Fingers locked around the bone mid-swing, already turning me. My own speed did the rest—he redirected the arc and my back hit the tunnel wall so hard my teeth smashed together. Stone ground into my spine. My blades skittered into the dark.
I thrashed. Twisted. Drove my knee toward his groin—
He shifted. Barely. Just enough that I hit armored thigh instead, and then his body was flush against mine, pinning me to the wall with his weight. One hand manacled both my wrists above my head. The other pressed flat against the stone beside my face, caging me in.
I couldn't move. Not an inch. I snarled and snapped my teeth at him.
He held me like it cost him nothing. Bastard wasn't even winded. I was gasping and heaving like I'd sprinted the entire length of the undercity—which Ihad—and he looked like he'd taken a light stroll. Three heartbeats. That's all it had taken him. Three heartbeats to pin down decades of learning how to survive.
Humiliating.
