A Breath of Sunlight Read online

  Skaja wasn’t moving fast enough, and an arrow shot straight through the bottom feathers of her wing, narrowly missing her.

  One more time, she swooped down and twisted to kick the archer in the chest with both her feet. He cried out as he flew backward and straight into the ravine.

  He wouldn’t survive the fall.

  As more of her sisters fought above ground, she dove with nimble grace into the Pits.

  Sunlight vanished instantaneously, and it took several long moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Lantern light guided her downward, barely illuminating the dim space.

  Men cried out below as one by one, valkyries picked them off. Griffins carried both valkyries and rescued women. They may not be able to save every female, but they could certainly try.

  Skaja rammed a dagger into a male slaver’s chest as she landed on a rocky ledge. She spun around and slit the throat of a slave before she leaped off the ledge and spiraled downward.

  The echo of clamoring weapons and battle cries filled the ravine. The noise disoriented her. A cry from in front of her echoed from behind. She blinked through the confusion as she attempted to orient herself.

  She squinted in the darkness, and when flying became too hazardous, she landed on the ground and folded her wings behind her.

  Bodies littered the ravine—slave masters and slaves.

  Movement on one side of the ravine caught her eye, and with daggers drawn, she raced toward it. She wove through a small maze of rocky walls in pursuit and stopped short when she lost sight of her target, her breathing ragged. Unlike the echoes in the larger cavern, the maze was eerily silent.

  Darkness continued to attack her vision, giving her a disadvantage. Even then, she spotted no more movement, even as her eyes continued to adjust to the dim light. She could have sworn she’d seen someone run in this direction. Had she spotted an animal instead? Or was it simply a trick of the light?

  The air shifted behind her. Her throat squeezed in surprise as she spun around, and she dodged out of the way as the sharp end of a pickaxe swung in her direction. But she wasn’t fast enough to dodge the momentum of the attacker.

  His shoulder hit her. The air was knocked from her lungs moments before her back smashed into a rough, rocky wall.

  He swung his mining weapon again, aiming for her head. She ducked and it struck rock. Small pebbles scattered across the ground, and as Skaja attempted to put distance between them, her foot slipped, and she crashed to the floor.

  The man charged at her, skidding across the rocks with well-practiced feet. She scrambled for a weapon, but found her daggers lying at the base of the wall. Both her wings pinned beneath her, she lifted her legs at the last second, expecting to knock the air from him enough to deter him.

  However, what she didn’t expect was how little he weighed. Instead of blocking his advance, she lifted him from the ground with her feet. The sudden weight on her legs collapsed them, and he landed directly on top of her in a shocked heap.

  They both grappled for the pickaxe, and although he only used one hand, he managed to pry it from her fingers.

  Skaja rolled out from beneath him as he struck again with the weapon. She scooped her daggers from the ground, and now using his weakness against him, she spread her wings and knocked him off balance. His underweight body stumbled into the wall, and as he turned around, she held the tip of her dagger against his throat.

  Both of them breathed heavily in the darkness, neither saying a word. His throat bobbed up and down as he swallowed, but he never took his eyes off her.

  Her grip tightened on her dagger, loosened, and tightened again.

  Do it! she screamed at herself, but it was as if an invisible hand clamped around her wrist, preventing her from finishing him.

  Although his features were too difficult to make out in the dim light, she noticed the almond shape of his eyes and the furrow of concerned eyebrows. They were...familiar. As if she’d seen them before. A long time ago.

  She shook herself out of it and once again attempted to stab him, but her hand refused. Instead, her fingers trembled like they’d done during her first kill many years prior. What was different about this man? Why was she reacting this way?

  “What are you waiting for?” he growled, and the sound of his voice shocked her out of her daze. It was deep but young, one belonging to a man in his twenties. Despite his ragged appearance, he likely wasn’t much older than her.

  Surprising even herself, she dropped her arm, her dagger falling limp at her side. She shook her head and backed up several steps. He held her gaze with an intense stare of his own, but he didn’t raise his pickaxe again.

  “Skaja!”

  They both jumped as her name echoed through the small, cavernous maze. She rushed toward the entrance in time to intercept Inari. She flared her wings to make them bigger, and to prevent her friend from seeing the man behind her whose life she’d just spared.

  “Inari,” Skaja breathed, noting the bloodstains on her clothing and the locks of hair fisted in her palm. “Let’s go. We’re done here.”

  “Not quite. I’m looking for someone. He’s not among the living or dead. Beautiful red-brown hair. I need to end his life so I can add a lock to my collection.”

  “I haven’t seen someone with that description,” she lied. “Come on.”

  Inari lifted an eyebrow and stood on her toes to peer over her wings. “What are you hiding?”

  “Only the aftermath of a good gutting. But he had black hair.”

  “Drat,” Inari growled as she kicked the wall. “I was watching him closely, and he disappeared from beneath my nose. I haven’t been this disappointed since Adderwall.”

  While her friend complained, Skaja glanced behind her only to spot the man’s silhouette hiding in the shadows. A brick dropped in her stomach. How would Paula punish her if she learned of her indiscretion? Sparing a man’s life?

  Inari climbed onto a griffin with another valkyrie while Skaja followed close behind. They leaped into the skies in their escape. A trail of blood followed their progress to the exit of the Pits, and she couldn’t help but wonder about the blood she hadn’t spilled.

  Who was the man? And why hadn’t she been able to kill him?

  Calle watched the valkyrie woman leave, his gut churning with both relief and dread. She’d spared his life and protected him from getting killed.

  The moldy cheese threatened to come back up, so he leaned against the cool, rocky wall, closed his eyes, and focused on taking several deep breaths. He touched a strand of his ratty hair, a shudder racing down his spine.

  Now he understood.

  The Forest Fae valkyrie had wanted to add his hair to the collection of lives she’d taken. Until now, death had been a welcoming idea. But facing it a few minutes earlier...

  It was terrifying.

  He leaned against the wall until his heart slowed and his breathing came easier. The Pits were uncomfortably silent—the aftermath of a killing spree. He didn’t dare step foot into the main cavern lest any valkyries remain. Nor did he want to see bodies strewn about. In fact, he felt sure any living slavers would conveniently find a punishment for him if he showed his face at all.

  Valkyries...

  What business did they have here?

  His thoughts turned to the pretty harpy who’d fought with fierce brutality. Although she hadn’t been able to see in the dark—judging by her faltering mishaps—his eyes had adjusted to the dark years ago. He’d never seen a harpy outside the Sun Kingdom, as they all served the royal family.

  The recollection of her bubbled up happy memories long forgotten, and a foreign smile lifted his lips. For the first time in six years, something sparked happiness. And it was the violent tussle with a man-killing valkyrie.

  But the thought circled him back to a bout of confusion. Why had she spared his life? He likely looked like a homeless monkey, so it couldn’t have been his looks. Valkyries had no compassion for men, so that couldn’t be it either.

  He frowned as he considered the option of her being under a blood oath to him as a harpy, and unable to kill him because of it, but he quickly brushed the idea aside. She was a valkyrie, not a guard from the Sun Kingdom.

  Calle shook his head and cut her from his thoughts. His grip tightened around the handle of his pickaxe, and his gaze traveled upward to the top of the endless ravine. If he didn’t escape now, he would lose his chance.

  Having waited for this day for a long time, he already knew his next course of action. He crept through the bloody and body-strewn maze, grimacing at the faces of slaves, but rejoicing at those of slave masters. The valkyries had provided a path of escape. If he ever saw the sunlight again, he swore to himself he’d kiss the daylights out of the next valkyrie he found and worship the very ground she walked on.

  If she didn’t kill him first.

  His pulse thrummed alive within his chest. Blood rushed through his ears, and hope blossomed like a flower tasting the sunlight for the first time.

  A surge of heat rushed through his body and melted the damp chill set deep in his bones when he reached two parallel rock faces that climbed upward as far as the eye could see. He located a cart filled with a pile of empty sacks and surreptitiously rolled it to the base of the wall.

  “In case I fall,” he whispered to himself.

  The sound of his voice once again alarmed him. He’d spoken more today than he had in several years.

  Tucking the pickaxe into the waistband of his pants, he placed his back against one side of the parallel wall and quickly kicked up his feet so they pressed against the other wall. Terror shuddered in his breath as he began the awkward climb. Foot. Foot. Shoulder. Back. Foot. Foot. Shoulder. Back.

  Perspiration dripped from his fore
head and soaked the front of his tunic. His limbs ached with fatigue. His legs shook with the effort of keeping himself from slipping. He made the mistake of looking down.

  The safety of the ground rested far below him, the cart a miniature version of itself this far up. His legs shook even more, his weak muscles threatening to collapse.

  He blew out a long breath before continuing the strenuous trek upward, but then froze when he heard a voice echo beneath him.

  “What the hell happened here?” someone shouted.

  Icy fear traveled through his blood. He recognized the voice. It belonged to the slave masters’ employer. Arlo Stokes.

  He held his breath and didn’t move a muscle as a group of slavers passed by beneath him. No one looked up. If they did, he would be a dead man. Or worse—a slave for the rest of his likely short life.

  “How many?” Arlo thundered, followed by a low murmur from another man.

  Quicker than he thought possible, Arlo swung his fist and smashed it into the man’s face. The man stumbled backward, but otherwise remained upright.

  “You were supposed to have a means of defense!” Another punch.

  Calle’s legs shook more with each moment of stillness while the arguing ensued below. He focused on taking several deep breaths, but no matter what distractions he tried to employ in his mind, his fatigued body trembled with exertion. Moving his head slowly, he glanced upward at the many remaining feet above him.

  His heart gave a start when he spotted a sliver of sky, a dark blanket dotted with several stars. The sight renewed his hope, and he caught a second wind, finding reserves of energy he never knew he had.

  As soon as the voices disappeared around the bend, he resumed his climb—faster this time. He could almost taste freedom.

  The rock crumbled beneath one of his feet, and his heart jumped to his throat as he slipped. He fell several feet, knees and elbows smashing against rock, before he managed to wedge himself between the walls once again.

  His back screamed in agony, rock pressed against open lashes. Tears of pain leaked from his eyes and blurred the patch of sky above him. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t keep going.

  But still, he tried.

  Every muscle in his body ached. Every scrape and sore on his skin begged for him to stop. He didn’t listen, but rather gave every ounce of strength he possessed.

  Desperation clung to his every pore. Hope provided him energy.

  His foot slipped again, and in an attempt to catch himself, his left hand flew out to cling to the wall. An intense pain clutched his wrist and ran up his arm. Mingled with his weary muscles, his body gave out completely.

  Wind whipped his hair and beard as he fell, until he crashed into the cart below. The sacks inside broke most of his fall, but the sound of splintering wood echoed across every inch of the ravine.

  He urged his body to move, but it refused. Even as footsteps echoed in his direction, he couldn’t bring himself to flee.

  Several people rounded the corner. Arlo himself grabbed him by the front of the shirt, yanked him to his feet, and snarled in his face. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

  ****

  Their group stopped to rest in the forest for the night, mostly for the sake of the couple dozen female slaves they’d rescued. The women were dirty, ragged, and far skinnier than they should have been. Just looking at them boiled her blood.

  Skaja clenched her fists as her gaze traveled down one of the freed slaves. She was bone thin, her hair a ratted mess, and the shadows beneath her eyes spoke volumes of the horrors she’d endured in the Pits. Skaja’s hatred for the men in charge of overseeing the Pits’ operations boiled her blood hotter. She’d seen this time and again, but different times and different places. This mistreatment angered the valkyries and drove them to kill men and protect women.

  Paula’s voice lifted into the night sky as she spoke to all of them. “You see? This is why men do not deserve to live! They’ve taken freedom, virtue, and basic rights. All men are evil. They—”

  “Not all of them,” one of the slaves interrupted.

  The valkyrie leader lifted an eyebrow, annoyance passing across her face. She was not used to being challenged. “Pardon?”

  “Not all men are evil,” the woman answered. “The slave masters, yes. But many of the slaves I labored beside were kind. One of the men offered to take a whipping in my stead. He shared his rations of food. He killed one of the slavers to protect my virtue. I am saddened that you may have struck him down.”

  Low murmurs passed between valkyries, some surprised, others disbelieving. Skaja only crossed her arms and watched.

  “You are vouching for this man?” Paula asked with a hint of anger in her tone. “After everything you endured?”

  “I would have endured far worse if it hadn’t been for him. He never said much, but he watched out for the women, nonetheless. I want to know who killed him. He had auburn hair. Amber eyes. He was a Sun Fae.”

  Skaja’s pulse thrummed in her throat as another frenzy of voices argued one against another. Inari’s voice rang loudest as she, too, demanded to know what had happened to him.

  A lump formed in her throat, and she swallowed it as she remembered the man from the Pits, whose life she had spared. In the dark, she hadn’t been able to make out his features very well, but she wondered if the man the woman spoke of was him.

  Could he have done all those things?

  She ruffled her feathers as she glanced back in the direction of the Pits, a strange new desire growing stronger with each passing second. She didn’t want to return. She knew she shouldn’t. But the desire boiled in her blood and she couldn’t stop it.

  With a shake of her head, she ignored the pull to return.

  Paula held up a hand, and all conversation ceased immediately. “What’s done is done. We can only move forward. Come. Let us enjoy supper and rest for the night. In the morning, we shall return home.”

  At the thought of flying many more miles away from the human lands, another shudder ruffled her wings.

  Once again, she fought hard against the overwhelming desire to fly back to the Pits.

  As everyone sat around a fire to enjoy their food, Skaja found a quiet place to sit on top of a rock. The moon shone bright overhead, lighting patches of green leaves in the boughs of trees. Stars twinkled like peaceful candles. Yet, even in the serene atmosphere, her gut churned with discomfort. She couldn’t expel the feeling that she’d made a mistake in leaving the man doomed to more suffering.

  The feeling pricked at her like the unforgiving teeth of a garguaran. The gnawing urge pricked her again and again until she felt sure a pool of blood surrounded her feet.

  She ran her fingers through her hair as she once again glanced in the direction of the Pits, a sense of urgency growing louder and louder until it screamed in her mind.

  Not able to stand it any longer, she jumped to her feet. A couple dozen valkyries and freed women turned their attention to her.

  “Everything all right, Skaja?” Paula asked.

  Schooling her expression, she nodded. “I’m a bit pent up after today’s excitement. I’m going to go for a fly. I’ll be back soon.”

  “I’ll go with you,” Inari volunteered.

  “No,” she said quickly. “I mean, perhaps next time. I just want solitude for a bit.” When Paula tried to protest, she beat her to the chase, “I won’t go far.”

  Before anyone could argue, she jumped into the skies and spread her wings. They glimmered in the moonlight like flakes of sparkling snow. But instead of the leisurely fly she’d promised, she flew as fast as her wings could carry her. The sense of urgency in her bones grew stronger and stronger. She wasn’t sure what the feeling was. Intuition. Gut instinct, perhaps. All she knew was she needed to get the fae slave out of the Pits.

  And fast.

  I am such an idiot, she said in her mind. Infiltrating the Pits by herself was a stupid idea. All for a man?

  She wondered what punishment Paula would give her should she learn of her actions tonight. Rescuing—let alone sparing a man’s life—was one of the biggest infractions a valkyrie could make.

  Yet, she urged her wings faster until wind tore through her hair.

  If she made it out of the Pits alive, she would get in so much trouble for doing this.