PROMISE

CHAPTER 36

"I think something's wrong," Hain said through chattering teeth. "The drunks back there. They stopped singing."

Hain pressed his wet, cold back against the even colder stone of the wall. The sodden ground had left water squelching in his boots and he could feel his underclothes sticking to his skin beneath the leathers.

"Probably just passed out," Lilith said in a low voice.

"Or they heard the dog, and now they're rousing the guard."

"If they are, there's nothing for it now," Lilith said. "Just stay on edge once we're inside.

Hain could have laughed. If he were any more on edge he might have shot himself in the foot.

Lilith slung her rifle over her shoulder and drew out a thin black box the size of her palm.

"What's that?" he asked.

She waved the question away with her free hand, as the device responded to her touch. Its surface glowed in reds and blues that cast a purple hue over her face.

Lilith held her free hand out for him to take. "You ready to go through this wall?"

Hain felt his heart quicken. "Eyes closed and hold my breath like in Echo?"

Pale violet light shone against the white of her teeth when she smiled. "Actually, I just had you do that to see if you would."

Hain let out a clipped, snorting laugh. Not because it was especially funny, but because his fear about where they were and what they were about to do ran so deep that all he could do was laugh.

That, he thought, or sob.

That kind of edged laughter is infectious, and soon Lilith's shoulders bobbed with suppressed giggles. He and Lilith clung to each other, laughing for what felt like forever. Laughing despite the shivering cold in their bones. Despite the sword tip tangling over their heads, and the murder they'd come to levy.

Or rather, they laughed because of it.

~~~

"That you, Sergeant?" The man's voice rang out from beyond a turn in the dungeon's curved wall.

Hain's feet scraped the stone floor as he pulled himself to a halt. He smelled earth, and the tingling scent of ozone in the air. Passing through the wall, they'd slipped into Sierra's bowels before slinking toward the dungeons. Sam could have been anywhere in the haven, but it seemed as good a place as any to start looking.

Jailer, Lilith mouthed. Hain nodded in return.

"Prisoners are here, same as when you left them." The man let out a wet, mucous-tinged chuckle. "Not that they're like to try an escape."

Lilith stepped forward silently, unslinging her rifle from her shoulder.

"Even so, I ain't sleeping on watch," the man said, some of his vowels stretched by a Sierran accent. "I've given my word that I won't let that happen again."

Lilith turned to Hain and patted the sheathed blade at her hip. Hain nodded. His dagger whispered against leather as he slowly drew it.

"Sergeant?" the man said again.

Lilith cleared her throat before she spoke with a near perfect Sierran accent that surprised Hain.

"Ain't none of your sergeants here. Just me with a plate of something hot from the kitchen."

"Keep your distance, woman!" Alarm colored the man's voice. "This place is off limits for any but the Watch."

"Maybe it is, but I've got warm food for you, and some scraps for your charges."