A Burning Sea by Theodore Brun (i am reading a book txt) 📕

his head and he saw an awning twenty feet below and the assassin tumbling into it. It held and at once he somersaulted out of it onto the balcony below. Erlan hit the canvas an instant later, felt his fall broken for a split second then the whole awning folded inwards, dumping him on his backside against hard stone. His spine jarred with the impact but there was no time to worry about broken bones – if he could move he must. He forced himself up, flinging aside the torn material and shifting his grip on Wrathling in time to see the assassin’s shadow leaping to the next balcony along the western facade of the palace.

‘Hel,’ he groaned and set off after him.

He cursed his ankle as he often had. Every surface was dusted with snow making seeing easier but the going treacherous. Still the balustrade was wide; the first gap only two or three strides across. He leaped and easily made the other side, taking the brunt of the stone parapet in his belly, knocking the wind out of him.

The assassin was already making the second jump. Beyond, Erlan could make out two more balconies, then a short distance below another roof ran perpendicular, the private wing connecting the emperor’s palace with the Hippodrome. Darting across the second balcony he shoved Wrathling into his belt, freeing both hands for the hazards ahead. Another giddy jump, a missed footing on the ice, his hand catching him, holding him against the balustrade. The shadow was disappearing ahead, nimble as a tree-rat. For a second, he saw the assassin hesitate atop the final balustrade, glance behind, take three quick steps and leap into the frosty void. A moment later there was a rattle of tiles, the sound of sliding, a muffled grunt, then he saw a shadow dangling off the edge of the roof. It was a drop of sixty feet or more to the pavings below. To fall meant death, but Erlan didn’t waste the time chance had bought him. He reached the last balcony, climbed up and stood tall; the assassin was pulling himself up, swinging one foot over the gutter. Erlan stole a breath and ran, launching himself off his good ankle as high and far as he could. He arced through the air, hovering like a hawk for a breathless moment, then came hurtling down onto the tiles with brutal force, the impact bludgeoning a crater into the broken shards and timber.

He pulled himself out of the hole, then slipped on the snow, slamming his jaw into the tiles. His face jarred with pain. He could hear the clatter of footsteps over the tiling to his right. He scrambled up to the roof ridge on all fours and gaining the summit he started running. The night was a brilliant velvet canopy, the stars burned in the black like beacon fires. Ahead was the silhouette of the assassin, sprinting for the massive looming shape that rose above the city like a titan. The Hippodrome. If the assassin reached there, Erlan was sure to lose him.

Ahead he could see a blank wall where the roof abutted the eastern side of the Hippodrome. Left and right there were darker shadows, apertures that let the daylight into the eastern stands of the stadium. Above them was a row of support beams projecting from the wall. The assassin reached the end of the roof ridge. He hesitated, looked left and right, then skittered down the north slope of the roof. Erlan cut diagonally down the roof, sucking up the pain in his leg, feeling tiles cracking in his wake. The assassin leaped, swooping down onto the first beam, then leaped again, but Erlan had already launched himself off the roof.

They met mid-air, Erlan snatching desperately for a black-clad leg, and they fell together. By some miracle, the assassin caught the window ledge as it flashed by and clung on. The pair jarred to a halt. Erlan was still welded to the small feet that now kicked and writhed. He gave a desperate heave to throw himself upwards within reach of the ledge just as a kick caught his shoulder. The assassin slipped free. Erlan splayed his hand in blind terror and felt his fingers hook over the ledge before gravity took him.

He hung on, nails tearing, the breath heaving out of him in frantic gulps. He tried to swing up his right hand but missed. Then he felt his fingers crushed against the cold stone and smelled a familiar scent on the icy air.

‘Ágrios.’ A chuckle sounded smooth as velvet above him. ‘You don’t seem to do well with heights, do you?’

He looked up, feeling his knuckles crack. Almond eyes gazed down on him, bright with mischief.

‘You?’ was all he growled ‘Why?’

‘Arbasdos’s whip was cruel. Thanks to your stupidity.’

‘Help me up, damn you!’

‘I helped you once. Once was enough.’ She lifted her foot.

And Erlan fell.

He could have lived a dozen lives in those next three heartbeats. He fell without a cry, expecting many things – but never the sudden crash of fired clay and timber, the shower of dust, the jolt of pain and last of all a cloud of hay swallowing him up.

He lay quite still, stunned, his head numb. And through the shattered stable roof, he stared up into the evermore of night.

There was no alarm when he limped back into the Daphne palace. No outcry, no sign of a disturbance. He and Lucia seemed to have flown by like ghosts in the night. And she was long on her way by now.

He hobbled up the flights of marble doggedly, his head ringing. He needed to lie down. But first, he had to know. . .

The emperor’s solar was as it had been. Quiet, and dark now. The lamps had all burned out. He went inside, fearing the worst. The other guard’s body was sprawled, limbs crooked and hard, a pool of darkness spread around him. There was nothing to be