Chapter -21474836323 (Temporary Placeholder)

  Ada left Tertia with the other women and returned to the stairs. The young healer had gotten started right away, working on restoring feet and ankles to a usable state. Ada left them with a spike to shove under the door to keep it secure, which she tested with her own strength. It wouldn’t stand up to anyone who could smash straight through the door or the fittings, but it might slow them down slightly.

  Returning to the stairs leading up out of the underground pit, Ada felt conflicted. Not about the killing; no, she firmly believed those men deserved what they got for what had occurred in this place and felt no guilt for her actions. What bothered her was the necessity that she leave the women behind without someone to protect them. The woman of iron could feel Alex through the [Soul Bond] and could tell that the ranger healer’s location was unchanged. There was no help coming from the rangers; not yet, anyway. And so, Ada was on her own. She had no way to know how much time would pass before anyone came to check in on the guards and torturers, when there would be a change in shift, or even how many would be on the level or levels above.

  Ada found a heavy, hard wood door at the top of the stairs, reinforced with iron banding and securely mounted to the wall. It even had three thick draw bars that engaged with sockets bored into the stone, two on the side opposite the hinges, and the third on the other. She figured it would probably take quite the effort to break it down from the wrong side. Thankfully, she was not on the wrong side, and took the bars for her own, breaking them down into sand that flowed into her. She took the time to press her ear to the door and listen for any sounds before easing the door open to peer through the crack. There was no one visible immediately outside the door, and she had heard nothing audible. Ada constructed a paired smallsword and main gauche, then headed out into the corridor.

  Alex ran. Something very large was chasing her through some forest that at the same time was both familiar and completely unknown to her. She didn’t have the time to look around because she was going to die. She was out of breath, and the large creature was right on her heels. She could not stop running for even a moment. Then, she tripped on something. A rock, a tree root, or just a lump in the earth, she did not know, but the outcome was the same. She stumbled, and an enormous set of jaws full of hundreds of monstrously pointed teeth descended over her. She was going to die.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Alexandra awoke with a start, sat upright, and looked around at her surroundings, a little confused at first, but relaxed as she took everything in. She was in the guard barracks the rangers had been using for the past week, and had been having a nightmare that was quickly fading, though what little she could still recall was all too familiar; a recurring nightmare she’d been having for as long as she could remember.

  The faint glow of dawn illuminated the room through a couple small windows that existed more for ventilation than anything else. Despite the early hour, several of the rangers were already awake, a pair having been on the night's final watch shift, but others, namely Lucius and Marcus, simply woke this early as if it were perfectly normal to do so. Alex decided there was something fundamentally wrong with the two morning larks. Oh well, it wasn't like she was getting back to sleep after that awful dream anyway. Besides that, Alex felt something strange in the back of her mind, as if something just wasn't quite right here.

  She surveyed the barracks, counting each of her comrades one by one, but each time she came up with the correct number, eight. But wait, that wasn't right. There should be a ninth person. Because even though she didn't sleep, Ada had been provided with a cot and bedroll, but the space she typically occupied was untouched. Then Alex realized what that feeling of wrongness was. Her soul bond was no longer pulling her in the direction of Ada. She checked for any notifications that may have shown up while sleeping, but there was nothing, and her status showed the bond was still present in skill form; it just wasn’t telling her where to find Ada.

  Ada was missing.

  The rangers mobilized quickly. Marcus had been prepared to leave Ada behind in the town as they moved on after failing to turn up any evidence of corruption in the local government as she said she wanted. However, until that time, she was still a ranger auxiliary under his command, which made her his responsibility. In only a few minutes, the entire team was awake and armored up, ready to go. There was one problem, however; without Alex’s bond to direct them, they had no idea where to go.

  Marcus was still speaking with the different night watch pairs, trying to figure out who had seen her last and if they’d seen her leave, when Alex felt her bond snap back into place. She could feel Ada again, and it was providing her with a gentle pull toward the other side of the city. “Marcus, I can feel her again. She’s off that way,” Alex said, pointing. Marcus followed her finger. “Yeah, I was afraid that might be the case,” he said with a frown. Alex was pointing in the direction of the local magistrate’s personal home. “Well, fuck,” he said.