Chapter 11 · What the Second Life Takes

The fire started in the west corridor. Rin smelled it before she saw it—smoke thick enough to choke on, cutting through the damp underground air like a blade. She was three steps from the exit tunnel when Kael grabbed her arm.

"Don't." His voice was flat. "That's the only way out."

She yanked free and turned. The flames were already crawling up the wooden supports, orange light throwing shadows across his face. He looked calm. Too calm. Like he'd seen this before.

"Then we find another way," she said.

He didn't move. Just stood there, blocking the narrow passage behind them, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The kind of stance that said he wasn't planning to run.

"There is no other way." He said it like a fact. Like the fire was something they'd both agreed to walk into. "Varric's men set this. They want us trapped."

Rin's chest tightened. The smoke was getting worse, stinging her eyes, crawling down her throat. She could hear wood cracking somewhere deeper in the tunnels. The whole place was going to come down.

"So we die here?" She stepped closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating off him—