“Call off your guard dog, Astrid!”
“He isn’t listening, if you hadn’t noticed!”
Useless. Fi couldn’t fathom a bluff so brazen, Astrid parading that Beast around when she couldn’t even—
A boot hit Fi’s nose.
“Son of a bitch!”
Fi cradled her throbbing face, blood slick through her fingers. Astrid pushed to her feet. Raised her crossbow. With another curse, Fi lunged for cover behind the corner of the general store. An energy bolt snapped the ground where her leg had been.
What sick game was Astrid playing? This would be so much easier if she had the decency to aim for Fi’s heart.
The Beast wasn’t so discerning. A crack of bone drew Fi’s attention back to the square, her breath catching as she watched the derived daeyari hurl Antal across the frozen ground. Antal rolled to a hunch, breaths heavy, black blood everywhere. The Beast lunged for him.
A crimson energy bolt sank into its temple.
Another howl pierced the square. Nyskya’s recruits lacked for experience, but Kashvi held her crossbow at a practiced level, a daeyari capsule in hand, dark eyes glinting with focus.
Red energy snapped across the Beast’s skull, repairing fractured bone and split flesh. Void be damned, how much would it take to kill the thing?
It lunged for a new target.
“Kashvi!” Fi shouted.
A flick of static. A snarl. The Beast’s claws raked empty air as Kashvi vanished.
By the time the second spark hit Fi’s tongue she was already running, toward the side of the tavern where she spotted Boden holding down a base of operations—where Kashvi and Antal reappeared in a haggard heap. Kashvi emerged from the teleport gasping, but unscathed.
Antal dropped to his knees, each exhale a string of curses. “Veshri take my fucking bones, that Beast has teeth like bread knives!”
Fi skidded to his side in the snow, soft hands to keep him upright. “Are you ok?”
“I’mexcellent, Fionamara.”
The drip of sarcasm was a relief, though entirely inappropriate for how much black blood soaked his clothes. The wound was horrendous, a serrated slash down his arm, rent flesh and fabric stuck together. Boden pulled away from tending another injured fighter, a wad of gauze in hand, wide eyes as he realized gauze wouldn’t do shit for Antal’s horrific gash. Fi would have gawked the same, if she hadn’t seen daeyari recover from worse. Red energy writhed over the exposed flesh, knitting Antal’s skin back together.
Kashvi sat back on her elbows, a stunned look swiveling from the battlefield to their current position. “You… we…teleported?” She scowled at the daeyari. “Yousavedme?”
Antal laughed through gritted teeth. “We’re on the same side, Kashvi.”
And for that moment, they were—Fi and Antal, Boden and Kashvi, all hunched together in the snow, drawn to common purpose in this reckless bid.
A roar rumbled the square. A snap of crossbows. No time to linger.
Fi looked to Kashvi. “We need to—”
“Organize our fire. I know.I know!” Kashvi pushed to unsteady feet and ran to rejoin her troops, shouting orders to regroup. The Beast moved through their ranks like a sickle, felling another combatant as he tried to flee. A scream turned to rending flesh.
If that creature set after any of Nyskya’s unarmed citizens, this would be a massacre.
“We’ve cleared civilians away from the square,” Boden said.
“Not good enough, Bodie. We need to get everyone out of the village.” Their plan had been to evacuate the residentsbeforefighting broke out, not on such a crashed timeline, but they could still catch up.
Fi and Boden looked to Antal. The daeyari returned a sneer.
“Absolutely not,” he snapped.
