“Gods-damned lunatic,” she growled.
I collapsed next to her. “You still have your foot.”
She squinted at me with a smile twisted with pain. “Pure fucking luck. Remind me to take your training more seriously after this.”
Aiden bellowed, “Kiera, if you don’t answer me in the next gods-damned second?—”
“We’re fine!” I shouted back. “I’m taking Yarina up the ridge.”
Immediately, Yarina protested. “I can still?—”
“I will knock you out anddragyour stubborn ass all the way back to Yargoth if you don’t cooperate,” I snarled.
She blinked twice at me, then grinned. “Spoken like one of my sisters. Fine then. Help me up.”
My heart stumbled over the word “sisters.” She didn’t know she had one less of those.
“Keep your guard up,” Aiden called out. “We’ll rout the ship and meet you on the ridge.”
Be safe,my heart murmured. Words I didn’t have the courage to speak.
Instead, I focused on Yarina. I wrapped her arm around my shoulders, biting hard on my lip at the sudden pain.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as we hobbled upright.
“Nothing.”
We traipsed back through the square. I avoided the spot where Davka lay. We would have to collect our dead later.
Footsteps pounded.
“Left!” Yarina shouted and dove to the side.
I raised my sword and turned just as a Shadow-Wolf’s sword arced toward my neck. I blocked. The sunstone blades shrieked against their jagged edges. My arms throbbed.
I stared at the Wolf’s snarling metal mask, wishing him and all of his brethren to the Abyss.
He came at me again and again. I kept blocking. But my movements grew more sluggish. Yarina crawled through the spilled vegetables she’d fallen into, screeching curses and threats at him and swiping at his ankles with her scythe.
The Wolf bellowed in pain when she nicked one. He delivered a swift kick to her head. She dropped like a stone.
Fucking Four, don’t do this to me.
I attacked him again, but I wouldn’t last like this. I had failed Davka as I would fail Yarina and so many others. It was like I was back in that alley in Aquinon. That same desperation and hopelessness swimming in my veins.
Perhaps death hadn’t liked that I’d gotten away that night. But Aiden couldn’t save me this time.
Gritting my teeth, I ducked another swing and stabbed for his gut with all the strength I had left. He shifted. But I still caught his side, slicing through skin and ribs.
He howled and swung for my head. I pulled back. The black tip grazed my nose. Then?—
An odd whistle. And a black arrow slammed through his neck. The Wolf wavered, then crashed to the ground.
I looked up, gasping.
A cloaked figure stepped from the shadows between burning buildings with an empty bow. My heart beat slower and slower. Then stopped.
Dark eyes and an even darker smile. Renwell had found me.
