Soon.
“We can’t let them go to the Jade Guild,” I say, keeping my voice as low as possible though with the eerie quiet still plaguing the forest it sounds as if I’m shouting. “Sorin and the others haven’t left.”
“Fuck,” Jarek grumbles. “Your husband is stubborn.”
“And Sam isn’t?”
He grumbles something in Scandavi, but it sounds like agreement.
I peek over the fallen log. The men remain deathly silent as they approach, their black boots stomping over dried leaves and twigs but not a sound to be heard. It’s as if they’re under some sort of protection. Some sort of spell.
Galen.
My stomach dips.
“So, we fight, then.” Jarek bumps my shoulder as I crouch back down and glance at him. His eyes are uncertain but there’s a small flicker of heat in them, like chips of ice so cold they burn. He, like me, is tired of running.
Hiding.
Get everyone to leave now, Ruse. In any way you can.
Her concern is thick and heady through our bond, her magick swimming with mine like pools of midnight. Ready to catch me. To guide me should I need it.
I turn to Jarek with a fresh shard of confidence. “We fight.”
We give ourselves another minute before I take a steadying breath and move from behind the tree. A man catches my eye from the army line and like a cork being popped, all the sounds of the forest come rushing forward. The shrill of dozens of men screaming and shouting. Metal clinking and arrows flying. My eyes go wide, my fingers freezing at my sides.
“Come on, susi,” Jarek says. “Give them fucking hell.”
Several arrows blow past us, whizzing and whipping through the air as we run forward, stopping every few paces to duckbehind a large pine. Jarek dodges them with ease, his eyes set on the archers at the front line. My eyes dart past the line of soldiers and guards, straight to the line of horses poised in the back. Officers or generals. Or perhaps,traitors.
“Stay behind me,” I shout at Jarek over my shoulder, but either he doesn’t listen or doesn’t hear as his body brushes my side.
The men are still several yards away, but I don’t wait a moment longer to flick my wrists, pulling up the dirt at their feet, creating a massive hill of earth and rocks and moss. Most of the men tumble, shouting and toppling on top of each other.
Then, I’m running.
But this time, I’m not running from the fight.
I’m running straight toward it.
Alaric is at my side, his magick intertwining with mine, wrapping itself around my soul like a tether between this world and the next.
Jarek grunts as an arrow brushes between us, but we don’t slow. We keep pushing forward. Using my magick, I swipe at the ground like second nature, clearing roots and rocks from our path. The men are close enough now that their shouts become clear. All it does is fuel the simmering rage on my fingertips.
“Remember not to kill her,” one shouts.
“The boss needs her alive!”
“Contain her hands!” The panicked undertone of their voices snap something inside of me and I am finally not afraid. Not afraid of these men. Not afraid of my magick or using it. Not afraid of being the last Dyrsjel. My chest puffs out as I swipe a large branch out of our path.
Stay out of the line of arrows, I say to Alaric as we reach the final few feet between us and the men.
Alaric ignores me and goes for the first archer's calf, bringing him to his knees and eventually his death.
Jarek’s blade collides with another archer's throat. His bloody scream is quickly drowned out by gagging as I strip the air from the lungs of another two others. They drop to their knees, bodies flailing like a fish from water. Another two rush me, this time their short swords drawn but they’re not quick enough. Raising my hands, I do the same as I did before. I reach into their lungs, stealing their air and gifting it back to Mother Gaia. Back to the soil and the trees and the wind.
See me, Mother.
