Amma hesitated, but when he pressed it into her hands, the wood thrummed under her fingers, and the realization it could defend her on her own terms bloomed pleasantly in her mind. Even if she couldn’t load and fire it, it was hefty enough to knock someone out if she swung it right. Amma gestured to the tangled-up woman. “Won’t she need it?”
“She’ll make due.”
“Demon spawn,” spoke a new, wavering voice. Pippa, the priestess, had her hands on the blade of the knight’s sword as it turned a shimmering, light blue. “Prepare to be banished back to the infernal Abyss.”
“I thought we’d established that doesn’t really work on me,” sighed Damien. He had his dagger out and casually sliced into his palm. “Amma, you may want to take a few steps back.” When he drew his hand through the air, the crimson sword made of blood took shape yet again.
The knight barreled toward him, this time with sweat on his brow, covered in the dust of the road, and absolutely Abyssbent on destruction if incapable of running in a straight line. Damien had to maneuver himself into the man’s way to meet him with his own blade overhead, but was pushed down and back with the force of the weapons clashing. Amma staggered back, hugging the crossbow to her chest.
Damien groaned under the weight, back bending, then shadows seeped out from behind him and threw the man off. “That divinity does sort of sting.” He shook out one of his hands, smoke coalescing there like when he had discovered which tome was the Lux Codex in the Grand Athenaeum. He was really scowling now.
“You’ve stooped to an all-time low, Bloodthorne,” scolded the knight, wrenching his longsword overhead and wavering under the weight, slurring slightly. “Kidnapping an innocent, young girl for your dark machin…machin…dark plans.”
“All right, to be quite clear, I’ve not done anythingthatdepraved with her. Furthermore, Amma is an adult woman who’s admitted herself she’s notthatinnocent, and—” He dodged another swing and deflected the blade, a spark of arcana cutting between the weapons.
“And I don’twantto go back,” shouted Amma, voice echoing down the road.
The knight froze mid swing, sword hovering in the air over Damien’s head. The elf halted in his circular chase of Kaz. Even the bound-up woman on the ground stopped thrashing.
“You don’t?” As he wavered, the knight’s shoulders relaxed, blinking at her like a drunkard. Damien took one long step to the side, out of the weapon’s range.
“No! None of you must be from Faebarrow, which is where I belong anyway, not Brineberth, or else you’d know,” she spat, a warm rage bubbling up inside her. “Cedric, the marquis who sent you, is awful. He’s a liar and a monster, and he’s the villain you should be after, not Damien.” Amma snorted, squeezing the crossbow so tightly she thought it might splinter in her grasp.
The Righteous Sentries traded glances from their spots scattered all over the road. The elf made a confused sort of noise, the knight returned it, and the entangled woman groaned against her binds.
“She’s bewitched,” finally squeaked out the priestess, Pippa. “She…she doesn’t know what she’s saying. Demons, they can enthrall, and they can possess, and I bet Bloodthorne’s doing that to her.”
“Oh, bloody Abyss,” Damien mumbled.
The elf pointed down the road to Pippa. “Yeah, and there’s that thing that happened in Dyoktev, you remember, with the centaurs? Where the hostages over-empathized with their captors and didn’t realize they were in danger anymore?”
“Dyoktev Disorder, yes!” Pippa shook her head. “She’s definitely got that too.”
The knight roared, pulling his sword down through the air and leaving a trail of bright arcana in its wake.
“All right, enough of this.” Damien finally struck out and attacked, slicing up under the knight and cutting into the plate on his chest, leaving a smoking, violet slice that send him reeling backward, knocking into the priestess as they both tumbled into the bushes. “Come on, we’re leaving.”
Amma followed Damien down the road, away from the bound-up woman and passing where both the priestess and the knight were groaning in the thicket. “Why aren’t they listening to me?”
“Because they’re idiots.” Damien reached the elf who, without his book, took a huge step back but clapped his hands together, hastily trying to whisper out a spell. “More fire?” Damien asked, plucking the book away from Kaz as he scurried up. “For what? So you can again attempt to mangle the baroness you’re failing to rescue?”
The elf’s mouth fell open, eyes darting to Amma as she kept pace with Damien. “F-foul creature,” he stuttered even as he backed up. “This won’t stand.”
“Pick your favorite.” Damien gestured to the contingency of horses as he flipped through the elf’s book. Amma slipped the crossbow over a shoulder and onto her back, choosing a sleek but short mare with a ruddy coat and black mane.
“You will rue the day—”
“That we met? Believe me, I already do.” Damien ripped out a page.
The elf shrieked as if his skin had been sundered from his body. “My book!”
“Have it back.” Damien tossed it in the dirt before climbing astride a pale stallion dappled with grey, and Kaz flapped his wings to land on its rump. “You really ought to learn those spells by heart.” With a sizzle of arcana through the air, he propelled the entire lot of horses, the riderless two running in opposite directions, and he and Amma took off, leaving the Righteous Sentries scattered and dazed in the dirt.
The horses galloped, whatever loyalty they might have had to the others gone. Amma squeezed the reins as they sped down the road, away from her would-be abductors, away from Durendreg, and away from the portal that would take them back to the Accursed Wastes. The open road came at them fast, meandering ahead between hills and through lands unknown to Amma outside the realm of Eiren. Beside her, Damien was leaning low over his stallion, lips turning up into a very satisfied smirk.
Villain, they’d called him, and yes, perhaps with that glint in his eye at stealing from them, making fools of them, leaving them mountless, she could see how they might think such a thing. But he could have done much worse,should have, she thought, when they were so clearly intending to kill him. But he hadn’t. He had, instead, saved her—twice now—from Cedric. And anyway, how could someone so utterly handsome be evil?
Amma laughed. It bubbled out of her bright and high and happy as the wind blew back her hair and stung her eyes.
