Sitting deep in her saddle, Seraphina hauled back on Mourn’s reins with all her strength.
The stallion skid to a halt, his hindquarters dropping low, hooves scrabbling for purchase on the loose shale as they stopped mere feet from the inferno. The heat seared Seraphina’s face, singing her eyelashes.
Shouts went up from the other side of the flame wall—the cries of confused men, of screaming horses.
Out of the fire stalked another woman in red. A woman who stepped through the flames as if they were a gentle morning mist. Another witch. Seraphina realized with a jolt why her scouts had not been able to find the second jaw of the Arathian trap.
Because the jaw had been one woman hiding in all this wilderness.
Steeling her heart, Seraphina slowly wheeled Mourn around to face her pursuer.
The first witch still sat atop her horse in the center of the pass, smiling. A gesture that didn’t reach her eyes. “It seems you have nowhere left to go, Lightbearer.”
“Lightbearer?” Seraphina echoed aloud before she could stop herself, her brow furrowing. She had never heard the title before. It tasted strange on her tongue, ancient and heavy.
The witch’s smile widened, revealing teeth that seemed far too sharp for a woman to possess. She nudged her horse forward, the beast stepping casually over the rocky terrain.
Up close, the woman was positively terrifying, with eyes like twin pools of molten gold that glowed with an inner, terrible luminescence.
“From one woman to another, I would offer you the dignity of surrender,” the witch called out, her voice smooth yet mocking. “But I fear my master has demanded your head.”
Master?Surprise lanced through Seraphina, giving her pause. What master could this creature possibly mean? The King of Arath? Coreto?
Seraphina tightened her grip on her reins, Mourn shifting beneath her, and called back. “And here I would have thought a woman with your power would never debase herself to serve a mere man.”
The taunt landed. The witch’s golden eyes flared, the glow intensifying into a harsh burn. Her lips curled back in a snarl. “You know nothing of power, girl,” she hissed.
With a fluid motion, the woman drew a curved blade from the scabbard strapped to her saddle and kicked her horse forward, raising the blade for the killing stroke.
Seraphina braced herself, clumsily drawing her own sword. The blade that accompanied the armor she wore was heavy, unfamiliar in her grip. She didn’t know how to wield it. Not truly.
Lord, please be my shield.
From the west, a low wail unfurled, tearing through the ravine, echoing off the stone walls like a thunderclap.
The witch faltered, her golden eyes darting upward.
High on the western ridge, silhouetted against the morning sky, a rider appeared. A giant of a man wearing a fearsome leather varhound mask and draped in dire bear fur.
Wulfston.
Her cousin didn’t hesitate. With a howl ripping from his own throat, he spurred his horse over the lip of the ridge and charged straight down the treacherous, sliding scree of the cliff face—a landslide of rocks and fury cascading with him.
The witch’s attention snapped to the avalanche of riders plunging toward them both, no longer paying her any heed.
Realization dawned. This was her chance. She did not have to wait for Wulfston to save her. She did not have to wait for the witch to recover.
She could simply…act.
Her hand found the hilt of the sword at her hip. The sword she did not know how to wield. But perhaps she did not have to know.
Perhaps she simply had to trust.
Without a single sound—no taunt, no battle cry—Seraphina wrenched her blade free and drove her spurs into Mourn’s flanks. Fearless, the stallion launched himself forward. Not away from the danger.
But straight into the teeth of it.
The witch whipped her head back around, eyes widening as she realized too late that the Elmorian trap had two jaws as well. And that she was standing in the middle of them.
