‘You should go,’ he said. ‘I’m going to help.’
‘Help withwhat?’ she yelped.
She could hear other shouts now, across the woods, back where they’d just come from.
‘Go,’ Arawn said. ‘To your tower, before you bring more trouble to either of us than it’s worth.’
‘Ezer.’
She went rigid at the voice of the wind.
No,she thought.Not now.
It was coming from behind her. Back towards Arawn.
And suddenly those faraway shouts were louder – the sound of the chittering eagles had grown – and the whisper was now an insistent hiss.
‘EZER!’
‘What?’ she screamed out loud as she turned.
She nearly toppled sideways at what she saw.
Because there, just over Arawn’s shoulders … a shadow had appeared in the tops of the trees.
It can’t be,Ezer thought, as she felt her own eyes widen. And she began to tremble in fear.
She watched as a monster – a beast that was half raven and half black panther – climbed down from the treetops, heading straight for them.
10
She screamed.
And this time it was Arawn who lunged for her.
His strong arms wrapped around her torso, and then they were falling. Soaring backwards, the force of his hit so strong she felt her nose crack against his collarbone as they slammed against the forest floor.
The pain was white-hot beneath her skin.
They hit the ground and rolled, the weight of his body pulling her with him as they landed on the moss.
‘Don’t move,’ he gasped as he straddled her, holding her in place.
She could barely breathe beneath his weight, and her own blood dripping down her face.
But she saw, from over his shoulder, the beast that had appeared from inside the trees.
Gods.
The stories were true.
All of them,true, for though few survivors returned from the warfront, their tales had still spread across Lordach like wildfire in the wind. Every scroll that came to her tower, every soldier’s name and cause for death…
She’d read all she could about the raphons,the raven-cats of nightmares.
And in the fleeting glimpse she caught of the beast … she felt like her own heart might stop.
Horrifying,beautiful,a nightmare incarnate as it leapt with boundless grace from the branches of one tree to another.
