She twisted on the stone slab, looking desperately around the forest. Were the Circle back? They couldn’t be. They had weeks before they were due back.
And yet…
Vale breathed in, catching their scent. His glowing green eyes narrowed at the dark woods ahead.
Ivy turned, heart in her throat. Something was glinting in the dark. She couldn’t make it out from here, but she knew what it meant. It was the tell-tale glint of her uncle’s crossbow, raised ready to fire.
“Wait,” Ivy blurted.
She shot to her feet.
An arrow spun through the darkness.
Vale roared, moving for her. But while Skullstalkers were fast, an arrow was faster.
The bolt hit her just above her heart. Ivy stumbled back, raising a dazed hand to touch the arrow sticking into her. It was wrapped in malblossom, a flower she had helped them find when her uncle told her of his newest plot. It was the only mortal plant they knew of that could harm a Skullstalker.
Oh good, Ivy thought, dazed, as she rubbed the small white flowers that surrounded the arrow protruding from her skin.That would have really hurt him.
Vale roared. Her uncle yelled something back, but Ivy couldn’t hear it over the blood rushing through her ears.
She crumpled toward the stone. A huge clawed hand caught her, and Ivy found her cheek pressed against Vale’s cool collarbone. His fangs were bared, his green eyes glowing brighter than she’d ever seen them.
Another yell. This time, Ivy could hear it.
“Fire, damn you,” her uncle screamed.
She looked up just in time to see a second arrow streaking out of the darkness, right toward Vale’s head.
Eleven
Vale snatched the arrow out of the air and snapped it in two.
The malblossom twining wrapped around the weapon burned deep into his hand. He ignored it, cradling Ivy close as he watched the mortals pour out of the tree line.
There were six. Three men and three women, all bearing weapons except for one man who was holding two logs of firewood and looking scared out of his wits. One woman had half the straps of her breastplate on, the other straps hanging uselessly and making her breastplate clang against her chest.
They had not expected him, Vale realized as Christopher Silverpetal charged to the front of the group, swapping his crossbow for a mage’s staff. None of his other arrows were tied with malblossom, only those first two. The second had been so clumsily adorned that most of the malblossom had fallen off mid-flight, scattering to the forest floor below.
“Skullstalker,” called Christopher, pointing his mage’s staff at him. That infuriating vial still dangled from it, swinging distractingly. “You-you startled us! We thought you were something else.”
“Another Skullstalker, perhaps,” Vale snarled. “Standing at the stone slab where you offered up your niece to me?”
“Perhaps,” Christopher repeated, even mimicking Vale’s raspy accent. “You cannot be too careful. You understand. Speaking of my niece, might I have her back? She looks… unwell.”
“Because youshother,” Vale roared. “Andpoisonedmy void!”
He crouched, ready to spring. The mortals raised their weapons again, including the man with the firewood, who held it protectively in front of him.
“Well, that didn’t go quite as we hoped,” Christopher said in a rush. He raised his staff, that irritating vial swinging with the motion.
Ivy stirred weakly in Vale’s arms. Vale, who had never had anything to protect during a fight, looked down.
“NOW,” Christopher screamed.
A deluge of arrows and spells flew at him. Vale dodged and broke arrows and knocked a sword out of a charging man’s hand, sending him flying into the man carrying the firewood. Then he stomped on both men at once, blood splattering up his leg.
The women came for him next. He threw them all into a tree, which cracked under the force.
