He continues walking without acknowledging that dig.
After a few minutes of complete silence, I let out an exhausted sigh and call out for Dellilian again. Is it possible she’s been taken? Hurt? Scared? Wandered off like a small child?
“Dellilian! We’re safe! Big bad DaiSzek is gone now!” I holler again, sending echoes of my voice to nearby caves.
Niklaus’s upper stiffens and his steps slow down. Here we go again, another outburst of annoyance.
“Dellilian!” I shout again, louder this time to piss him off a step further.
“Shut. The. Fuck. Up!” Niklaus hisses over his shoulder.
“Ohhh,” I say incredulously. “When I figure out how to travel back home, I’m leaving your ass behind!”
What part of his stupid little brain is telling him that it’s a good idea to bite the hand that feeds him? I’m ouronlyway home!
Niklaus spins on his heels to get in my face, scowling down at me with an alarmed expression. He presses one finger to his lips, drawing my attention to the stubble growing on his face, the faint trace of five o’clock shadow.
The idiot is shushing me now. He’sshushingme.
The hairs on the back of my neck rise at the loud silence, then a shuffling sound slicing through it like a scalpel, dissecting the stillness of the forest.
It’s not the shuffling of an animal. It’s the movement of boots.
My eyes widen, and as I lock eyes with Niklaus, we seem to share a thought, silently communicating our exhaustion and confusion as to why this is happening to us. Even through time, why can’t we seem to escape being followed? How could this even be a factor we’re worrying about? We don’t even technically exist here…
The trees creak in the strengthening wind, carrying the heavy, humid scent of an upcoming storm. In the corner of my vision, a tall figure shifts behind a distant tree.
I sigh.
“What’ll it be, gentlemen? You’ve already lost the element of surprise.” Niklaus raises his voice, scanning the trees.
It’s as if he’s talking to himself, yet we can practically hear their shallow breaths wisping through the falling leaves and spindly twigs.
Niklaus looks into the distance with narrowing eyes, tugging his black eyebrows together as he concentrates.
“What is it?” I whisper.
His arm snaps upward, wrist locking into place against a small gust of wind that whooshes past my cheek. The blade of a small throwing knife slices into his palm. A throwing knife he intercepts before it lodges in his shoulder. Gritting his teeth, he throws it back in the same direction it came, hitting something that groans and falls to the ground.
The men dart from their hiding places all at once, kicking up dirt as they charge us from every angle. The attack this time is different than the last two. I thought there were only a couple of assailants hiding among us. But there are a little over a dozen this time.
“Oh my god,” I mutter.
Niklaus and I release our weapons even though we both can feel it. The only reason I wasn’t overpowered and killed last time was because Uncle Niles threw himself in the line of fire—using his hands to block the strikes of a blade.
A heavy blanket of doom drapes over my entire body as the fighting begins. Nerves prickle over the lining of my stomach. A near-painful chill burrows under my skin.
There are too many.
We’ve been trained. But we aren’t anywhere close to the legend of my father. It was said he could handle this many assailants. More, in fact. And in this moment, watching a storm of armed men rush us all at once, I wish my father was here now.
A throwing knife snags the side of my hip as I fight off two grown men, whacking their swords from opposite directions. I scream as a small chunk of flesh and blood is ripped from my upper thigh.
“Sapphire?!” Niklaus shouts over the chaotic noise of clanking metal.
“I’m okay!” Fuck no, I’m not. But the adrenaline powers through me, numbing my entire quad.
Niklaus grunts and falls to his knees as he’s kicked in the lower back. I make the mistake of looking back to check on him, and the hard knuckles of an assailant to my left cracks into my cheekbone. My vision blurs, and I blink furiously to relieve myself of watery eyes.
