Chapter Fourteen
Ibolted throughthe gates, with a snapping gesture recruiting two more gate guards to accompany me. They obeyed with practiced alacrity. With the incline in our favor, we raced for the young women. Their faces red with exertion, they cried out when they saw us, holding out their arms in stark fear.
Younger than I’d thought. No more than girls, perhaps in their first prettygrown-up dresses, thinking they’d have nothing more than a sweet summer afternoon outing. That’s what they should’ve had. Nothing more than seeing the market and flirting in their summer frocks. Not this vile attack.
The two guards with me each seized a gratefully squealing girl, swinging her into their arms and running for the castle. The third girl, in a white dress with pink rosebuds, laggedbehind. As I ran toward her, I saw she’d lost her slippers—or they’d fallen off in pieces, because she’d run her feet raw, blood and dust caking her feet.
The smoke creatures reached her as I did, the oily ash cloud snaking around her, the distorted faces snarling silently. She screamed, a piercing sound of agony and despair. Reaching into the cloud, I tried to yank her free of it by seizingher wrist, the resistance as strong as if actual men held her. She cried piteously as I wrenched her shoulder.
Thrice curse it. Because I had to try, I swung my broadsword over her head through the murky figures. It passed through them as if I sliced at nothing, the unimpeded swing nearly taking me off balance. Recovering, with no time to sheathe my sword as the girl now hung limp in the clusterof shadow shapes, I tossed it aside and reached in for her.
The smoked slimed over my skin, the ash like grit in my eyes and nose. Memories and emotions not my own filled my mind—violence, despair, and a grinding need to reach Ordnung, to devour the living. My lungs strained for air, my heart booming in my chest, struggling to pump blood growing thick and oily, as I wrestled the creatures forthe girl.
Digging in, using all the strength I’d built over the years, fiercely glad for Kelleah’s healing that had me in top form, I took one step back, then another, dragging the girl back. Some of the writhing creatures came with us, but the others dug in also. Good for me as that allowed my head at least to pop free, and I took a deep breath of clean air, like a drowning man barely able topush his face above water.
The girl had gone entirely limp, dead weight in my arms, and I struggled back with all my might.
A warrior’s howl cut through the thick silence, the oily smoke parting around me as a sword cleaved it. The Deyrr creatures released their grip so abruptly that I fell back, the girl cradled in my arms.
“Give her to me,” a woman in silver armor demanded.
I blinked ather in confused disbelief. Kaedrin, warrior priestess of Danu. Her brown eyes snapped with impatience in her lean face. “Give her to me,” she repeated.
I relaxed my hold, and Kaedrin snatched up the girl, taking off at a run. Kelleah waited a safe distance away, wheeling to match Kaedrin’s stride, already laying hands on the girl, a green light emanating out.
Skull throbbing, heart still poundingand lungs tightly laboring for breath, I tried to stand but barely managed to sit. Until I saw Ursula.
A whirlwind of black and silver, rubies shining like beacons of fire, she spun faster than a hummingbird’s wings, slicing again and again at the increasingly indistinct figures. With each pass of her sword, the vaporous shapes lost human form, reduced to swirling clouds. The ruby on her swordhilt glowed with light brighter than dragon fire—but that seemed to burn the ash away as she defended me.
I struggled to my feet, trying to call for her, no breath to do it with. Reaching for her.
Ursula.
Essla.
Danu save her.
Even as I thought it, a deep blue glow washed over me, the feel of it somehow the same as the depths of Zynda’s eyes. My lungs abruptly cleared, strength returningto my limbs.
The blue wave of magic expanded, pushing out until it blended with the deep blue midsummer sky. With a palpable pop, it vanished again, leaving the fields clear. The taint of ash gone again, so only golden light of the long, light-filled evening ahead remained to fall over the growing fields and ripe orchards.
Abruptly bereft of an opponent, Ursula lurched much as I had, gracefullyregaining her footing in a spin that brought her to face me, a wild expression on her face. One that crumpled into relief when I opened my arms to her.
I grunted as she launched herself at me, a lithe arrow of a woman, bracing myself to absorb the impact as she rained kisses on my face, wrapping her long legs around my waist and clinging to me with all the considerable ferocity in her.
“I couldfucking kill you,” she said between kisses. “What in Danu’s freezing tits were you thinking?”
“That I had to do something,” I said. I stopped her with a long kiss, waiting until some of the tension dissolved in her body and she relaxed in the surety of my embrace. Then looking her in the eye, I offered a rueful smile. “I couldn’t just stand there and do nothing.”
“I know.” The knowledge showedin her steely gaze, and she sighed heavily. “You wouldn’t be you if you could.”
“But what in Danu wereyouthinking?” I growled, letting my fear for her turn into righteous anger. “You had no business coming after me. The High Throne comes first!”
She met my gaze evenly. “It should. I know that in my head. But in my heart, it’s not true. I’ll never be able to just stand there and do nothingif you’re in danger.”
I laughed a little at how neatly she threw my words back in my face, my own heart squeezing at the staggering impact of her declaration.
“I wouldn’t be me if I could,” she added, with a quirk of a smile.
