She heard it plainly now.
Witch!
Darcy shifted, drawing her slightly behind him, though he did not release her. She felt the change in him—the way his breath shortened, the tremor shuddering through his spine. He was not strong. Not as he ought to be.
“Do not hold me so tightly,” she whispered. “I am hurting you.”
His hand tightened instead.
A pistol fired.
The report cracked across the fields—and misfired in the same instant. The spark flared sideways, spitting harmlessly into the damp air. The man holding it swore and jerked back as though burned.
Brutus lunged… just as a second report split the air.
Elizabeth did not at first understand what had happened. The dog’s bark broke into a strangled yelp. He stumbled mid-stride and crashed hard upon his side, legs scrabbling against the frozen ground.
Darcy’s breath tore from him—not a word, but a sound she had never heard before. “Brutus!”
The name struck her like the shot itself. Heat flared through her chest, sharp and sickening, as though the bullet had found her instead. She tried to see past Darcy’s shoulder—tried to move—but the world narrowed to the dark shape on the ground and the red already spreading against the dog’s pale flank.
The man who had fired lifted the pistol again. He did not keep it.
Darcy slipped from Elizabeth’s side and wrenched forward with a strength that should not have been left to him. The weapon was struck from the man’s hand and flung into the grass. A cry rose from the crowd—anger, fear, something breaking loose.
Elizabeth stumbled forward, dropping to her knees beside Brutus. His body trembled beneath her hands. Blood slicked her fingers. His eyes rolled once, frantic, then found her. He was panting and whimpering, frenzied with pain and the desire to protect.
“It is nothing,” she breathed, though her voice shook. “It is nothing. You shall not leave us.”
A rough hand caught her shoulder—not cruel, but urgent. Harrowe. “Leave him to me,” he said sharply.
Before she could protest, he bent and gathered the great dog into his arms. Brutus gave a low, broken whimper but did not struggle. Harrowe turned at once, carrying him clear of the advancing press as the crowd surged inward.
The space Harrowe had left closed at once. A militia officer forced his way through the front ranks, face flushed and set with a terrible certainty. He glared at Darcy, then the man whose pistol Darcy had flung off the road. Steel flashed in his hand, and he moved grimly towards Elizabeth.
Darcy stepped between them. “Stay that blade!”
The officer rounded upon Darcy instead. “Out of the way,” he snarled, and there was no mistaking his intention. The blade descended with deliberate force.
Darcy raised his arm to turn it aside. He had no strength for such a contest. She felt that plainly in the tremor still running through him.
And yet the stroke did not fall as it should. The steel met something unseen and would not pass it.
A thin, unnatural sound threaded the air—metal under strain. Before Elizabeth’s eyes, the bright length of the sword altered. It did not glance away. It did not shatter.
It yielded.
The blade bowed inward upon itself, its straight line curving as though pressed against a weight no one could see. The officer cried out and staggered back, staring at the weapon in his grasp.
Darcy reeled with the force of it, his balance failing. She reached for him, but he caught her first, one arm coming hard about her waist. The shock ran through him and into her, sharp as winter water.
For one suspended instant, the field held its breath.
Then the crowd recoiled. And surged.
“See how it turns!” someone shouted. “See how the torch flame bends? She’s a witch!”
A sword flashed in another man’s hand, and wrenched sideways as if tugged by an invisible hook. It tore free of his grip and struck the ground between Elizabeth and the nearest man, quivering upright in the earth.
