What if this was as much an illusion as the shadow she’d seen? What if this was a trap the mountain had set for her?
Lory heaved a breath, then another, eyes shuttering as she forced herself to focus on details—anything that would give away whether she was imagining things.
A low growl sounded behind her, making her shrink into the bush, and her foot got caught on the branches as she struggled to keep her balance.
Lory held her breath, begging the Guardians she was indeed imagining things, or that small misstep would alert the others to her presence and give away her location.
“Who’s there?” Nyla called into the night, her tone half obnoxious, half filled with dread.
Leaning on her free leg, Lory raised her brooch-clutching hand to send the beautiful item flying through the darkness.
“Show yourself.”
This was real. Everything about it. Even Aiden’s magic, slithering along the ground, casting the grass hoarfrost while he kept ice crystals dancing in one palm.
Now, she wanted to shout at him. Take Nyla outnow.But Aiden was already one step ahead as Nyla called into the night for a third time, voice shaking, “Fucking show your face, coward.”
It was that moment Aiden’s power lashed out at the roots Nyla had woven around Tabi’s body, the bindings shattering in a glacial kiss, and the woman slumped to the ground while Nyla scrambled out of the needle-sharp particles’ path.
Aiden turned to dart for Tabi, but Lory was already sprinting, her legs surprisingly stable as she ambled to drag Tabi out of Nyla’s way before she could realize what was going on.
“Tabi!” Lory grabbed the unconscious woman under the arms and pulled her aside, hoping that Aiden wouldn’t attack her. “Wake up.”
If the woman helped a little, they might actually make it.
Or not?—
With a groan, Tabi opened her eyes, but the expression of horror on her face wasn’t meant for Lory. It was for Nyla, whose power was summoning fresh roots from the ground, their ends feeling for Lory’s ankles, winding around them tight enough to make her stumble. Catching herself with a brooch-clutching fist on the boulder at her side, Lory cursed, hoisting Tabi higher with her other arm.
“You need to run, Tabi.” A girl could hope… But Tabi was in no shape to even walk, let alone stand on her own feet, her uniform torn in places, and blood leaking from long, slender wounds on her thighs, calves, arms, and sides.
Again, Nyla’s magic lashed out, a thin, long root curling around Lory’s leg, tugging so hard she lost her footing and dropped Tabi.
If only she could use her fire—she could burn through the subterranean greenery and be done with it, but alerting the entire mountain to her location by far didn’t outweigh the advantage it would give her.
“Lory, duck!”
Like the crack of a whip, Aiden’s warning made Lory crouch over Tabi’s chest, and not one moment too soon. A streak of silvery blue flew past her, hitting the woman commanding the root holding Lory in place, and Lory’s heart threatened to break free from her chest.
“What are you waiting for?” Aiden panted, doubling over a few feet away. “Get out of here, Lory. I’ve got Tabi.”
The Guardians knew, Lory considered it. Considered running, the way Khayrivven had suggested—the way Aiden wanted her to run, but with a glance at Tabi, Lory knew she couldn’t leave the injured woman behind. A glance at Aiden and the gash in his side, which she noticed only now that he was close enough to make out his pain-torn features, and she knew she couldn’t leave them.
Behind her, Nyla moaned, and Lory turned in a knee-jerk reaction, putting herself between the root wielder and her friends, hand with the brooch raised and wondering how she’d access the blade supposedly hidden within it.
“I’ve got it, Lory,” Aiden insisted, magic already swirling in his palm. “Go.”
Whether Khayrivven had sent out a memo that was what he wanted Lory to do or Aiden got the idea all on his own no longer mattered when Nyla’s hand twitched and the root that had loosened when she’d been hit by Aiden’s power wound around Lory’s ankles once more, climbing higher and higher until it reached her waist, then her chest. Breathing became harder with every second as the roots squeezed her like a lemon. No question Nyla was here for the hunt; she didn’t care which of the criminals most of Ashthorn despised she killed.
Just like when she’d found them, Aiden stood paralyzed as Nyla threatened to squish Lory with a flick of her fingers, his ice useless. But Lory wasn’t done. She hadn’t survived this long to die on this mountain. Hadn’t fought for her life in the streets only so she could become a trophy kill for a student who believed they were superior because of their upbringing or their magic or the easy life that had been handed to them.
“Get Tabi!” she shouted instead of releasing the scream of panic lodged in her throat. “I’ve got this.”
Because she did. As she slid her fingers over the brooch, a small, curved hook caught on her index finger, and with a pull, a tiny blade hatched from the side of the item, mechanism clicking as it locked, blocking the blade from retreating into its gilded shell.
Thank you, Khayrivven,she thought at the man whose secrets might one day destroy her, and with one long swipe, she cut into the root at her thigh, piercing flexible wood.
Like a stabbed snake, the root recoiled, snapping loose from Lory’s limb and slithering across the ground until itvanished, everything past the stab-wound dragging limply across earth and leaves, and the air quivered when Nyla released a scream of pain as if Lory had rammed the two-inch blade into her very flesh.
