The guard who cast my wrist bindings is focused on Sebastian now, his concentration split. I wrench my wrists apart. The shadow bindings flicker, shudder, and then shatter like glass.
I give a shout of triumph because I’m free.
Then I slide from the horse and go to work.
I reach for the shadows beneath the horses, beneath the guards’ own feet, and I yank them upward. They snap around the nearest caster’s wrists like shackles, jerking his arms wide. His magic dissolves, and the tendril holding Sebastian’s sword arm evaporates.
Sebastian surges forward, arm free, and cuts the guard down with a single savage strike.
He presses forward, and I cover his flank. A guard hurls shadow magic at Sebastian’s back, and I counter with a thin shield that deflects it just wide enough to miss.
I gasp from the sheer exertion.
Another guard swings his sword while simultaneously casting shadow tendrils from his free hand. Sebastian catches the blade against his own, steel screaming against steel, and I wrap shadows around the guard’s casting arm, wrenching it down. Sebastian finishes him with a devastating strike to the temple. The guard drops like a stone.
Fire next. I reach for the air around me, calling on my firefae blood. I pull it tight, compress it, heat it. Fire blooms between my palms; it’s nothing like the roaring inferno I could have conjured at full strength, but it’s enough. It has to be.
I throw it with everything I have.
A searing bolt catches the nearest guard square in the hands. He screams, his shadow magic snuffed out in an instant. Sebastian is on him before he can recover, a vicious pommel strike to the jaw that sends the fae spinning into the dirt.
Two guards left. They look at each other, then at their companions groaning on the ground, their magic shattered, their leader face down in the road.
They wheel their horses and ride hard toward the castle.
Sebastian lets them go.
He stands in the middle of the road, chest heaving, sword dripping. His knuckles are split, and there’s a bleeding cut above his left eye. His shirt is torn, and I can see the hard lines of muscle beneath. His tattoo is partially bared.
He looks magnificent.
The silence that follows is broken only by the groaning of one of the fallen guards and the nervous stamping of riderless horses. One whinnies and gallops away.
I lower my hands; my arms are shaking. My well is now completely depleted. My shoulders slump, my breath coming in rapid gasps.
Sebastian drops the bloodied sword on the ground and crosses to me in three long strides.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is rough.
“I have no magic left, but otherwise I’m fine.” I’m tired and bruised, but I’m alive, and we’re free, which is more than I expected not so long ago. “You came for me.” I sound shocked. I still almost can’t believe it.
He nods once.
His eyes move over me, checking for injuries. They linger on my wrists, on the angry red marks the shadow bindings left behind. His jaw tightens.
“You arenotfine.” He takes my arm, his thumb gently running along the raised welt.
“This is superficial,” I tell him.
He looks at the red welt, nods once, then lets me go and turns away.
“We need to leave,” he says, striding to Jack, who is still waiting close by. “It won’t be long before they bring reinforcements.”
“You’re right.” I grab the saddle horn, putting my foot in the stirrup. After fumbling, trying to mount, Sebastian grips my thighs and hoists me onto the horse in one easy movement.
“Thanks,” I mutter, trying to find the other stirrup.
Sebastian mounts one of the guards’ steeds. He swings into the saddle, gathering the reins.
