“I physically cannot, Generali.” His palm’s plastered to his chest, to his heart.
I take it he must be the guard Justus bargained with. The one supposed to keep Meriam safe at all costs. The one spared an impious crate-burial at sea.
Tavo growls, then whips out the iron sword he used on Bronwen and thrusts it through the startled soldier’s chest. Pity swarms me when he crumples, but I shove it aside. For all I know, his blockade was only spurred by a bargain and not by compassion.
Something slaps my ankles and tangles around my legs. Lungs emptying of air, I skid. My arms windmill, sending my giant sword soaring from my fingers and onto the ice with a deafening clatter. I stick out my hands just as my knees slam into the ground. My bones scream, but I don’t.
“Caught you,” Dante singsongs, his voice originating from thin air now that we’re connected by what feels like a chain.
He tugs, reeling me in like a hooked fish.
I rake my nails through the ice and kick my legs to dislodge my restraints. “Meriam!”
Her head jounces and her lids flutter.
“Meriam, Tavo wants to use Lore to cut through your veins. You have to stop him!”
She blinks her hazy pink eyes at me.
Come on. Come on.“Kill Tavo, Meriam!”
I pray to the Cauldron with every last beat of my heart that Meriam understands what I’m saying and will do something about it.
Tavo jams the butt of his sword against her temple, knocking her unconscious.
I shriek, my cry so shrill it shakes the ice cave.
A smile warps Tavo’s mouth, and he laughs. He fucking laughs.
But then he stops because a fierce wind erupts from the turquoise gloom and slams against him, rooting him and Meriam to the spot.
A spot that’s too close to Lore for comfort but too far for him to angle my grandmother against my mate’s gleaming beak. I almost weep with relief when I see the source of the wind.
Eighty-Four
Gabriele’s here.
I’m no longer alone.
I scan the darkness for Justus, praying he, too, has found his way inside the ice cave, but then my body bumps into something. I glance over my shoulder, expecting to see Dante before remembering he’s currently as invisible as I am.
I hear him mutter something about killing me himself. Though his voice is low, I can tell I still have a dozen or so seconds before I reach him.
What I bumped into reappears—one of the soldiers whose waist I sawed through. Though my arm muscles jangle, I manage to hoist him on top of me, then plaster him to the front of my body just as I stop gliding.
I push out my senses to hear Dante’s breathing, but my heart is hammering too wildly to grasp much of anything over the harsh beats. Even the shouting around me barely registers.
Water sloshes over us, shaping our bodies. As I gag on a mouthful, a blade whacks into my shield of flesh with such vehemence that the impact nails the back of my skull to the ice and rattles my teeth.
I lay there, dazed, the heat of the man’s life pouring from his veins and dripping around me.
The tip of Dante’s sword grates against my armor, and I think he’s figured out my trick, but the chain clinks, and the Faerie King reappears.
He thinks I’m bleeding out. I’m so stunned that he fell for my ruse that, for a handful of seconds, all I can do is blink.
But then Gabriele yells, “Justus, get to Fallon! She’s bleeding out.”
Justus is here.
