Calling on my deep light, I reach for the strength I need to wrench Cohen down toward the ground while I continue to drop my full weight at the same time.
He loses his balance, only for a moment, but it’s long enough.
A shout strangles in his throat as my left hand closes around the back of his exposed neck.
The whip’s lashes spiral through the air, slashing toward my face, turning to liquid that will surely form blades, but I don’t care how many cuts I suffer now that my brother is dead.
I smash Cohen’s head, face first, into the stone.
Again and again.
Vicious, merciless hits.
Breaking his skull like he broke my brother’s.
Blood splatters up across my face and that’s when the silence around me breaks.
Chaos erupts as Blacksmiths shout and storm in my direction.
Leaping away from Cohen, I meet the nearest man head on, inviting the cut of his glaive as I dart to my right, my left hand snaking out and bending his wrist back, breaking the bones and forcing him to drop his weapon into my other hand.
His glaive is now mine.
I spin, twist, and strike back at the next man.
I hardly know what I’m doing as I slash and cut and punch and kick, stealing another glaive so that now I have two while I drop the men who come at me.
Then I’m beside Nero.
Blood covers the back of his neck where he has strained to raise his head and get free of the noose that pins him to the ground.
He’s breathing heavily, his voice seething. “My daughter.”
“My brother,” I snarl at him before I swing one of the glaives at his head.
The blade slices through the chains pinning him down, freeing him.
I drop the glaive beside him before I spin to face the next Blacksmith.
Nero jolts forward, snatching up the blade I gave him before launching himself up from his knees. He sprints toward Petra, swings the blade at the pole, and cuts through her chains.
She slides to the ground, her legs clearly giving way, but he catches her.
Pulling her into his arms, he runs for the gap between the guards that I’m creating for them.
“Go!” I roar.
But now Petra is facing the courtyard and she has seen Thoren.
“Thoren! No!” She screams and struggles, trying to free herself from her father’s hold, crying my brother’s name over and over again.
Nero’s arms clamp around her as he pulls her away from danger, running with her through the opening in the wall, darting left and right to avoid the arrows raining down on them from above.
Outside the wall, fighting has erupted. Humans are battling Blacksmiths, and part of the spiked barrier has been torn apart…
That’s all I see before the Blacksmith guards within the courtyard close ranks around me.
Half of the Blacksmiths on the ramparts point their arrows at me while the other half fire into the crowd outside.
