The shadowfiend whirled on her, snapping its fangs. The fear on her face shook through me.
Without even thinking, I leapt into the air. My wings sprouted from my back, and I drove my blade into the beast’s neck.
Blood sprayed into my face. The beast stilled, and then its body dropped heavily on the stone battlement, shaking the wall. I landed in a crouch beside Fenella, tucked my wings away, and smiled. “See? Swords can be useful sometimes.”
She barked out a laugh, but I could tell by the paleness of her face and the sheen of sweat on her brow that she was more shaken than she wanted to let on. I knew the feeling.
Another scream sounded behind me. My heart in my throat, I whirled on my feet to face the newest threat. But it was only the sound of another beast dying, this one to the brutality of Toryn’s spear. Its tip shot right through the shadowfiend’s eye and buried itself in its skull. The light in its eyes died a second later.
I braced myself, ready for the next group to claw their way over the mountain wall.
Fenella collected her daggers from the fallen beast’s fur and came to stand beside me. We both gazed into the mists, our bodies tense, our weapons raised. Silence and stillness was our only answer.
Kalen frowned and motioned the archers forward before looking over the damaged crenels. They rushed to his side and threw some more lit oil down into the darkness. Something tightened in my chest as the minutes passed. Were more coming? Surely it couldn’t have been as easy as that.
“How many was that?” Kalen called up to the fae still stationed in the watchtower.
The fae leaned against the wooden railing, his pale hair falling across his sharp cheekbones, and called back, “I counted twenty.”
Twenty? Was that it? Somehow, that felt both far too few and far too many at once. But twenty, plus those taken out by the archers…how many shadowfiends had we seen in that camp? It was far more than we’d faced so far. Perhaps the enemy had realized they couldn’t breach this city by sending monsters up the wall. And so they were holding the rest back.
As if our thoughts were in sync, Kalen spoke to the warriors gathered around him. “Haul the dead beasts over the wall. Send them back where they came from. Let’s send a message to our enemies.”
The warriors of Dubnos cheered. A breeze picked up their exuberant cries and spread them through the streets behind us. And then we got to work. Fenella and I dragged the beast we’d felled over to the wall and tossed it into the shadows. It vanished into a tumbling ball of fur and bloodied flesh, along with the others Kalen and Toryn had killed.
It did not take us long to clear the battlements, though remnants of the fight stained the stone. The beasts had taken out a handful of our archers. Several warriors collected them and carried them away while Druid Balfor looked on, his brow pinched. He followed them down the stone steps leading into the courtyard below and toward the Temple. Eventually, they’d be laid to rest in the catacombs beneath the city.
Silence descended once more. I watched as Kalen paced beside the crumbled bit of wall where the shadowfiends had launched their attack. He clearly didn’t think this was over. Neither did I.
Fenella clasped my shoulder. “Nice fighting.”
I gave her a smile. High praise, coming from her. “You, too.”
“I owe you one. Again.”
“Fenella, you don’t have to—”
Her hand gripped my shoulder tighter. “My cousin is wrong about you. It doesn’t matter if you’re mortal or if you have a god’s blood running through your veins. You will make an excellent queen, and I will gladly serve you.”
I opened my mouth, trying to find the right words to say, but she turned away and started wiping off her bloody daggers. Conversation over. And so I smiled and drifted over to Kalen.
He slowed his pacing when I approached, but the tension in his face remained. “It won’t have been this easy.”
“I agree. I could fly down there again. See what the enemy is doing now.”
“They might expect that now, since you already did it once. I won’t risk you like that.”
“Fair point. But there must be something—”
“Your Majesty!” one of the archers shouted. We turned toward the fae woman who was pointing down into the mist. “More beasts are coming!”
Kalen sprang into action. “Tessa, return to Fenella and Toryn’s line. Archers, let’s try something new. Light your arrows with the flaming oil and get ready.”
Archers rushed into formation and lit their arrows on fire.
The creak of bows being pulled taut echoed through the silence, loud even over the thud of my boots. I slid in beside Fenella just as the burning arrows flew, carrying with them a storm of blazing death. From down the wall, beasts screamed as the arrows hit their marks. Flames flashed through the night, lighting up the mist.
For a moment, the sky was lit with orange. And then the light died, tumbling down the mountain and into the dark.
