Someone got hit.
Not a heartbeat after, a pair of bootsteps go beating right past us.
My face twists.
I have the fleeting thought of a warrior running to his fallen mate.
But there’s no way to know in the dark and the panic, in the rain and the rush.
If there are more shouts, more struck kuris, I wouldn’t know. The noise is too great, the cracks like thunder all around.
And I can’t see a fucking thing.
My arms loop that bit tighter around Samick’s neck. My thighs clench more, ankles locking, and all I can think is,I’m not letting go, not until the hail stops, not until we’re under shelter.
But these rocks coming from the sky might pierce through roofs and cars—I don’t know.
I’ve never known hail to sound so violent.
It only gets worse.
The run goes on for so long that the hail storming down on us brings shouts and cries from all over the darkness. All over the unit.
Fae and humans alike are struck—and both shout with the pain.
It cringes me.
But Samick’s hand doesn’t leave my head.
Maybe it’s been struck, his knuckles bruised and bashed in and bloodied, and I have no idea.
Maybe he can do something with the ice, stop it from touching us, because he can do that thing with frost on his fingers when his rage climbs.
My attention is split—
Samick’s body suddenly tenses against mine. He throws his cheek to my temple, almost crushing me with the pressure, and I hear a crack.
But then, at the exact same moment, there’s the crushing sound of bone breaking.
My teeth bare against the hollow shout that’s gravelled, like it’s dragged over stone. It’s a sound that can only come from a fae, from their throats, not from a human.
It sounds just an arm’s reach from me.
Like if I let go of Samick and grabbed at the air over his shoulder, I would touch the mangled, screaming face of a fae.
But that’s where Mika should be.
That’s where she grabbed the rope, the one that leads the warriors through the storm together. Maybe it stops them getting separated—and that, I wonder, might mean they can’t see so well in the storm of rain and hail and distorted winds.
The shouting fae behind Samick draws in a commotion.
Darkness makes it hard to know what’s going on, but it sounds like someone rushes to her aid.
Samick doesn’t.
He keeps running with the unit, in formation, all the way to the distant sound of…
Metal.
