Page 186 of A Legacy of the Light

I nod hesitantly.

“I’ll find you when it’s safe.”

Tavish kisses me again and leaves the room without a second glance.

Reyne throws clothes onto the bed and armor similar to hers from my pack.

“I packed this just in case,” she says. “Get dressed, quickly. We don’t have much time, Elsie.”

Her voice is calm and sure and steadies some of what is roiling beneath my skin.

I take the clothes she laid out and hurry into the bathroom, keeping the sheets around me in a tight fist. When I return, all my items have been packed and Reyne has my bag slung over her shoulders, sword in hand.

“Put the armor on,” she commands.

I hurry to her side and slip my feet into my boots. I stand and Reyne sheaths her sword to help me into the breast plate, cut similar to hers. The metal feels a lot heavier than the training leathers I’ve grown used to.

When she’s satisfied that I’m secure, she grabs another belt and wraps it around my waist. Two short swords are attached within easy reach at my hips.

Screams pierce through the air from the courtyard below the window. We whip our heads in the direction of Brollachan tearing their way through Claver. Glass breaks, and the sounds of doors being ripped off their hinges echo through the night.

Reyne takes my trembling hands in hers. “Remember everything I taught you?”

“Yes,” I reply shakily.

“Now is the time to use it. But only if they come at us. We don’t seek them out. We move quickly and quietly.”

I marvel at the evenness of her voice, there is no fear on her face.

“It’s going to be okay, Elsie,” she tries to assure me. “Come on. We need to get to the stables.”

Reyne keeps one of my hands in hers, her sword in the other. She gestures for me to draw my own and I pull the blade from the sheath at my side, the metal rasping softly as it’s freed from the stiff leather.

We hurry to the door and Reyne leans out to look down each end of the hallway.

“All clear. Let’s go,” she whispers and we silently tread down the corridor.

We clear the two flights of stairs, and are almost to the ground floor when snarling and hissing noises sound from the inn’s main room.

Reyne holds a finger to her lips, and we take the last flight of stairs as quietly as we possibly can. We reach the bottom, and find three of the guards we travelled with, Fergal among them, armed and waiting.

They nod at Reyne when we join them.

“How many?” she asks quietly, crouching low next to Fergal.

“Two,” he replies and peers around the open door. “Make that three.” He settles back against the wall.

We wait in tense silence as the Brollachan crash around the bar.

“We need a distraction,” Reyne says. She searches around us for anything we might use. A door stands open behind us, just off the staircase, brooms and mops barely visible in the small amount of light filtering through from the door we are crouched around.

“Wait here,” she whispers to me and slips through the gap in the door. I take two steady breaths and Reyne is back at my side, a small wooden scrubbing brush gripped tightly in her hand.

She nods to Fergal and the other guards. “On my signal.”

They hold their weapons tighter and my heart beats thunderously in my chest.

Reyne whips around the door and launches the scrubbing brush as hard as she can to the far side of the room. It crashes, breaking glasses and bottles where it lands twenty feet from us behind the bar. The Brollachan snarl, and the sounds of claws on stone reverberate through us all as the creatures rush to the source of the noise.