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It wasn’t just any centaur. These were the Nephelidai. They rode our paths and shared the sacred rites at our groves. For one desperate second, the healer in me expected the centaur to catch the bleeding man and call for help.

Then the centaur grabbed the villager by the hair.

I screamed. Eryx was already moving. He broke the beast’s grip and dragged the wounded man clear. His sword scraped across the stone wall, sparking. Eryx’s snakes shot forward, striking the centaur’s arm. Their venom worked quickly. The beast collapsed against the doorway, his hooves thrashing in the mud.

I looked away from the centaur and focused on the bleeding man. His fingers were slippery, pressed frantically against the deep gash in his belly. I replaced his hand with my own and let my life magic trickle into the wound.

It closed, and the man sobbed in relief. But I didn’t have time for his gratitude. “Go,” I ordered, pointing toward the tree line. “Don’t stop walking until you reach the trees, and don’t look back.”

He staggered away, leaving blood smeared across my fingers. Across the path, another centaur drove his spear straight through a door, cutting short the shrieks inside. The attacker braced a hoof against the wood and wrenched the weapon free.

An arrow shattered against the wall beside my head. Eryx caught me around the waist and hauled me behind the cart. Another shaft buried itself deep in the wood, inches from my face. Beneath the wheel, the hot wind of the fires blew sparks over the dead woman’s ruined shawl.

Eryx’s hand rose toward his blindfold. His serpents reared back, hissing so fiercely the sound vibrated against my cheek.

Then he stopped.

“My gaze can stop this,” he said, his voice a low, agonized rumble. “It can kill the centaurs. But Thalia, I can’t control it. If I pull my blindfold off, the death energy will take everyone.”

I grabbed his wrist. Beyond the cart, a child was crying for someone who wasn’t answering. The sound cut straight through the roar of the fire. Eryx’s hand shook beneath my fingers, hovering just over the silk.

“Then we have to find some other way,” I said, pulling it down. “Come with me. We can slip past this wall and get behind the fighting.”

He stepped between me and the open road. Smoke stung my eyes until tears blurred the burning roofs. We moved carefully along the stonework. A pair of centaurs blocked the path to the council hall, dragging a villager across the dirt. One turned as we approached and raised his bow. Eryx shoved me into the shelter of a doorway and lunged forward.

Even blindfolded, without his gaze as his weapon, my mate was deadly. The centaurs tried to fight him off, but they were no match for a gorgon’s unleashed strength.

Eryx was crushing the second centaur’s windpipe under his boot when I heard my father’s voice. “There are children in there! Let them come out before you set the doors alight.”

I ran toward his voice. My father stood at the foot of the council hall’s steps. He pressed one arm tightly against his ribs, the blood soaking through his sleeve. Behind him, black smoke poured from the open doors. Nessos waited a few paces away in the mud, an iron-tipped arrow nocked to his string.

I knew that bow. I’d seen it slung across his broad back when he came to our village, when he sat at our hearth, when he offered me his hand on the forest path. I simply couldn’t comprehend why he was aiming the arrow at my father’s chest.

“Whatever you want from me, leave them out of it,” Father yelled, taking a step toward the centaur. “They have done nothing to your tribe.”

Nessos drew the string to his cheek.

“Father!”

He turned his head toward my scream. The iron point struck him square in the chest. The force of the arrow drove him backward against the wooden steps. His good hand lifted, fingers grasping at nothing as if he meant to brace himself mid-fall.

Behind me, Eryx called my name. But Father was falling, and I was too far away to catch him.

He hit the ground before I reached the steps. I dropped to my knees and pulled his head into my lap. His mouth opened, filling instantly with blood. I wrapped my hands tightly around the shaft. I couldn’t heal him. Not like this.

“I’m right here,” I begged, my voice cracking into a ragged sob. “Don’t try to speak. Just let me help.”

Gripping the arrow, I pulled it out of the wound. He twitched, but made no noise. Shaking, I bent over him, searching the torn flesh for anything my magic could knit together.

His fingers caught my skirt. I drove the current of the Endless Forests into his chest, channeling it directly into his wound. I knew how to mend torn muscle. I knew how to force a body to continue the work of living. But the blood was pouring out faster than I could weave the flesh.

His heart faltered.

“No, stay with me.” I leaned closer, desperate to catch his fading gaze. “Father, please. I can fix this if you just keep breathing.”

His hand loosened from my skirt. I felt nothing but a hollow stillness beneath my palms. The body resting against my knees was still warm, but he was completely gone. There was nothing left in him for my magic to answer.

I pushed the heat into him again, sobbing. He had wanted me to look at him when he handed me to Eryx. I’d turned my back because I wanted him to hurt, to carry the guilt of stealing my choice. I never meant for this.