Garrison leaned forward, cupping her face in his hands. He let his lips brush her cheek as he made his way to her ear. “What do you say we finished what we started up north?”
Rayna’s lips curled back, but no growl came. “You’re wrong, you know. Loving someone is never a weakness.” The words surprised her. Rayna was not sure she believed them—after all, her own enduring love for Channon terrified her.
Channon roared. He twisted his throat away from the sword, and slammed his elbow into his captor’s ribs.
The blade nicked his neck as he fell with the doubled-over guard.
Before Rayna could see what happened next, or how badly Channon was hurt, Garrison blocked her view.
He gripped her injured shoulder.
Rayna shrieked.
Her blood welled between Garrison's fingers, staining them red.
He tore the bloodied makeshift bandage off, exposing her wound. “Feel free to kill them both. Make sure she sees,” Garrison said. He pushed her backward into the hold of his two waiting men.
“No!” Rayna cried as she struggled against her captors.
Garrison haunted her dreams more than Rhael, more than Arabbus, and more than the disgusting, half-rotting Da’ Gammorn. But he was just one man.
She could not explain the unreasonable fear he inspired in her, but she could fight it.
Rayna rammed her ankle between one of her captors' legs. In the same moment, she shoved her elbow into the other's chin.
She ducked as they released her.
The first man fell to the ground, clutching his injured parts.
The second stumbled to the side. He opened his mouth, dripping blood. Rayna had pushed his bottom teeth through his tongue.
The shock gave Rayna one last heartbeat before Garrison reacted to the situation. She grabbed the first man's fallen sword.
Garrison dropped his apple in favor of his own blade.
As Rayna circled the captain, Channon pulled his claws from the last of the men who had attacked him. His arm and neck bled.
Channon approached Garrison from the back. He placed his claws against the bottom of Garrison's skull.
Kellan limped to Channon. He added Coer’s knife alongside Channon’s claws.
“Drop it.” Blood soaked Kellan’s collar, and coated his face.
The first of the men Rayna had attacked rose to his feet. Raising a dagger, he charged Rayna.
Without turning away from Garrison, Rayna thrust her sword behind her.
The guard froze, his dagger high in the air, as Rayna twisted her blade deeper into his gut.
“I am not afraid of you,” Rayna whispered.
Garrison tracked the man’s body as it slid off the sword, and crumpled onto the floor. With a grimace, he threw his own sword and knife on the ground beside the corpse.
“Good,” said Rayna, “now take this thing off of me.”
“Do as she says, Captain.” Channon dug his claws into Garrison’s neck.
Garrison reached toward Rayna’s neck.
Rayna cringed at his touch, but the release of the Monil made the contact worthwhile.
As soon as she was freed, Rayna turned to Garrison.
He tossed the Monil to the ground. “You'll never escape. Terayan knew you were coming. Why do you think I'm here?” He laughed.
“How could he know?” Rayna demanded. “You're lying.”
“You'll find out soon, darling.”
With a snarl, she swung the back of her hand across his temple.
He folded to the ground, unconscious but breathing.
Rayna ran to Channon and Kellan.
Kellan swayed, and both Channon and Rayna steadied him.
“Do you think it’s wise to leave Garrison alive?” Channon asked. His still-extended claws inched toward the unconscious captain.
Rayna hated Garrison. She would sleep more soundly knowing he could never hurt her again. But it wasn't right to kill a defenseless person, even one as hateful as Garrison.
“Terayan won’t take this second failure lightly. Besides, we don’t have time to debate. Come on.”
Channon growled lowly, but tore his gaze from Garrison.
The man with the bloody mouth stirred.
“We need to get out of here.” Rayna led the way out of the chamber.
“Rayna, there's a boy...” Kellan's voice slurred with exhaustion. “A Fenearen.”
“What? Who?”
“Aronak,” Kellan said. “He's on the prison's other side.”
Aronak. The name meant nothing to her. It did not sound like a Fenearen name. Was Kellan delirious?
“Rayna,” Channon broke in. “There isn't time.”
“Sorry, Kellan. We have to be in the courtyard now.”
“For the best,” Kellan mumbled. “He's dangerous.”
Without another word, they followed Rayna and Channon’s noses back toward the prison’s entrance.
Though it had happened but a heartbeat ago, Katrine could not accept what her eyes told her. Roxen couldn't be gone.
Mina's screams dissolved into sobs.
But, despite the grief and shock, Katrine realized Terayan's mistake.
He'd thrown away his leverage too early. The Monil was not on Katrine, yet.
Katrine formed, dodging the guard attempting to clasp the collar around her neck. She bit the soldier's leg, sweeping him to the ground. She sprang off his chest toward Terayan.
The Councilor's eyes flashed gold.
A shock-wave shoved Katrine backward. She slammed into the cliff-side The pain forced her into human form.
In her blurry vision, Terayan approached.
He snapped his finger.
Horrific pain splintered through Katrine's right arm.
“That's for not following orders. Now, instead of a clean death, I'll break you one bone at a time.”
“It's not her you want!” Mina shouted through her tears.
“No,” Terayan said. “It's Rayna. But she's already in prison. She'll find breaking out not so easy as breaking in.”
“Councilor!” One of the remaining Kyreans shouted in a high, reedy voice.
“Not now.” Terayan's molten gold eyes searched Katrine's body—deciding which bone to break next.
Katrine's balance and focus returned slowly. She could still fight. She had to.
“Councilor, look!”
A roaring echoed the soldier's panicked words. Behind Terayan, the ocean rose in a massive, white-capped wave.
Instinctively, Katrine's uninjured hand gripped a tree root growing from the cliff-side behind her.
Cold, salty water cascaded over them.
It punched the air from Katrine's lungs. Gritty seawater ran up her nostrils, and burned her eyes. It forced her broken arm backward. She screamed in bubbles.
But she held on.
It was over as suddenly as it started. The wave drained off the road, leaving mud in its wake.
Katrine gulped down air. She shook her soggy hair out of her face.
Mina, the soldiers, and the horses were gone. Only one other person had managed to resist the crushing water.
Terayan regained his feet. He turned his furious gaze on Katrine. “Enough of this!” With a furious roar, he raised his arm.
Katrine wanted to shut her eyes. She did not want to see the killing blow. But she would not submit in her last moments.
“Terayan!” A female voice seemingly from nowhere arrested the Councilor's movement. He turned away from Katrine, toward the ocean.
The Alvornian Priestess hovered beside the road. An unnatural peak of flowing water supported her feet. “Tallis Terayan.” She stepped onto the road a few tail-lengths away from him. “We meet at last.”
“Marielana.” Eerie tenderness threaded his words. “You have no idea how pleased I am to see you.”
“I'm sure the prospect of having two twice-blessed seers in your possession is exciting, but you will have neither Rayna nor I.”
“We
shall see.” Terayan thrust his arms forward, sending a shock-wave toward the priestess.
“Run!” Marielana shouted as she raised a wall of water to dispel Terayan's attack.
Katrine struggled to her feet. Clutching her broken arm, she ran down the road to Krymammer.
The plan was to extract the Fenearens and their allies from the courtyard. If she could hide close by, she would be in the right place to be rescued as planned.
But as she approached Krymammer's walls, the gate rumbled open.
Katrine leaped up onto the cliff side—barely hanging on with her already blistered left hand. She scrambled up the rocky gravel and dove behind a bush.
Men and horses thundered by moments later, no doubt reinforcements sent to help Terayan.
Though grateful to have escaped being trampled, Katrine's mind railed at her for hiding while others were fighting and—she gulped, thinking of Roxen—dying. She glanced around the bush.
The gates to Krymammer were still open.
“Oi!” A Kyrean soldier shouted from the road. He'd spotted her. “There's another one!”
Katrine jumped onto the road. She sprinted away from the guards—toward the prison.
Hoofbeats and clanging armor sounded behind her. As she approached the walls, arrows flew past her.
One cut her cheek.
Another grazed her leg, taking a chunk of flesh with it.
With a grunt, she ran into the courtyard.
Most of the soldiers beat down the building's door with a battering ram. Rayna and the others were nowhere in sight.
“Stop her!” Someone shouted from behind Katrine.
The wooden doors to Krymammer exploded inward.
Katrine dashed past the men still holding the heavy ram. Pain, fear, and panic ruled her mind. Instinct propelled her through the smashed door, and into Krymammer prison.
She sprinted through a vestibule, into a narrow corridor. Torch smoke choked her lungs. Shouts and clanging armor resounded behind her.
Katrine took every turn and every open door she could, hoping to lose her pursuers. But every step also took her farther from her packmates.
She was alone.
In that instant, her mind could not distinguish past from present. She ran through Krymammer, she escaped the Northern Densite, guards chased her, and Da’ Gammorn pursued her. It all merged together in a storm of terror.
She rounded another corner. The hall opened into a wide chamber, occupied by at least ten Kyreans.
“Our orders are clear!” One of the men shouted at the others. “No matter what happens, we must stay here and guard Aronak—” He saw Katrine. “Intruder!”
She did not stop to survey them. Katrine ran, clutching her broken arm, through the next available door.
Darkness came as a relief. She could not see where she was, but the lack of smoke and grit gave her a small measure of peace.
The men were not far behind her, though. She hurried through the darkness as they barreled in behind her, carrying torches.
Firelight gleamed off metal bars. At first she thought the cell block deserted, but then a voice rasped from the shadows.
“What’s going on?” A man—no a boy her own age or younger—stood in the cell to her right.
“They’re going to kill me.” As Katrine spoke, the first of the men reached her.
He swung his sword.
She dodged just in time. She shifted, pushing through the pain. Her jaws clamped onto the guard’s wrist. She shook.
His bones cracked. The guard screamed and dropped his sword.
But it was no use. The other men converged on her.
She backed against the boy's cell.
“Leave her alone!” The prisoner shouted.
Katrine froze, wolf-formed.
The Kyreans surrounded her. There was no where to run.
She was injured, outnumbered, and separated from her pack.
“Put this beast down!” The man she had maimed sobbed from the ground.
A sword crashed toward her neck.
She could not dodge. She could not move.
She was surrounded by enemies on all sides.
Except one.
The imprisoned boy must have picked up the first guard’s sword. He thrust it between the bars, over Katrine’s head, and skewered her attacker.
The hot, coppery blood woke Katrine. She turned to the left, leaping onto the Kyrean pinning her.
She tore into his throat.
His severed vocal cords vibrated with a stolen scream.
Taking human form, Katrine one-arm somersaulted over the body. Her objective was clear: find a way to free her only ally in this fight.
The prisoner had lost his stolen sword when it had embedded in Katrine’s would-be executioner. He watched her helplessly from his cell.
Katrine stood. Six men remained.
If these men were his guards, then they had to have keys.
Katrine backed away, her eyes tracking the newly hesitant guards.
They each carried a key ring next to their sheaths. The man she'd killed likely had the same.
As her gaze returned to the corpse, the Kyreans rushed her.
Katrine launched forward, shifting wolf, to dodge between two blades. She tore into the dead man’s belt. Her teeth freed the key ring. She tossed it towards the prisoner’s cell.
They landed out of his reach.
The prisoner struggled to push his arms farther through the bars.
Katrine did not have a chance to curse her misfortune.
A sword came down on her tail.
She yowled, falling down in human form.
Blood poured from her tail bone. She landed on her broken arm. The intense agony sent white sparks across her vision. She rolled over, avoiding a killing blow.
But it was just prolonging the inevitable.
After all she'd survived, this would be her end.
It all felt so pointless. Why had she been her densite's only survivor, if this was all it led to?
The Kyrean above her lifted his sword.
The cell door slammed the guard to the floor.
The prisoner leaped from his cell. He grabbed the fallen man’s sword.
Katrine struggled to her hands and knees. Somehow through the delirious pain, she managed to extend her claws. She slashed the rising Kyrean’s throat.
Her unknown ally sparred with the remaining men.
Katrine took up the dead man’s dagger. She used the cell door to stumble to her feet.
Katrine threw the dagger into one of the guard’s necks.
He fell, gurgling.
Katrine had hated Mina's archery and knife-throwing lessons. She promised to thank Mina, if she had the chance.
The prisoner killed the two remaining guards with a single sweeping slash.
Katrine lost her footing. Blood ran down her legs, soaking into her boots. She felt cold and thick.
A warm hand closed around her uninjured wrist. The boy helped her to her feet, slinging her arm around his shoulder. Together, they limped toward the exit.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Her own name escaped her. Katrine's understanding seeped out with her blood.
“You’re Fenearen,” he prompted as they entered the wide chamber. “Which way?”
“I’m Fenearen,” she repeated. “My name's Katrine Saelia.”
She sniffed the currents. His words were a guiding light. “This way.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
Mina's eyes streamed. All breath flew from her lungs.
The cliff from which the rogue wave had pushed her rapidly shrunk. The roaring in her ears—part air, part ocean—intensified.
If she hit the jagged rocks below, she'd be smashed. If she hit the water, from such a height, her neck would break.
Instead, something cold and strong looped around her. The substance spread beneath her, soft yet sturdy, like spider silk. It decelerated her, allowing Mina to see what was happening.
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Water moved beneath and around her, manipulated by some unseen Alvornian.
She landed in the ocean as seamlessly as slipping into a bath. Mina treaded water out of habit—it supported her without effort.
A blond head bobbed up beside her.
Mina swam backward in shock before she recognized Winiam’s boyish features.
“Mina! Are you all right?” Winiam asked.
“Roxen,” she sputtered.
“He's already aboard the ship. My sister is working to heal him.”
“He's alive?” Mina's chest lightened and warmth filled her despite the frigid waters.
“See for yourself. I'll send you to the ship.” He dove beneath the surface
The water towed Mina as if she were stuck in a strong rip tide. She could not help but feel a bit panicked as it dragged her farther out to sea, and around a rocky outcropping.
A ship bearing the Maenoren flag greeted her when she rounded the cliffs.
The water rose, carrying Mina aboard.
Lurenia and Pheros worked amne vena together over Roxen's unconscious body.
Gar and Pike shook off their water-logged pelts nearby.
She rushed toward them.
Though they could not speak to Mina, their wagging tails communicated relief.
A hand tapped her back.
She turned to see Seperun.
“Best not to interrupt the healing magic, Miss Tsanclar.”
Seawater dripped from her soaked clothing. “Regent, thank you.”
He bowed. “I hope you can accept this as an apology for my earlier behavior, Miss Tsanclar.”
“Of course.”
He led her to a crate where she could sit. He placed a warm woolen blanket around her. “It's almost noon. Let us hope Rayna, Channon, and my men have done their part.”
Suddenly, a wave rolled onto the ship, carrying Priestess Marielana. She collapsed on the deck.
Pheros leaped up from Roxen and ran to her. “Marielana!”
She allowed the General to help her into a sitting position. “I tried to hold Terayan back, but it's no use. We have to flood the courtyard and find the others as planned. Katrine is still up there as well.”
“You're too weak,” Pheros protested.
She shook her head. “We will need as much amne vena as we can muster to locate all our allies.”
Mina pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. It was up to the Alvornians to save the others now.
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