Piper Prince

by Amber Argyle

  A thousand little clues. Larkin had missed or dismissed all of them. All the while, the truth had been right in front of her.

  Sela had broken the curse.

  Not Larkin.

  Never Larkin.

  Larkin couldn’t catch her breath. A dark, ugly feeling took root inside her. For a while, she had thought she was special. She wasn’t. It had always been Sela—her sweet, lisping little sister. She was breathing hard, and she thought she might be sick.

  Magalia pushed to her feet, her hand out. “Larkin, what did she—”

  Larkin’s glare stopped her in her tracks. She became aware of Sela trembling and sweating in her arms. This was her sister, her little sister, whom Larkin loved with everything she had.

  “Larkin!” Talox barked, gesturing from the top of the promontory.

  “I don’t know,” Larkin answered Magalia’s question. “But I’ll figure it out. Just promise not to say a word to anyone until I have.”

  Mouth pursed in a thin line, Magalia nodded.

  Larkin turned and started up the hill. Sela shifted in her arms. Larkin rubbed a shaking hand over her little back, the knobs of her spine bumping under her fingers. “Don’t be scared, Sela,” Larkin breathed, because she could not bear for the truth to be spoken any louder than a whisper. “You’ve done a wonderful thing. A truly wonderful thing.”

  Sela looked up at her doubtfully.

  Larkin forced herself to smile. “I’m so proud of you.” And she was, even as tears filled her eyes.

  At the peak of the promontory, Talox waited beside the largest trees. Larkin’s pod had been set up in one, her mother and sister’s in the other. Her mother was already in the one on the right. Thankfully, the trees were far enough away that they would have to shout to hear each other.

  When she reached the top, Talox noted the tears streaking down her cheeks.

  She didn’t meet his gaze. “Can you take Sela to Mama?”

  He nodded. Larkin pressed a quick kiss to Sela’s temple and handed her over. Sela went willingly. She’d clearly grown attached to the big man along their journey. Larkin wiped her cheeks and climbed the tree. Tyer was in the lower branches, and she was relieved when he pretended not to notice her.

  In the middle branches, she collapsed into her pod and sobbed hard and silent, one of the blankets stuffed in her mouth. Sometime later, the branches shifted as Talox climbed up. He had to notice her pod shaking with her sobs, but he didn’t say anything.

  When the tears passed, she sat up. Her nose and eyes felt swollen, and no doubt her face was a blotchy mess, but it wasn’t like the two men didn’t already know she’d been crying.

  Gathering her courage, she emerged from the pod. Below, Tyer had rested his bow across his knees, his arrows within easy reach. Talox sat sideways in his own pod, telescope in hand. He didn’t say anything as she climbed out of her pod and joined him in his, their sides pressed hard together.

  Larkin peered down into the deep, narrow gully surrounded by rocky outcroppings and strangled trees. Less than a mile away, Gendrin’s army had been surrounded and forced well behind their initial defenses, a burned-out ring of ash and broken pikes. Bodies littered the ground. She was grateful to be far enough away she couldn’t make out their faces.

  Shapes shifted along the distant ridges—Denan and Demry’s armies moving into place. Worry spiked through her.

  Talox pulled out a pouch of dried meat and held it out to her. There would be no fires and no cooking—not tonight—but the smell of their supper made her stomach turn. She shook her head.

  Denan was down there. As was Tam. And she’d been crying because she wasn’t special anymore.

  “You want to talk about it?” Talox asked around a mouthful.

  She shook her head again.

  “Fair enough.” Talox handed her a telescope and peered down his own.

  Larkin cut a glance to the sun, orange dissected in half by black. When the wraiths appeared, they’d instantly sense Denan’s army and know that he meant to surround them.

  “Will they be in place before sunset?” Her voice sounded rough, disused.

  Talox hesitated before shaking his head.

  Larkin surveyed the steep sides of the wide gully—easily three miles wide and a mile long. “Even so, they won’t be able to escape.”

  Talox didn’t answer.

  Unable to sit, Larkin stood and wrapped one arm around the main trunk for balance. She peered down the telescope. It took her a moment to locate Gendrin’s army. Then she found what she was looking for. High in the trees, girls huddled together.

  She wasn’t watching the sunset, but she knew when it happened. She was always aware of the position of the sun now, whether she consciously realized it or not.

  “One, two, three, four,” Talox counted.

  Larkin didn’t have to ask to know he counted wraiths. Her clothes were damp with perspiration—she’d grown chilled with immobility.

  Larkin lowered the telescope. It was good for gauging details, but if she wanted a sense of the overall battle, it was too confining. Watching the battle with her bare eyes and using the telescope for details was the best way to go.

  She counted as Talox had but became distracted by the battle, which had moved to the base of the trees. Wanting more detail, she lifted the telescope again.

  Two mulgars boosted a third into the lower branches, who climbed, his gaze fixed on the girls who scrambled higher, the tree bending beneath their weight, their mouths opened in screams Larkin couldn’t distinguish from the din.

  A piper jumped into the tree and hauled himself up. When he was close enough, he hooked the mulgar’s leg with the ax heel and jerked. The mulgar clawed at the girls as he fell. The soldier tied back his ax and released an arrow. Overrun, pipers scrambled into the trees to protect the girls.

  “Hurry, Denan,” she murmured.

  In the dying light, shapes moved along the rim on the opposite side. She shifted the telescope for a better look. The mulgars and wraiths hadn’t noticed them. Why hadn’t the wraiths sensed them yet?

  With a shout, the pipers rose up and charged down the decline. Larkin searched for Denan, but she couldn’t distinguish him from any other solider.

  Moving as one, the mulgars turned from their prey trapped inside the trees and charged toward Denan and Demry’s men. The pipers’ archers hung back. The moment the mulgars were within range, they loosed arrows. Mortally wounded, some mulgars fell. Bristling with arrows, the rest continued.

  In the dying light, the fourth wraiths glided like shadows up the incline. Piper archers took aim with bows and sacred arrows, the wood refracting light in a dazzling array. The archers released. One wraith dropped immediately. One limped on. The third staggered one way and then the other. The four was uninjured.

  “That’s impossible,” Larkin breathed.

  Pulling himself up, Talox swore, confirming what Larkin already knew. Wraiths didn’t limp. They didn’t collapse. They faded. When dealt a mortal blow, they imploded into writhing shadows. But one was clearly on the ground. Two others were clearly injured.

  They weren’t wraiths at all. They were mulgars.

  Before Larkin could make sense of it, the mulgars reached the fires meant to keep them out and grabbed burning branches with their bare hands. They threw those branches into nearby trees—trees that held girls and pipers. The rest carried burning branches up the incline toward Denan and Demry’s men.

  “No,” Talox whispered, aghast. “Wraiths and mulgars never harm the trees.”

  Heedless of the pipers cutting them down, mulgars set fire to more trees. One mulgar, then two, then a dozen became torches themselves. They continued running, flames trailing. Trees caught fire, driving pipers higher, trapping Gendrin’s men and those helpless girls.

  “Why?” Larkin asked. The evil dark sliding up her spine answered her question. Her mouth filled with the dirt and rot of the grave and something else—something like pitch and smoke.

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sp; “Larkin,” a wraith chittered from somewhere out of sight. The voice echoed strangely, making it impossible to tell how close it was.

  Nostrils flared, Talox lifted a finger to his lips; the wraith couldn’t sense them from the trees. All she had to do was remain still. Larkin prayed Mama and her sisters stayed utterly silent.

  The wards are in place, she reminded herself. We’re safe. Still, doubt wormed its way inside her. She looked back at the wounded men and healers. There were fifty pipers left to guard the pass. Surely they had sacred arrows. Surely they could keep everyone safe from a wraith weakened by the wards.

  “Come,” the wraith said. “And I will spare your pipers.”

  Something wrenched inside her. “Talox,” she mouthed.

  He shook his head, mouthing, “Lies.”

  He thought she meant to give herself up. “Fire,” she mouthed back. “What if they set the tree on fire?”

  She didn’t know if he understood her. Talox searched the ground and smoothly withdrew a sacred arrow. She spared a glance back at the battle. The pipers were no longer fighting mulgars but the flames that could easily destroy them all.

  Movement below. Tyer loosed an arrow at something climbing the cliff face—something climbing a rope. Before she could wonder how a rope got there, a mulgar appeared, a flickering torch in his mouth, half his face eaten by flames. The arrow had embedded in the mulgar’s shoulder but didn’t stop him. More mulgars appeared. From the other tree, Dayne and Ulrin loosed as well.

  “Breech!” Talox cried.

  Before the pipers guarding the fissure could take more than a dozen steps toward them, two wraiths slithered into being and began laying waste to the injured. The men guarding the entrance shouted in alarm.

  “Talox!” She pointed.

  Growling in frustration, Talox continued releasing on the dozen mulgars climbing over the cliffs and running toward their tree. Each bore a torch nearly extinguished by the speed of their passing.

  “Bring them down,” Talox cried. He and the other three guards sighted and loosed arrows. A dozen mulgars and their torches fell, flames skittering along the dead needles littering the ground. Some staggered forward, injured but still moving.

  Only one remained uninjured—a woman. She was matted and filthy. Her gaze fixed on the tree with a single-minded determination. She darted through bushes, arrows embedded in the trees and dirt around her. One hit her arm. Another her side. Another her leg. She didn’t even slow.

  “Kill her!” Talox roared.

  An arrow bloomed from her chest. Her expression didn’t change as her body faltered. She threw the torch as she collapsed. Time slowed as it spun end over end, the flames disappearing. It struck the heart of the tree. Flames exploded unnaturally fast along the trunk.

  Heat roared up at Larkin. She choked on smoke.

  “They’ve doused it in pitch,” Tyer shouted.

  That explained the smoky, acrid smell of before.

  “Move!” Talox gripped the back of Larkin’s neck, forcing her down through heat and smoke.

  Coughing and unable to see, Larkin fumbled for hand and foot holds. Flames licked at her feet.

  “Jump!” Talox said. She had no idea how far the ground was or whether she would break both her legs when she landed, only that the wraith waited below.

  She hesitated too long. Talox wrapped his arm around her and jumped, dragging her with him. They slammed through burning branches. The ground rushed toward them. She landed hard on her belly, her lungs frozen. The pain in her bruised ribs flared hot. Embers fell around her.

  Tyer was already on his feet, fighting a wraith—the woman, Hagath. She moved preternaturally fast, her swords trailing shadows like dark flames. Tyer’s back arched, his mouth open and his eyes wide with shock. He dropped to his knees, his sword slipping from his fingers, and collapsed.

  Talox launched at Hagath, shifted to avoid her thrust, and batted at her with his sword.

  “You don’t defeat a wraith—not alone.” Talox’s words echoed through her. Heat bore down on her. She gasped in a wisp of air, enough to fight back the encroaching darkness. Another strangled breath, and she managed to drag her hands under her. Another breath. The smell of burning hair—her hair. Another.

  She staggered to her feet and flared her sigils, her sword and shield forming in her hands. As though Hagath could sense her magic, the wraith’s head whipped in her direction.

  “Mine,” another wraith hissed. Amid the carnage of the wounded, Ramass slid up the incline toward her. An involuntary whimper clawed up her throat.

  “Run, Larkin!” Talox cried as he stabbed Hagath. Writhing shadows imploded. “Find a tree and hide!”

  No sooner had he said the words than Ramass attacked him, every strike brutal and efficient. Talox countered a beat too slow. Ramass knocked his sword from his hands and kicked at Talox’s chest, knocking him flat.

  Talox—that immovable giant of a man—defeated. Ramass lifted his sword.

  No. No. “No!” she screamed. She lunged, standing protectively over Talox, and jabbed. Ramass easily blocked it. The moment Larkin’s magic blade connected with his, oily shadows skittered down her magic. She felt the wraith’s hunger. Its need.

  For her.

  The wraith slashed. Larkin barely managed to block with her shield. He kicked her feet out from under her, and she fell onto her backside. He gathered himself for the next strike.

  Why had Larkin ever thought she could fight against these monsters?

  Talox attacked from the right, his shield slamming the wraith back, forcing him to turn. “Run!”

  Below, the pipers fought wraiths and mulgars. Her mother and sisters were still safe in their tree. At least, until the fire spread. Larkin couldn’t save her family, but she could draw the wraiths away.

  Her feet skittered across loose needles as she scrambled away from heat and living shadows to the edge of the promontory. There, she found one of the ropes the mulgars had used to climb up half buried in dirt. They’d been here before they’d climbed the promontory.

  The wraiths had known they were coming. How could they have possibly known?

  Her hands closed around the fibers as she dropped into the falling dark.

  Alone.

  Larkin’s foot touched solid ground at the base of the promontory. Her raw hands released the rope—a rope that never should have been there. She staggered back, her shoulders and arms on fire.

  Ready for anything, she pivoted and flared her weapons so they barely shone. In the time it had taken her to climb down, full night had come on, the stars distant pinpricks of useless light beneath the dense canopy and thick smoke. A mulgar could be a mere handful of steps away, and she would never know.

  And what about Mama and Sela and Brenna? Denan? All the people she’d left behind? All the pipers fighting the fires. She choked on a sob.

  No.

  She was not helpless, and she was not finished—not yet. If a mulgar or wraith had been lying in wait, it would have attacked already. Denan and his army were before her. If she kept moving, she’d run into them eventually, providing the fire hadn’t driven them out yet. If the wraiths found her before then, she would take to the trees and pray they didn’t burn it down. And if all that failed, she would fight.

  Hands out, she felt her way through the pitch dark toward the distant glow of fire. Smoke irritated her throat. Wrapping her shirt around her mouth, she fought the urge to cough. The rough, uneven ground forced her to slide her foot forward one careful step at a time.

  She had no idea how many steps she’d taken when she stepped wrong and turned her ankle. Gritting her teeth, she limped on, even as it swelled tight and hot in her boot.

  The ground beneath her feet sloped downward. Rising smoke blocked out the stars, the fire beneath making its rolling underbelly glow. That meant she was moving closer to the fires and the pipers. She hoped.

  Shapes became defined in the dark—the messy tangle of branches, leaves, and needles and th
e sharp demarcation of upright trunks. She must be getting closer to the fire.

  Distant, indistinguishable voices sounded to her left. She choked on a sob that was instantly silenced by the smell of old rot upwind of her—between her and safety.

  Her mouth opened in a silent gasp. So close. She’d come so agonizingly close.

  Steps quiet, she found a tree with low-hanging branches. Her arms had more strength than her legs. She pulled herself up one branch and then another. She had no idea how high she was, but her arms were shaking so hard she feared they wouldn’t hold her weight.

  She draped herself over a branch and tried not to breathe. Her ankle throbbed with each beat of her heart, the skin stretched tight and hot. She only had to hide until morning. Surely she could make it that long.

  She wasn’t sure how long she lay motionless, even as a spider skittered across her face and into her hair. A voice called for her—a familiar voice.

  “Larkin,” Venna whispered in a high, terrified whisper. “Larkin, help me.”

  No. Venna was dead. She’d jumped off a cliff—the wide, churning river so far below it had only been a dark ribbon. She couldn’t have survived.

  But perhaps a mulgar could.

  Their words are poison, Larkin reminded herself.

  “The wraiths released me. As they released Maisy. Please, Larkin, I’ve been wandering for days, and I’m afraid.”

  There was only one way Venna could have found Larkin, and that’s if the wraiths had sent her. The creatures must have lost Larkin, but they knew she hid somewhere nearby.

  Morning. I just have to make it until morning.

  “I have been to Valynthia, Larkin. I have seen the truth of the wraiths. I know how to defeat the curse.”

  Despite herself, Larkin found herself listening as Venna sang.

  Blood of my heart, marrow my bone,

  Come hear the saddest story e’er known.

  A cursed queen, her lover lost,

  A forbidden magic and dreadful cost.

  Consumed by evil, agents of night,

  Seek the nestling, barred from flight,

  Midst vile queen’s curse of thorny vine,