by Mary Weber
In his place is a puddle of blood with smudged footprints leading down the hall.
“Come on.” I grab Colin and half-run, half-limp for the king’s room.
A knight is laid out on the floor. More blood. He moans. His face and body have taken a beating. “Where’s the king? Where’s Breck?” I ask, as Colin helps him sit up against the bed. He doesn’t talk. Just points out the door.
Colin and I run.
When we reach the split in the passage at the bottom of the stairs, I don’t even pause before veering up the adjacent stairwell. “You search the room we entered through, I’ll check the terrace.”
“Find her, Nym!”
When I reach the top of the steps, the door’s ajar. I fling it open and lunge onto an empty terrace, scarcely taking in the Bron soldiers and commotion in the courtyard below in my haste to cross the walkway leading to the other turret. When I do, there’s another Faelen knight strewn awkwardly across the stone floor. He’s staring up at me with a graying expression and a knife in his chest. Beside him, a Bron guard is crumpled facedown in a puddle of blood. What in kracken is happening?
I bend over the Faelen man, but he pushes me away, murmuring, “Get to the room below.”
Then his head lags.
His arm drops to his side.
I let out a choked cry and take the spiraling steps two at a time.
At the bottom, I burst through the door only to be jerked to a stop by a rough arm and a sword at my throat.
I swear my heart fails and restarts itself twice before Rolf releases me and shifts aside to check the passage and seal the door.
“Nym?”
In the tapestry-lined room stand seven more knights, Princess Rasha with her strange reddish eyes, and King Sedric.
And behind them, Eogan.
The real Eogan. Black skin and emerald eyes. Forest of jagged hair beneath his hooded cloak. His gaze is pained, but not as bitter as Odion’s. Nor as blurry as Myles’s.
It’s unreadable though.
I glance away before my heart dissolves into a puddle of ash.
“Where’s the boy, Colin?” King Sedric demands.
Oh hulls. I turn back to yank the door open, but Rolf stops me. “No one leaves or enters this room now. The king’s been betrayed.”
Is he dense? Of course he’s been betrayed. “By Adora, and she’s here!”
“By King Odion.” Princess Rasha’s airy voice quivers and floats as she steps forward. “It’s why Eogan and I came. As soon as he heard King Sedric was here, he knew. And as soon as I heard Adora tell Lady Isobel her plans to follow Eogan, I raced to warn him.” She smiles at me. Sad, regretful. “We made it down the cliff minutes ago, just before Adora rode through the gate swearing allegiance to Odion. He means to kill King Sedric, but we believe she intends to kill them both.”
“My brother would never settle through a treaty something he can take by force,” Eogan mutters. “And in this case, I’m positive he means to do so, Your Majesty.”
“Is Lady Isobel with Adora?” a knight asks.
“As far as we know, she’s still at the estate.” Rasha looks at King Sedric. “Supposedly awaiting your decision regarding her Dark Army. Although it’s clear she’s supporting Adora.”
The king nods but I’m not certain he’s heard. He just keeps looking at Eogan. And Eogan just keeps looking at me.
Blood pools in my lungs, echoing my trainer’s name from a cavern that is still screaming his betrayal, his guilt. I straighten my shoulders and move toward the high-up window just as something very large rams the door beneath.
CHAPTER 32
YOUR HIGHNESS,” ROLF CLIPS, “I RECOMMEND we attempt to move you to the back quarters until we can clear an escape route.”
The battering ram thunders against the door again, making the wood squeal just as a man’s sharp whistle erupts from behind us, beyond the door I came through. The captain of the guard solicits the king’s nod before releasing the handle, and another Faelen knight comes tumbling inside. The sounds of shouting and sword fighting ricochet around the room, dimming as soon as the wood’s slammed shut and the plank dropped in place.
“How many are there?” demands King Sedric.
“At the moment, forty to our twelve.” The newcomer sweeps an eye over me. “Thirteen if you count the girl.”
“Count the girl.” Eogan pulls two knives from his boot and glances at Rolf. “How fast are your men at climbing?”
“We have to help Colin and Breck,” I say.
The captain ignores me. “Fast enough, but the cliff is blocked.”
“It won’t be for long. I’d advise you to pick your two best guards to send with King Sedric and Princess Rasha up the ridge,” Eogan says. He looks back at me, his gaze gentle. “Are your horses up there?”
“They are. But what about Colin and Breck?”
“We’ll help them as soon as we’re able, Nym. Right now we’ve got to protect the king.”
He tips his head to King Sedric. “Your Majesty, I’ve no time to make apologies nor assurances other than to say I am not my brother, nor do I condone his actions. But I suggest you prepare to scale the mount—”
“I’ll not scuttle from a fight,” the king interrupts. “Especially one for my kingdom.”
“Your Highness, I respect your courage, but if you fall, so does Faelen. As long as you’re alive, your people have hope.”
King Sedric looks to argue further but instead turns to Rolf, who dips his head in agreement. The king pauses, followed by a firming of his jaw, and he turns me a look that seems to convey his agreement to our earlier conversation. “Fine. Let it be done.”
“When you reach the ridge,” Eogan says, “Princess Rasha will know how to find our warhorses. Take them and ride.”
The princess nods as the clamoring outside grows louder. She draws a knife from beneath her cloak, as if ready to take on the entire Bron force herself, and steps near the king.
She flutters a smile my way.
I swallow and nod, and try to ignore the sudden fear lurching up my spine.
“Aen, Frederick, you’re with the king and princess.” Rolf beckons two of the knights. “The rest of you come with me. We’ll hold them back until you’re safe, m’lord.”
He strides to the door, then peers back to ensure we’re all with him. The pounding outside is deafening.
I pull a knife from my boot and catch Eogan’s attention long enough to wish I hadn’t. Because what I see there looks very much like an emotion I don’t want to feel.
He tips his head at me and then stoops as the captain wrenches the door open.
As if on cue, the battering ram thrusts into the room along with four Bron soldiers. Eogan puts a knife through two of their throats before either gets beyond the first step. The other two are dispatched by Rolf’s men as three more appear with swords drawn. The captain and Eogan take them down.
Abruptly, the entire courtyard breaks into chaos.
“They’re over here!”
“It’s the king’s men!”
“King Sedric is over here!”
Clattering footsteps reverberate off the stones as excited voices ring out and the clang of steel shifts our direction.
In one morphing unit, our group scrambles over the battering log and dead bodies, surging out into the cold just as the evening sunset flares and flecks my vision with white and black spots. Half blind, I launch through the door only to feel a metallic edge swipe at me. I lash my blade out, but Eogan’s broadsword has already felled the man by the time I can see again. I jab my dagger toward another, but this time Rolf is there first. A helmet cracks above a chain-metal chest, and a spurt of red blossoms out on the fortress’s stones.
Oh litches, I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know how to fight this way.
I glance around.
I don’t want to fight at all.
Ducking back, I suck in a frozen, salty-aired breath and shove the blade in my
boot. Come on, Nym. Get your bearings or you’re going to get yourself killed. I gag as a spray of hot blood sweeps over me from a living, breathing, dying person.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Then I notice the hundreds of giant airships hastening past us through the gorge. Carrying those bombs in their undercarriages . . .
Just focus on those.
A sharp wind whips up and draws in more clouds.
I step out and lift my hand.
A crackle of air thrusts back the larvaelike balloon of a ship just as something whizzes near my shoulder, barely missing me. What the—? I turn but can’t even see the man’s face through his helmet. I just feel the madness rolling off him. I swing my palm over and touch his body with a shock of heat that crumbles him like straw.
But there’s another man behind him. Then another. I stoop. My leg screams. I scream and begin crawling along the soldiers’ feet, using my deformed fingers to tap their boots.
And all the while I’m shuddering and hearing myself yell that I’m sorry and I’m begging for them to stop.
But they don’t.
They just keep coming.
When I can’t take the horror anymore or the bodies toppling over me from the fighting going on above, I scramble back behind the defensive line of Rolf’s knights and work my way into a clearing. And stand.
The storm clouds there are churning and condensing, casting the entire valley in deeper shadow. Reacting to me. Waiting for me. I pull them closer and, grabbing one quick lightning stream, rip it along the outer edge of the Bron horde, cracking the air and sending the whole courtyard into smoke and confusion.
An echo of my thunder bounces off the valley walls, followed by a breaking, then a roaring, and somewhere along the mountain range, an avalanche of ice splits free. An eruption of metal and exploding gas says it slid into an airship.
“Archers!” an authoritative voice yells. “Take her down!”
Thump, thump, thump. Two of our knights in front of me drop dead before I realize the arrows are even in the air. I hit the ground and watch the rest rain around the stones and bodies.
“Move back!” Rolf calls to his men.
“Nym!”
Eogan’s running at me and pointing. I follow his hand to where the archers are and my next lightning thread takes one out. The other men dodge before turning to send up another volley.
Abruptly I’m thrown against the turret wall, and Eogan is holding me there, covering me as I hear the arrows land and another Faelen knight cry out. When I glance up, Eogan’s already stepping away as he nods to me.
I twitch my hand and the dimming courtyard ignites with a flash and the atmosphere roars.
Except, when it clears, the archers have moved and I’ve missed my mark.
Eogan nearly knocks the wind from me as he crushes me to the wall again. The arrows launch a third time but I’m suddenly having a hard time focusing on them. I’m too busy asking myself what kind of sick person notices a man’s breath on her neck or his mouth grazing her forehead when she’s scared speechless and men are dying all around and he’s a liar who killed her parents.
A sick person like me apparently.
The rain of arrows overreaches and thuds against the cliff, all except for one, which skewers a Faelen knight through the throat. I utter a cry but Eogan’s hand is on my pulse, evoking an immediate sense of ease as his less-attractive twin appears, walking toward us from amid the Bron knights.
King Odion raises his sword and the fighting around him halts.
Eogan disengages from me, murmuring, “Finish them.” And moves toward his brother.
I crumple my fist then flick my wrist, and the archers on the low wall erupt in gargled yells as a broad hail of ice knocks them off their perches—bringing a distracted expression to Odion’s face and, I know, a grimness to mine.
When the two men reach each other, Eogan yanks off his cloak, and a collective gasp rises from the paused soldiers.
CHAPTER 33
KING ODION POISES HIS SWORD HIGHER AND, taking a step forward, sends his voice barking across the courtyard. “Tell the ships full attack, and bring me the Faelen king!”
“Stand your ground!” Rolf counters, as the horde of Bron soldiers rushes forth in a recharged, bloodthirsty wave. They’ve gone rabid with their sharp metal swords and angry faces.
Angry, stunned faces.
Stoop, weave in, roll away. Stoop, weave in, roll away. One, two, three men I send unconscious with my fingers before I’ve worked my way far enough back to stand and teeter on a leg I think has gone numb from adrenaline or terror.
Someone shouts over the battle clamor and I glance up to see Eogan and Odion locked in their own battle on the edge of the writhing, fighting mass. My stomach cramps. Eogan’s neck. A red line runs across the side of it, leaching blood.
Before I can respond, a hand grabs my shoulder and shoves me aside, cutting off my view of Eogan.
Rolf meets a Bron sword with his own. “You trying to get yourself killed, girl? Move!”
I retreat farther behind the Faelen knights, tripping over body after fallen body toward the two brothers, twisting away beneath oncoming blades before taking out their owners with a shock of charged air and smoke. I can hear my own grunts as their weapons knick and cut me, but it’s all happening so fast and so bloody that, at some point, I forget about the pain. I forget the horror.
I forget feeling anything at all except the sickening realization that Eogan is about to die.
I edge closer as Odion lunges forward with an expression of hate. If Eogan would move I could end this insane fray.
Odion’s sword glances off his brother’s before he dips to swipe at his legs. Eogan jumps and parries, then brings his own blade down, catching Odion on the arm, then arcs his foil to land a hit on the chain mail guarding his twin’s rib.
Odion stumbles back and leaps onto the low wall. He jumps down three feet away before charging and swiping at his brother like a madman. He forces Eogan into a Bron soldier who thrusts a blade out.
My hand is up just as the sword tip bounces away midair. Eogan’s block. Without looking back, Eogan takes the man down. Then he rolls out of the way of his brother’s next strike.
But not far enough.
Eogan’s cry says the blade has connected with his shoulder.
My lash of fire tears so swift and loud, it’s a whip cutting through the wall and bursting apart the bricks beside Odion. I yank it back before it can hit Eogan and aim to bring the next one down on his brother’s head when a heaving ripple of stone nearly jolts me off my feet. It gives Odion pause and topples half the regiment.
My relief rushes up and bursts.
I spin round until I see Colin standing near the back side of the turret without a shirt on and covered in dirt and blood. He hops up on the wall by the cliff and grins at me through the growing dim, then points at the gate where more Bron soldiers are plowing through the narrow fortress entryway.
He bends down, his eyes still on me. I nod.
The courtyard begins to undulate. It takes me two strikes at the fortress’s gateway before I finally meet Colin’s efforts with a hit big enough that, together, we shatter the arch into a smoking slump of mortar and stone. It won’t keep the Bron army out long, but it’ll slow them.
I yank down two more fire bolts around the mass of soldiers, and Colin sends another small earthquake that, for a moment, seems it will unhinge the entire fortress from the cliff. The churning wave of fighting slows as both sides pause then dive for cover.
Except for Odion.
He looks straight at me and smiles in that way politicians do when they see something they want.
I whip an enormous hailstone at his face, but he ducks in lunging at Eogan.
A trembling thread erupts along the ground and the next thing I know, there’s an explosion of rock and dust directly behind Odion. I look down to discover Colin crouched beside me. He glances up and winks. “Hey.”
&
nbsp; “You’re alive.”
“’Course. Just took a bit to deal with the guards inside. You seen Breck?”
I shake my head as Odion’s voice rises. “Looks like you’ve found yourself some unique ones, big brother. Seems you forgot to tell them their abilities won’t work on—”
Eogan stabs his twin in the shoulder and sends him toppling backward over Colin’s open fissure behind him.
Odion fumbles at the air. Sways. Slashes. Before jumping over it to scramble back with his disoriented men.
“Get King Sedric and take him round the turrets!” Eogan yells.
The three nearest knights yank the turret door open and usher the king and Princess Rasha out. When they emerge, even from where I’m standing it’s clear the king’s only been kept inside by physical force. His gaze is deadly as it sweeps over the bodies, the Bron men, the fallen Faelen knights. Over the blood covering it all like a wretched crimson blanket.
The atmosphere slows.
Like the very air itself has its breath hinged. Waiting on the king.
Waiting on the dead . . .
For a moment, the only sound is that of the droning airships as Princess Rasha’s grieving eyes find mine.
“Your Highness, stop!” a cold voice rings out.
Beside me, Colin gasps.
I glance over at the speaker and watch Breck appear through the smoke, her wrists bound. And behind her, Adora.
Breck stumbles, and Colin starts for her.
I grab his arm just as Adora swerves her eerie smile our direction. She’s got a knife at Breck’s neck.
“King Sedric,” our owner’s shrill voice calls. “You’ll tell your men to step away from you, or I’ll slit this poor girl’s throat.”
She steps closer and even in the midst of battle, the insane woman’s makeup is perfect, as are her clothes. Only her hair appears to have caught fire at some point.
She laughs.
My neck bristles.
Suddenly Princess Rasha hollers what sounds like a warning, but whatever she’s saying gets drowned out by the sound of metal wrenching and bombs falling. The Keep starts shaking and the sky blisters, and the interior of Faelen appears to explode in fire.
