Page 168

We ran.

Whatever Agenor was doing on the other side of the city, the Mother’s army seemed to have focused its attention on anything but the land they were supposed to guard; there were no shoutsof alarm as we sprinted closer, no flocks soaring our way to stop us. Three hundred yards left to go. Two hundred. There was the door, small and grubby, nestled between two blood-soaked corpses and a patch of dying lilies …

It was as good as unprotected. As we closed the distance, the ranks of fae were movingawayfrom us, away from that door, towards the battlefield forming south of the city. No time to lose – who knew when they’d realise Agenor’s attacks were little more than a flimsy distraction?

A hundred and fifty yards.

A hundred.

Fifty. Still not a single head turned our way as they hovered there, wings beating wherever I looked, every single one of them focused on the movements to the south …

Toofocused, almost. A twinge of discomfort took root even as my legs kept moving, even as my breath kept heaving through my chest. I’d expected a fight by this point. Wasn’t it a little too easy, that not a single soul would glance over their shoulder even once? That none of these guards would think of paying attention to the approach of two very visible mages, coming within thirty yards of the wall they were guarding now?

Almost as if …

‘Fuck,’ Creon hissed in the same moment, slowing a fraction, hands shooting to his knives. ‘Em, they’re not distracted – they’re—’

Waiting.

The bastards werewaiting.

For a single paralysed moment, as they started turning, as we faltered, as the world came to a screeching halt around me, my brain was blank except for a resoundingfuck, fuck, fuck—

And then they surged forward.

It was so smooth a manoeuvre I couldn’t help but admire it, in the last little part of my mind not consumed by acute mortal fear– hundreds upon hundreds of fae, sweeping away from the city in a single coordinated blur, closing in on either side of us. The snare tightened in less than the time it took to curse. A wildfire of red lit up the sky, and I grabbed for my shirt without thinking, hurtling my shield into that attack with all the force of my panic –iridescence for magic, but they would be prepared for that now, wouldn’t they?

Andwewere far from prepared for an organised attack.

Red crackled and dissolved against my defences. But more was already flashing our way, almost too fast for me to draw, and there on the edge of my sight, a handful of fae were tightening their bowstrings …

Creon’s left arm flung around my waist, dragging my feet off the ground as his wings swept out. The whistle of an arrow shot past my temple. I wielded my iridescence blindly, recklessly, flares of red magic exploding into sparks wherever it collided with my godsworn powers; Creon’s right hand lashed out beside me, the knife between his fingers flickering in the sunlight as he slapped an arrow off course with inhuman precision. The city wall lay beneath us, the door so close it felt I only needed to stretch out a hand to push it open.

A fae came hurtling towards us, sword swinging. Only the fastest whirl aside saved me from a full-speed collision with that blade – forcing us away from the door again. Again, the arrows came hissing down …

I desperately reached for Creon’s wing, drawing some of the softness from that taut velvet to blast the projectiles away from us. Red magic bit me in the shoulder in the same moment, sharp enough that I couldn’t help but cry out.

Creon dived.

If his plummet was more controlled than a free fall, it didn’t feel like it. Wind whipped my face, slamming the breath from my lungs. Red sparked and crackled around us. Half a secondat most and we crashed into the earth together; like a cat, he somehow landed on his feet, his arm still tight around my waist. I stumbled against his strong body, cursing. Above us, the fae ranks were so dense I no longer saw the blue of the sky.

The door – that cursed door – was still thirty feet away from us.

Five humans had been pinned to the wall in the space between, men and women with wooden stakes through their chests, dead fingers still clawing desperately into the clay. Anger blew my next desperate swing of iridescence from my fingertips with too much force: I drew nearly all of the power left in my shirt, and above me, red magic bounced off of my shield and back into the ranks of our attackers. Two of them went down. The gaps were filled before I could blink.

Where were the mind-clouding, forest-levelling outbursts when I needed them? Be it fear or exhaustion, the magic wouldn’t break free from me in the same all-consuming way. What would it evenhelp, damn it? They were prepared for me to repeat the tricks I’d shown at the Golden Court. Nothing I could do would shock them enough to collectively stun them for a second or three, and weneededthat time to cross the distance …

‘Em,’ Creon hissed next to me, whirling around to catch a stray flare of red on the blade of his alf steel knife. Blood trickled down his temple. ‘Thecorpses.’

What?

Yellow magic flashed from his fingertips, hitting my dull shirt – but rather than the shimmering pearlescent texture from before, the result was a thick, dark velvet.

Velvet.

Softness for movement.

‘You can’t—Creon.’ No. He wasn’t in all seriousness suggesting … ‘They weremurdered. I can’t just—’