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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

T HE WAATEYSHIR COVERED THE starlit sky with its inky wings. The residents of Cereliath came pouring out of their homes, flooding the streets. Panicked shrieks echoed into the night, and within moments the entire city descended into chaos. Another horn sounded in the distance. The steady rhythm of soldiers marching grew closer, approaching from the west side of the city.

I ran through the street. Dodging women and children howling in their nightdresses and men wielding anything from their kitchens as a weapon. The shadowy beast snapped its beak as it drifted overhead, souring the air with its foul stench. It made no noise. It didn’t need to; everyone in the city knew why the creature had come to Cereliath.

To feed.

I jumped over two children cowering in the street. Three men blocked my path, and I shouldered my way between them. My chest heated. I would never reach the beast fighting against the flow of panic.

Higher ground. That’s what I need.

I curved in a rounded bank and leaped for a drain on the closest dwelling. I caught it by the tips of my fingers. The shadowy beast let out a screech as I hauled my aching body onto the roof.

My heart hammered against my ribs as I ran, my path completely clear of obstacles apart from the empty air between dwellings. The first was easy enough to jump over, but the second was wider than any gap I had successfully cleared.

I thought about flying, but switching forms used so much more of my magic than my other gifts. And I would need all my strength to keep the waateyshir from making a meal of our rescue mission.

I didn’t let up. Instead I ran faster, never taking my eyes off the beast that was now circling the city center. I jumped and released that whirling power that came from my chest. I was propelled forward, soaring on my gusts before I crashed down onto the neighboring roof.

“Fire!” someone shouted from below as I rolled out of my leap.

I smirked and lifted my hands. Both were covered in bright crimson flames that tickled my cheeks. I waved my hands in a circle in front of me, uncoiling each tendril of flame into long fiery strands that stretched as I braided them together.

Feron had taught me how to braid the wind, but it worked just as well with flame.

Another horn blew in the distance, but I didn’t have time to look as I launched the fiery ball at the beast. It snapped its beak but didn’t follow it as I had hoped. Its long neck reared back and it shot a blast of black fire down on the city.

Gerarda ran down the street in the opposite direction of its path, throwing open the doors of the carriages that were now blocked from the crowds and ushering the courtesans and servants out of the city on foot.

I couldn’t defend all of them, but I could distract the beast. I disappeared into a flash of light and flew straight up into the air. The waateyshir made a slow bank as it turned. I waited until I could taste death on my tongue and transformed back into my Fae form. I dropped in free fall and sent a fiery blast toward the beast.

It worked. The creature fanned its wings and saw the flash of light as I transformed back into a bird. I dove and the beast followed, snapping at my tail feathers. I flew upward, looping back over the waateyshir as it tried to follow my path.

A group of soldiers shot a barrage of flaming arrows at the beast. I missed the attack, but the beast did not. The arrows turned to ash as they scraped the shadows leaking from the waateyshir . The beast shrieked and dove after them.

I dropped onto the roof and turned back into my Fae form.

“What’s the plan?” Gerarda shouted, fighting a soldier on the street below.

I jumped from the roof and landed on another soldier’s back. “Get everyone to the portal and hope the beast doesn’t follow us. ” I dodged a third soldier’s swing.

Gerarda pounced on his shoulders and stabbed her knife through his throat. I disarmed him as he gurgled his last words and started running toward the train of carriages. The residents had begun to crowd around them, banging on the doors, demanding to be let in, as if some well-polished wood could keep them safe from the shadowy beast that was feasting on a troop of soldiers.

I lit a circle of flame around the middle carriage. The Mortals lurched back in fear of being burned. They saw my golden eyes and ran in the other direction.

I snuffed out the flames and opened the door. Six Halflings trembled inside. Two in servants clothes and the rest dressed for the ball. “Run to the western edge of the city,” I told them as I helped the first out of the carriage. “You will find Halflings wearing white pins around their necks. Trust them.”

They nodded and ran.

I grabbed a fallen sword and joined Gerarda sparring five soldiers on her own.

“Why did Elaran find the Blade bound and stuffed in a crate?” she asked, pressing her back to mine.

“Duck!” I shouted. We moved as one, avoiding a soldier’s swing. I gutted him through the belly with his comrade’s sword. “Apparently he’s too big for the sleeping draught to work.”

Gerarda knelt and swiped a soldier’s legs. “Did you only bring one dose?”

“Of course not,” I shouted, shoving two soldiers to the ground with their bows jammed through their eyes. “We brought a second. It didn’t work either.”

Gerarda clenched her teeth. “Was Riven opposed to a third?” She switched to throwing knives, and soldiers started dropping in every direction.

“He’s unconscious and in a cart.” I rolled my eyes. “Why does it matter how he got there?”

Gerarda rushed forward, the man still on her sword, and pinned a second to the door of someone’s house. “Just once, I would like to go on a mission without you complicating it.”

“I don’t complicate.” I slashed my blade across my new opponent’s neck as the waateyshir rained down black flame from above. “I improvise.”

The soldier in front of me dropped to his knees. Dead. Gerarda shot me a look and I held up my hands. “I didn’t touch that one.”

His upper body crashed to the ground, shaking the long shaft of the spear sticking out from his skull. Vrail stood behind him, her arm still extended from her throw.

“Where did you come from?” I swung my sword. “You’re supposed to be in Myrelinth.”

A sword sliced the throat of the man I was fighting. “She came with me,” Gwyn said with a proud smirk on her face.

My nostrils flared. “We agreed you needed to study your runes.”

“Gerarda sent word that there was trouble.” Gwyn blocked a loose swing with the axe she held in her other hand. “We passed Riven on the way.” My chest heaved with relief. “He got a group of Halflings and a few carriages out of the city before alarms were raised,” Gwyn continued. “Says reinforcements will be here soon.”

“Soon?” I ducked under Gerarda’s swing as she took down two men in one blow. She turned to fight another, and Fyrel had taken my place against her back. I sighed. Of course Gwyn had brought her too. “How did you get here before the reinforcements?”

Vrail looked down at her opponent guiltily, but it wasn’t for his death.

My head snapped to Gwyn.

She levied a heavy swing at a soldier. “We might have been studying at the edge of the portal so we would know if you needed help.”

“How chivalrous of you.” I gritted my teeth. “Gwyn, we can’t let Damien’s men see your eyes. It’s not safe.”

She held up her wrist and the glamoured bracelet that dangled from it. “I planned ahead.”

My nostrils flared. “I think it’s best if—”

“Get mad at them later!” Gerarda shouted. “We need as many people as we can get.”

Gwyn laughed but then her face turned dark.

From the shadow of the waateyshir .

“Duck!” I shouted as the beast opened its beak to attack. I pulled up as much stone as possible to create a shield over us. The black fire poured over the edges, but no one was hurt.

I lowered the rock back into the ground. Elaran stood on the other side of it with Dynara and Crison. “I found some friends,” she said with a smirk.

“Good.” I nodded at Gwyn. “You and Fyrel head to the portal to help Riven. Take as many Halflings back with you as you can. Tell Riven not to be a fool. I’m trusting him with your lives and every Halfling we send you.”

They nodded and ran.

“There’s still courtesans in the other carriages,” Dynara said pointing down the road.

My stomach hardened. That was in the opposite direction of the portal.

Dynara lifted her chin. “I haven’t worked this hard not to get them to that damned portal, Keera.”

I sighed. “Fine, but don’t go alone.”

“I’ll come with you,” Vrail shouted, taking down another soldier.

“And the Blade?” Gerarda threw her last knife and moved onto arrows. “He’s still unconscious in that cart.”

I tracked the waateyshir as it circled back for another attack. I had bigger things to attend to. “Can you take care of that, Ger?” I batted my lashes. “Take El with you.”

“Always cleaning up your messes,” Gerarda muttered. She emptied her quiver in a single pull of her bow and turned in the direction of where I’d left the cart. She paused and I looked to see why.

Kairn was gone.

“He can’t have gone far,” I called, running for a rooftop. “His hands and legs are bound with Elvish rope.”

“You brought rope but no extra sleeping draught?” Gerarda’s jaw cocked to the side. “How did Hildegard ever name you Blade?”

I stoked the soldier’s torches on the hill. The flames roared, catching the notice of the shadowy beast. “I was her favorite,” I teased.

Gerarda shook her head. “That’s the only explanation.”

The waateyshir started feasting on the line of soldiers. My shoulders eased by a fraction as I jumped onto the street once more.

“Down!” Gerarda shouted as she launched a knife directly at my head.

I didn’t hesitate. My chest flattened against the ground as Kairn hopped to the right, all his limbs still tied.

Gerarda’s throwing knife vibrated in the black wood of the royal carriage, missing him by an inch.

Kairn grinned and angled his arms against the blade. I rose to my feet, unbothered until the Elvish rope fell to the ground.

“I didn’t mean to do that,” Gerarda said, realizing she had given Kairn an Elvish blade—the only kind sharp enough to cut through his binding.

“This is why she picked me,” I shouted. I turned to Kairn, ready to subdue him with my magic when a trail of black flame turned the dwelling beside me to dust.

“Watch out!” I hurled myself on top of Gerarda, knocking her out of its path. We both lay on the ground staring up at the beast as it started to whistle.

Then it stopped.

Mid-attack.

The beast tilted its head as if in a daze.

I looked around, wondering what had caught its attention. The pendant at Kairn’s chest pulsed with white light. The shadowy beast bobbed its head to the rhythm.

Kairn could control it.

The pendant wasn’t a weapon; it was protection.

I conjured two vines and wrapped Kairn in their hold before he could run. The pendant’s light dimmed as he struggled, and the waateyshir let out a terrifying shriek.

“Keera!” Dynara yelled as the beast attacked. She ran for me, leaving Crison and Vrail behind and catching the beast’s attention.

Panic swelled in my chest. It burst through me, shredding my fear and my control all at once. “No!” I screamed, reaching out my hand and shooting a golden wave in Dynara’s direction, catching Crison and Vrail in the wake.

She fell to the ground as someone pushed her out of the way. I turned to Kairn with two fists of flame. “Order it away, and I won’t kill you.”

He spat at my boot.

I diffused my flames and grabbed my dagger. I yanked his wrist and cut off his ring finger. “Order it away or I will take a different appendage next.” I pressed my dagger to his groin to make my message clear.

Kairn bit his lip to keep from crying, but the pendant along his chest started to glow. The waateyshir stopped its rampage and soared into the clouds. It shrieked in the distance and left Cereliath in its smoking, burnt wreckage.

Kairn snarled at me. “Good enough?”

“No,” I said, before slamming the end of my blade into his face. Kairn crumpled to the ground like all the smaller men I had fought as Blade. I cut the pendant from his chest and tucked it into my pocket. Whatever it was, I knew it was too valuable to let Kairn ever get his hands on it again.

Gerarda came to my side and blew two sleeping darts into his neck. “See how simple it is?”

“He was already unconscious.”

“And now he’ll stay unconscious.”

I rolled my eyes. “Put a bag over his head. And a gag and earmuffs to be safe.”

Gerarda’s smirk fell and she nodded.

I turned around expecting to see the others fending off the few soldiers that were left, but the men had fled. Instead, Crison and Vrail sat on the ground where Dynara had left them. They were conscious but Elaran stared down at them, eyes completely wide.

Crison and Vrail each had amber eyes.