Page 55 of Inked in Emeralds (Inkbound #3)

T ime rushed forward before Gayelette could answer, and noise slammed into me from all sides. The clanging of swords, shrieking of monkeys, all resuming at once as the clock began to tick again.

Gayelette stumbled, and I latched onto her, holding her steady.

“We’ll need a way out,” she said, her expression grim.

“They’ll be at the mouth of the cave in minutes,” I whispered. “Thousands of them.”

Gayelette drew a shaky breath. “Better to face the monkeys than her. Collapse the tunnel and buy us a bit of time.”

I turned to Duncan, jabbing my finger toward Gayelette. “Help her into the hall. We need you ready to go once this is done.”

I charged back out of the chamber to see piles of dead monkeys now clogging the space, with our forces finishing off the final few of that wave, but the break in the action was just the chance we needed.

Hook stepped out beside me, laying a hand on his shoulder, “What’re we thinking?”

“We’ve gotta cave in the passageway.”

He nodded, his magic bubbling to life. “There were too many monkeys to manage before, but I’m on it as soon as we get everyone clear.”

“Retreat!” I called, watching as our small band of fighters pulled back.

“On three,” Hook grunted.

I matched his stance, letting my own magic flow.

I had no idea what Tideblessing he planned to use, but, somehow, I didn’t need to.

Instead, I tapped into something far deeper.

The very essence of his magic, letting my energy meld into his.

They swirled together in a single, palpable mass, ready to be unleashed.

And, even as the next wave of monkeys charged into view from the passageway, I had no doubt that we could do it.

“Now!”

The blast slammed into the ceiling, cracking the wooden support beams. The tunnel shuddered violently, bringing down more and more rubble. The screeches of the monkeys beyond turned to screams, then faded beneath tons of stone.

I spun, chest heaving as we sprinted toward the cave’s mouth. “Outside, quickly!”

Duncan hefted Gayelette into his arms, charging into the hall in step with Hook and I. Collapsing the passageway had been a small victory, but we weren’t in the clear yet. Not when there were legions of monkeys outside even now, waiting for our exit.

The tunnel behind shook, sending fresh debris skittering across the floor, and Almira’s cold, taunting laughter seemed to roll right through it, like she was inches away despite the layers of stone between us.

“Did you actually expect that to stop me, little witch?”

My gut twisted into knots as we burst out of the cave, our ragged, battle-worn fighters stumbling all around. The monkeys were still a good distance overhead, but their attention shifted to us almost immediately, and they came swooping down in droves.

“What do we do?”

I looked over to see Molly standing beside me. There was no fear in her eyes, just grim determination on her blood-spattered face as she awaited my orders.

I was about to give them when the world exploded.

A deafening blast shattered the cave, spraying stone and rubble in every direction. The force sent me hurtling and I struggled for footing, my vision going dark around the edges.

“Moll?!” My voice sounded muffled and distant even to my own ears as I searched through the settling dust.

A sick feeling settled over me until I caught sight of Molly sprawled in the dirt a few yards away, dazed but alive.

She scrambled toward me and linked arms as the shrieks grew closer. Our fighters were only beginning to find their feet, looking dazed and confused from the blast as shadows descended from above.

The monkeys were closing in, but it was a sizzle of energy at the now-obliterated cave that had my attention. There, from the rubble rose Almira in the flesh, her black cloak billowing, hair cascading behind her like quicksilver as she rose into the sky.

Her gaze locked on me, and she smiled.

“Such a simple girl,” she called, shaking her head. “Naive, like your mother, running headlong into trouble time and time again, and not seeing the trap until it’s sprung. All to help a feeble, starving old witch.”

I stared into the face of the woman who had killed my father. Who had ruined my life and that of all the people in C’an Saas. Instead of blasting her to pieces, I stood there. Frozen.

Billy grabbed me by the shoulder, jolting me out of my paralysis. “Snap out of it, Harm. We need you!”

Her words sliced through the mental fog like a slap.

“A shame you didn’t take after Gayelette instead…” Almira continued. “That might’ve made this more interesting.”

The first of the monkeys were touching down, and a few of our men were already fighting.

“I think the fact that you spent the past twenty years following me around, trying to stop me from getting here and failing is actually super interesting.”

The words hit their mark, and she snarled and whipped off a blast of magic just like I knew she would. The second it came, I lifted a hand, deflecting it right back at her, superspeed.

She reeled back to dodge it, flew back, dropping closer to the ground as she tried to regain her composure.

“Hook, Duncan, Billy…You’re with me,” I called, more confident by the moment. “We’re going to focus on Almira. Everyone else, hold those monkeys off for as long as you can! If we kill the witch, the monkeys go down with her.”

The group surged forward, but Almira had recovered and cackled louder as she floated closer, hovering only a few feet above the ground now.

I saw a figure moving toward her out of the corner of my eye and tried not to react. It was Gayelette.

And she was making a move.

“It was a waste of time to come here. Gayelette was never a match for me, even at her strongest. Always weak, always trailing behind Marin and me. But at least she wasn’t a damned fool. You, on the other hand, are barely more than a child. All your mother’s faults, with none of her strength.”

She lifted a hand and hurled a ball of flames our way, but Hook was ready for her, hitting it with a blast of water. It connected with a sizzle and disappeared into a harmless puff of steam.

That sent Almira into a fury, and she fired off a flurry of attacks, each more deadly than the last.

Black lightning came straight for my forehead, but I managed to catch it with my whip tip right on time, wrestling it to the scorched earth where it fizzled and died.

I looked over to seeing Billy tucking and rolling to dodge a dagger made of ice.

And Almira didn’t stop, so busy trying to kill us that she didn’t see her sister coming.

“Ahhhh!”

Gayelette launched herself onto Almira’s back, wrapping her legs around the other witch’s waist, putting her into a chokehold and dragging her to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Almira let out a snarl, reaching for the knife at her waist and blindly stabbing behind her.

One, two, three quick strikes before she was able to flip her attacker off her back and onto the ground beside her.

“Did you really think you’d be able to kill me like that? Who dares?—”

Her words died, sneer shifting to a look of shock as she stared down at Gayelette crumpled on the ground before her.

Gayelette’s breath came in harsh gasps as she searched for me.

“I…wish your mother could have seen. She’d have been proud of me, I think.” She let out a final cough, then went limp, her blood pooling in the dirt around her.

Almira threw her head back as agony gripped her face. Her scream cut through the battlefield as she stumbled back, her hand going to her chest.

Blood pounded in my ears as I forced my feet into action, sprinting at her with Billy and Hook at my side as a monkey swooped down to tackle Duncan.

Killing her coven sister hadn’t killed her, but it had dealt Almira a major blow. It was up to us to finish it.

“Now!” I shouted, channeling every bit of magic I could summon as Hook surged to my side.

The air trembled with power as we blasted right into her defenses with twin streams of energy.

She tried to shield herself with magic, throwing up her arms, but either she was too weakened or we were too strong.

I could smell the burning flesh and cloth.

“Don’t let up!” I shouted, watching as Billy sprinted past us, firing an arrow at Almira’s exposed chest with a feral roar.

A second later, a monkey fell from the sky. Then two. Screeches filled the air and what had been a battle now became a game of dodging the bodies as they dropped from the sky.

Hook and I lowered our hands in stunned surprise.

Had Billy’s arrow hit its mark?

But a low cackle had the hairs on the back of my neck rising, and it grew louder as Almira shot into the sky.

I yanked a lens of the loupe over my eye and watched in horror as all the dark energy flowing out of the dying beasts in the sky flowed in a straight path, right into Almira’s outstretched palms.

“You could have done the same, you know,” she snarled.

“Killed your one-armed guardian and reclaimed the magic you loaned him all at once. Might’ve had a chance then, especially with that stunt my fool of a sister pulled.

Did you know that Gayelette bought your pirate for a sack of potatoes?

Though I’m starting to think she should’ve haggled more. ”

The words were cruel, and rage shot through me, but I tried to think past that to the meat of things.

The monkeys weren’t dying because we’d cut the proverbial head off the snake. They were dying because she was draining her “vessels” of magic for herself.

“I missed,” Billy rasped as she moved in beside me. “We were so fucking close, and I missed.”

“We’ll get another shot,” I said, my throat like sandpaper as I gave one last look to poor Gayelette.

Billy grunted, and I turned, watching her face contort with pain.

“Hellfire…she’s calling my magic back to her as well,” she managed through clenched teeth. “It’s faint, like a dull ache, but I feel it.”

Almira let out a howl, then spun in the air, her power thick and sparkling behind my lens, like a suffocating wave.

“You have my thanks, dear sister,” she called, gesturing toward Gayelette’s body with a flourish. “I was too afraid to try it, but now I know. I have transcended our lowly coven, entering the realm of the gods. Fear me!”

With a flick of her fingers, Gayelette’s fallen body exploded into a visceral mess of guts and bone. And then her attention shifted to me, her lip curling with contempt.

“You’re next, my pretty.”

She disappeared, then shimmered back into existence right in front of us. Her entire body glowed as she twirled, lashing out at us with raw magic. “I’m done playing.”

Her first shot veered toward Duncan as he and the others formed a wall in front of me. He brought his sword up in the nick of time, his feet gouging trenches in the dirt as he skidded back. The blind fury he’d used to rely on was gone, and replaced with cool, calculated rage.

In the same, fluid motion, she turned her energy on Hook, blasting him with a torrent of flame like nothing I’d ever seen. He reacted with his water blessing just in time, but her fire ate right through it and would’ve struck him if I hadn’t thrown up a quick shield.

The battle continued at a breakneck pace, but I was beginning to grasp the patterns.

If I focused hard, I could see it. Each shift in Almira’s posture, the subtle flares of magic gathering at her fingertips, just like Duncan taught me.

The battle felt less chaotic and more choreographed with each passing second.

Each time she attacked, I was there just in time, throwing up a shield or knocking her off course at the last possible second. All the while, Billy kept firing. I used every ounce of magic I could muster to shield them, throwing out an occasional crack of my whip as Xander stepped in beside me.

Almira snarled, finally forced onto defense with her attention flickering between too many of us.

I risked a glance around me as I realized the last of the monkeys had fallen and the others were headed our way.

If we were near to overwhelming her, with the rest of us, we could finish this!

Raw power was on her side, sure, but our teamwork was too much for her to handle now that she’d gotten rid of all her allies.

“We’ve almost got her! Attack. Attack!”

For a moment, I allowed myself to hope. The O’Donnellys rushed into the fray, Paddy roaring as he hurled a sharpened stone at her, striking her in the side of the head. I threw up a shield before she could counter, letting him dip away free from a returning blow.

Molly and Hook’s crew came sprinting forward, raining daggers and knives upon her like a hailstorm.

She was distracted, shielding herself from them, when Duncan and Hook lunged at her in unison, but she skipped away at the last second, her lips twisting into a cruel smile as energy gathered in her fingertips.

I focused, trying and failing to see who she was aiming at. The bolt of magic streaked from her finger a moment later, hurtling toward Xander, faster than I could follow with my eyes. I strained, muscles tensing as I threw up a hasty shield, praying it’d be enough.

Relief started washing over me, then twisted to dread as the attack shifted in midair as if moved by an unseen hand and headed directly at Hook’s exposed back as he turned to face me. I opened my mouth to scream, willing my magic to protect him, but it was too late.

The projectile slammed through his back, punching straight out the other side in a spray of blood. He staggered, his cloak of shadow and wind dissipating.

Almira’s laughter pierced the ringing in my ears, shrill and victorious as I rushed to Hook’s side and dropped beside him just in time to see the light go out in the those inky black eyes

“No…no!!!”