Page 140 of Keeper of the Word

“Breathe!” Elanna commanded.

Hux! Where was Hux? He’d moved to the dais and fought beside Dashiell.

Another scream from the queen drew Elanna’s attention. The puddle of blood under her husband eked out hopelessness.

Griffith, Roger, and Hubert all stood on one corner of the dais, five knights defending them from would-be avengers, Daved amongst them. The banging on the double doors continued. Why had no savior entered from the hidden side door? Was it, too, obstructed?

The cracking sound of splintering wood came. But the doors held firm. Bellowing. Yelling. Noise to drive away all sanity flared from the opposite side of the doors.

The uproar of steel against steel, shouts, and grunts was everywhere.

“Move!” Elanna shouted, grabbing Wenonah’s hand and yanking her out from the chairs. Two men crashed into and broke the chairs not a moment later. The sound that escaped one as the other impaled him made Elanna gag again.

Out in the open, a man with dark eyebrows and a broadsword fixed on and stalked toward Elanna and Wenonah, his eyes roving between the two. Elanna shoved Wenonah behind her.

“Come no further or have your future end in torture.”

He snickered. A derisive sound that was abruptly altered into one sickening and gruesome as a sword skewered his middle, spraying blood on the two women. They shrieked. He dropped to his knees. Behind him stood Joss, holding the hilt of the sword. She pried it from his back, wiped her cheek with her shoulder, and kicked him to the floor. The expression of a warrior was smeared across her face. She nodded before being drawn into another match.

Wenonah stood absently, her hands in the air, the blood dripping from her chin.

A small whimper escaped her.

Elanna tugged her arm and strode toward the double doors, cursing the gown again. Eight men fought here, four to keep the doors bolted, four to open them. She gawked helplessly. She knew not what to do. Nary an idea came to her.

Whoosh!

An ax narrowly missed her, plunging instead into the wall behind her.

She pivoted and paled. A dagger protruded from Wenonah’s chest. She gaped at it, then at Elanna.

Wenonah collapsed to the floor.

Elanna couldn’t scream; she was petrified.

The tension in the hall shifted. The sense of demise entered and suffocated any spark of hope. ’Twas clear. Those who fought for the sovereign and his queen were gravely outnumbered. The usurpers had tipped the balance and ’twas only a matter of moments before everyone in this hall lay dead.

Her eyes circled the hall.

She couldn’t count the dead.

Joss and Barrett both brandished wounds. Daved and only three other Warins were alive, as well as a handful of guards. Hux still battled. Dashiell had received a wound to the shoulder and held his hand tight to the gash; his swings became less and less forceful. They would not be able to hold off enemies much longer.

She couldn’t glimpse Tara and Goodsell.

Elanna swallowed.

This is the dark. This is the end.

Another man near the dais targeted Elanna into his focus. He strode toward her.

Who would harm a StarSeer?

She Saw herself being hunted. Not now. In her path’s future.AllStarSeers being hunted. Hiding like prey from predators.

She backed into the corner.

Stars. Do something.