Page 79 of Keeper of the Word (The Unsung and the Wolf Duology #2)

Chapter

Seventy-Two

ELANNA

T he thump of the battering ram grew louder and louder as they approached the city gate. Elanna had not asked but knew the stars guided their course.

A few times, they’d heard shouts.

“StarSeers!” The word had been uttered both in hope and in horror. But no one impeded their ride to where they finally halted as close as they dared to the gate.

“There are too many of them!” Casta said. “How will we possibly get there?”

Hux searched distractedly down the field. “Lord Wolf!” he shouted.

Elanna couldn’t see Tolvar, but he must be close.

Three men approached them on foot, crazed expressions melting their faces.

“This is all your fault!” one yelled. “You were supposed to protect the Capella Realm!” He ran at them with a dagger, but Hux drove his giant black stallion into him, the horse rearing and trampling him while Hux used his dagger to stab the second who’d run to his comrade’s rescue, then drive it into the last .

Elanna and her sisters stared queasily; Hux tsked. “Elanna, this is war.”

As if needing proof, more men came at them. Hux and the Order knights shouted for them to get behind them as they drew swords and fought off the attackers. Elanna held her breath.

“Right! Left! Turn!” she began to shout to Hux. Casta and Kyrie began to shout similar directions at the knights. Asking to See the near future would fatigue her quickly. ’Twas not long before her arms hung heavy at her sides, and she wobbled in the saddle.

Eventually, they’d downed the attackers. No one else in the fray seemed to notice them. The StarSeers dismounted to check the wounds of Hux and the others.

Then, as on that festival day in Asalle’s square, Elanna felt the eyes of a witch on her.

A witch with tufts of stringy black and white hair, milky eyes, and leathery, wrinkled skin stood only paces from them.

“I Seen you comin’ here.”

Her grin was cruel and revealed missing teeth. She withdrew an orb from the cloak she wore, muttered unintelligibly, and thrust her arm out to them. Immediately, Hux and the Order knights sunk to the ground, flailing in pain.

Adrienne. It ran down the witch’s fingers like thick, black veins. Casta and Kyrie whimpered. They had already experienced the effects of her darkness.

The witch inched closer, and Elanna shoved her sisters behind her. This was Jordain, the leader of the coven whom Gethwin had spoken.

“Come no closer.”

Elanna gazed up. Thrice. To call upon the Light of Siria thrice was a danger. And truly, Elanna wasn’t certain she could , as she had exerted so much of her starlit well moments ago.

She had to try.

The witch almost had them within her reach.

“Light of Sir—” she called before someone’s “Nay!” startled her .

Tara dashed from the shadows, already chanting her call to the stars.

A blinding sheet of light hurtled down from the night sky and forced itself between them and Jordain. Men’s cries echoed across the field.

Elanna held her ears.

Jordain was pitched back several yards. She slumped into a motionless mass.

As swiftly as it had descended, the Light of Siria disappeared, and Tara, too, lay on the ground unmoving.

“Tara!” the sisters screamed, moving to her side.

“Is she breathing?” Casta asked. “She’s so pale.”

“And cold!” Kyrie cried.

Hux and the Order knights regained themselves and crouched over Tara. Hux exchanged a glance with Elanna.

“Get her onto Jac’s horse, Kyrie,” Elanna ordered, referring to one of the Order knights. “You must get Tara away from here! Return her back to the camp. Away from this fray!”

“We cannot leave you!” Kyrie said. “We still have the gate!”

“I will lock the gate. You two take her away from here. Away from this darkness. The Curse is all around us. ’Twill kill her!”

Casta and Kyrie rushed to their mounts as Hux took the lifeless Tara and placed her in front of Jac. They maneuvered the horses in the direction of the camp. They were soon swallowed in the mayhem of the battle.

Hux glanced between the soldiers with the battering ram, who had resumed their task, Elanna, and down the field where earlier he’d called to Tolvar. “Do we meet again?”

“What?”

“I know there are elements you cannot tell me about my future. But tell me that you and I meet again. ’Tis all I need know.”

His dark eyes drank her in.

“We meet again.”

Hux rushed to press his lips to hers. Elanna kissed him with every ounce of passion she had.

He parted them, exhaled, winked, and mounted his black steed. “That is gladdened news. With that, I must go. My reluctant, prickly friend needs my aid.”

Elanna’s eyes followed him into the horde of fighting men with hope held on her breath. When she turned to speak to the two Order knights who’d stayed with her—a heated discussion playing out between them about options they might try—that hope disappeared.

She gripped the key.

“M’lady, mayhap we should take you, too, to safety,” one yelled over the blare of commotion.

“We cannot yet leave!” Elanna shouted back.

But ’twas impossible. She was one person. A StarSeer, aye, but she would ne’er be able to wedge between a battering ram and the gate.

A new clangor began, and abruptly, dozens of men bolted toward them. But they weren’t rushing at them. They were rushing away from something.

In the dark of night, Elanna squinted to make out what had suddenly caused such a retreat.

Hundreds of horses appeared. They charged toward them, led by—was that Daved?

The army that Daved brought from Mara raced across the field, assaulting any foe in their path.

Exposed and unprotected, now that they’d been abandoned by their comrades, the men with the battering ram gave one last attempt to breach the gate before, one by one, they crumpled onto the field, dropped by arrows.

The battering ram landed on the field with a great thud.

Elanna wasted no time.

She gathered her skirts and sprinted to the gate; the two Order knights followed.

The key gripped in her hand, Elanna fixed her gaze solely on the keyhole. She ignored all sounds, all smells, all sense that, even with Daved’s reinforcements, she was pursued.

She heard only her own padded footsteps race to the gate, and stars’ light urging her forward. She’d scarcely halted in front of the battered gate, when she rammed the starstone key into the keyhole, gave an exhale, and turned the key.

The click was not solely for her ears. It reverberated off Asalle’s walls and ricochetted across the field.

A force like a gust of sharp wind blew across her face.

A safeguard had been placed around Asalle and naught but this key would breach through the city of Light now. The first phase to secure Asalle’s Light was complete. All they needed now was the word.

Elanna slouched against the gate.

Someone crept toward her.