Page 42

I panted as I caught my breath, wanted to wipe the sweat from my forehead with my sleeve, but I couldn’t do so in my armor. “What do you see?”

Wrath didn’t speak.

My breath quickly returned to normal when a wave of adrenaline surged. “What do you see, Wrath?”

He turned to look at me, and his eyes were heavy.

“Not my father…” An unbearable pain that was far worse than the tiredness of my limbs struck me. I’d only been worried about surviving the battle myself. My father felt invincible to me, immortal like Wrath. I pushed through the others engaged in battle to see.

Wrath grabbed me by the wrist. “You will be killed?—”

I twisted out of his grasp then shoved him hard in the shoulder before I broke free, moving past the next line of fighting closer to the center of the clearing.

My father stood his ground with his sword gripped hard at his side, but chunks of his armor had been cut away by the ruthless assault of a blade. He was bleeding…and he was tired.

His assailants were three Barbarians. But they weren’t like the others I’d fought in the battle. They were taller and bigger, and their armor was completely maroon with beautiful accents of gold, crown emblems on their chests like they were the kings or generals of this army.

Queen Eldinar lay on the ground with a sword to her throat, a heavy Barbarian pressing his foot into her chest so she couldn’t move.

I quickly realized that my father had intervened to save her life.

After the pause in battle, they came for my father again, and he wielded his sword with Khazmuda’s strength, deflecting three blades alone. But the fatigue in his muscles gave way and left an opening he couldn’t prevent. One of their blades went deep into his shoulder.

“No!”

My father stumbled back, the golden blade still sticking out because it was so deep in his flesh.

The three halted their advance and stared down at him—like he was offal at their feet.

My father didn’t get up again. He lay there then tried to prop himself up on his arm, but something about the wound made it difficult for him to move. He didn’t look afraid, just angry that he’d been cut down like this.

I gripped my sword and ran forward.

But Wrath grabbed me with iron strength and held me back.

“Let me go!” I twisted out of his grasp and punched him in the face.

He grabbed me again, but then the world changed.

The battle was frozen in time. The ash that drifted through the air had gone motionless. It was silent, the cheers of the triumphant and the screams of the dying muted. I glanced around quickly to see that everyone had gone stiller than a winter morning, before I looked at Wrath again.

“Listen to me.” He had a naturally intense look about him, but now he looked more focused than he’d ever been, with a hint of ferocity in his hard stare.

“I have but a moment.” His hand was so tight on my arm that I could feel him begin to dent the metal.

“I can’t fight for you.” He pressed his hand to my chest, on top of the dragon crest that signified my family’s line. “But I can give you my army.”

A rush of heat left his hand and flooded into my body, burning hotter than flames. It made me wince from the pain, but then a blast of coolness followed. The burn continued to singe long after the heat was gone, but the pain was minimal.

His hand remained on my chest, and he looked me in the eye.

“And I can give you my strength—the strength of a god.” The heat returned, but this time, it was hotter than it’d been a moment ago, so hot it made me give a quiet scream.

“Defeat them.” He pulled his hand away, and before I had the chance to ask exactly what had transpired, the world resumed its chaos.

I was nearly knocked to my feet by the screams and the pandemonium. I looked at my father again, confined to the ground, the massive sword sticking out from his wounded body—and the Barbarians descended.

“The dead are yours to command.”

I didn’t know how I knew what to do. Once the gift had been granted to me, it became instinct and intuition.

Rise . All those who had died in the battle suddenly rose, elves, men, and orcs.

Somehow they accepted my thoughts as orders, and those nearest suddenly converged around my father to form a line of defense.

There was an orc without a head, an elf whose eyes had been stabbed from his face, a man who had lost one of his legs.

Beaten and bloodied from the battle that had claimed their lives, they raised their swords and shields and surrounded my father, protecting him on all sides.

The Barbarians halted their progression.

My father looked around frantically as he watched the dead come to his aid, fight for him even though he had forsaken that power long ago. He looked far more afraid at being saved than he had on the threshold of his execution.

Screams erupted from the battle, not those of the dying, but those who feared the dead who rose up once again. It changed the tone of the war, the tide quickly shifting back toward the Southern Isles and the elves of Riviana Star.

I grabbed the dagger from my side and threw it across the clearing, hitting the Barbarian in the neck who had Queen Eldinar captive.

He toppled over, and she was free.

She quickly got to her feet and found my eyes with the same look of fear my father wore.

“Help my father,” I ordered. “These assholes are mine.”

There was a moment of hesitation, like she wanted to disagree, but her eyes flicked away, and she did what I asked and rushed to my father, moving through the dead to reach him in the center.

I spun my sword around my wrist and approached the three Barbarians who had set this forest ablaze, who had tried to take the tree that led to the innocent souls on the other side. I’d been exhausted just moments ago, but now I felt more alive than I ever had.

“ Lily !” My father’s frantic voice came from behind me, probably restrained by Queen Eldinar as she tried to help him. “ No!”

I ignored him and faced my opponents.

He continued to scream. “Lily, run!”

The Barbarians seemed to ignore him too, because they all stared at me from their golden masks. The one on the left tilted his head slightly as he sized me up. The one on the right changed his grip on his sword. It was the one in the center who spoke. “If the little girl wants to play, let her.”

“ Lily, please !” Tears were heavy in my father’s voice.

Wrath appeared at my side and stepped forward, his cape billowing in the nonexistent breeze. “These are no ordinary men. They’re swift and cunning. They have no honor in battle, and they’ll cut your eyes from your face just for sport.”

My eyes followed him as he circled the Barbarians.

“This one has an old stab wound on his left thigh.” He stopped behind the one on the right.

“Just enough pressure will make him lose his balance.” He moved past the one in the center.

“He’ll try to distract you with his words.

Don’t let him.” He rounded the one on the left and began his walk back to me.

My father continued to scream in the background. My focus was so sharp I could block it out.

Wrath returned to my side. “This one is missing a toe on his left foot. A good stomp should piss him off.” He stared at the side of my face.

I couldn’t look directly at him, not without appearing distracted or weak. “Defeat them, Lily Rothschild.”

My father still lived, but in his incapacitated state, it was up to me to lead. With the command of the dead and the strength of a god in my veins, I would defeat these vermin and save everything I held dear.

A fire of blood lust burned white-hot inside me.

I’d watched my father take back his kingdom with a rage that could burn the world—and now I felt it too.

These fiends had burned our forest and wounded my father, and I was furious.

Angry tears scalded my eyes as my hand automatically tightened into a fist, and I slammed it into my chest.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It was just me in the beginning, the sound drowned out by the chaos of the battle, but the dead joined me, banging their swords to their armored chest plates, slamming their weapons against their shields.

The sound grew in unison, so loud that it brought the entire battle to a momentary halt.

Even my father stopped calling out.

I moved forward and continued to slam my gloved fist into my chest. “You will not take this forest. You will not take my people. And you will not take my father .”

Wrath moved ahead of me, stepping to the side as he watched me with a mesmerized stare.

I beat my chest harder, watched the Barbarians hesitate at my ferocity, clearly not expecting a rage hotter than the flames they’d released onto this forest. Instead of attacking me right away, they seemed paralyzed by the cacophony of drums from the dead I commanded, all of them rising and turning the tide against them.

Wrath continued to stare, wearing the same pride my father wore whenever he looked at me. “All hail the Death Queen.”

I lowered my fist from my chest—and the world went silent. “Let’s go.”

Only the one in the middle seemed unaffected by my display of strength.

Perhaps his ego was wounded. Perhaps he was furious that a woman was the one to topple his siege to the ground.

He stepped forward first and did a maneuver with his blade, flicking it around his wrist and then crossing his body for another dance, showing a speed I could barely discern. Then he came to a halt. “Ladies first.”

“What a gentleman.” I lunged forward, and that was when the assault began.

The other two converged on me and I was surrounded on all sides, but I could move my blade far faster than I ever had, even on my best day, even after the greatest night of sleep I’d ever had.

Not only did I have speed, but whenever my hits landed, they landed hard.

Like I had the strength of a man six and a half feet tall.

Wrath circled us and watched. “Dagger from the right.”