Page 147 of Quicksilver

The vampire's lower jaw and what was left of its brain stem flew into the mud, sliced clean away. The monster fell limply to the ground for good this time. And I got to fucking work.

There was a split second when the vampires were sluggish as they emerged from the water. Ren took them down in droves as they came up the bank, but I went to the water's edge and began carving them apart before they could get their bearings.

Solace hummed in my hands, sending waves of energy up into my shoulders with every hit I landed. I sank down, settling my weight into the balls of my feet and my hips and immersed myself deep into the flow of killing.

“Back, Saeris! Come back!” Ren was right. There were too many of them coming to shore at once now. I danced back, light on my feet, and took up position beside him. “I'll wound them. You end them,” he snarled.

A blanket of black smoke swept across the river, shoving back so many of the vampires who were trying to climb onto the banks. If there was black smoke, then that meant that Fisher was alive somewhere close by. Relief rode my blood like lightning. I slammed the point of my sword through a vampire's cheek, spearing it to the ground, then ripped the sword free and severed the vile creature's head just in time to repeat the process when Ren sent another slathering feeder my way.

Time slowed down, and the strangest thing happened. My heart rate dipped. A sense of peace washed over me. Acceptanceand understanding. The vampire on the left bypassed Ren and came straight for me. He was moving fast, I knew he was, and yet it seemed as if he was running on loose sand. He would drop down and try to tackle me to the ground; I could see the mindless, animal plan of attack already causing his knees to bend and his shoulders to hunch. The claws at the ends of his fingers, sharp as broken glass, curved, reaching for me, begging to find flesh.

The answer to this was simple. I dropped to my knees and swung the blade around my face, over my head, angled the bladeup...and it was done.

The vampire's head rolled back down the bank and bounced when it hit the pile of bodies that had begun to form there, landing in the river with a splash. Ren paused, double-taking, his eyes round as he took me in. “What wasthat?”he breathed.

“I don't know. I just—” The rest of the sentence was cut short when a plume of black smoke swept me up off the floor, and suddenly I was in Fisher's arms.

His face was streaked with ichor, eyes full of panic. “Are you okay? What happened? Are you hurt?”

“I'm fine. I'm okay, I swear.”

The doubt on his face said he didn't believe me, but it faded away when Ren called out to him. “She's been kickingass,brother. She wields Solace almost as well as your father did.”

Well, that might have been a bit of an exaggeration. It was better than the general telling him I was a liability, though, and I'd sure as hell takethat.Fisher regarded me with something that looked a lot like pride. “Is that so?”

“Catch up later!” Ren shouted. “We're kind of busy right now!”

Fisher was all business again. He set me down and went to Ren's side, his magic boiling out of him in a curtain of darkness. The second he drew Nimerelle, I knew this fight was over.Ren moved fluidly, holding back the remaining vampires with ease, but watching Fisher was something else. He didn't swing the sword. Didn't wield it. The tarnished black blade and the warrior were one. Heflowed.Where Nimerelle cut through the air, trailing tendrils of smoke, vampires fell like stalks of scythed wheat in the sword's wake.

It was both beautiful and terrifying to watch. Kingfisher turned killing into an art form.

I was still admiring the way he moved, when a brilliant white light lashed through the air like a whip on the lower side of the bank. For a split second, night became day. Raw, unfiltered threads of power probed across the edge of The Darn, seeking multiple marks at once, and surprised shouts went up all along the bank as warriors locked in battle watched their opponents burst into flames like torches.

It was Lorreth—Lorreth, and the angel’s breath Avisiéth had granted him— and the sight of it set my soul on fuckingfire.

Fisher swung Nimerelle one last time, slicing through his quarry's neck so fast that it took a moment for the creature's head to topple backward off its shoulders. Our stretch of the river was clear of vampires at last. He grinned like a madman, eyes lit up, reflecting filaments of white light as he turned to watch the spider web of power jumping from point to point amidst the melee, destroying everything it touched and turning Malcolm's army into pillars of ash.

Fisher threw back his head and howled. Ren joined him, and slowly, all across the rain-soaked camp, more voices joined them. Wolves all, singing out their victory.

The baying shouts were still going when Fisher speared Nimerelle tip-down into the dirty snow, cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed so loudly that his cry seemed to shake the very heavens.“Lorreth of the Broken Spires! Lorreth of The Darn!”

“Lorreth!”

“Lorreth!”

“Lorreth of The Darn!”

The name went up again and again; the sound of every Fae warrior in camp chanting Lorreth's name was so powerful that it made my chest ache. For the first time in a thousand years, a god-sword had found an Yvelian worthy and granted him magic to defend his people. I wasn't Yvelian, and evenIwas knocked on my ass by the raw emotion filling the air. There weren't fucking words...

“KINGFISHERRRR!”The shrill cry rose above the shouting and whooping. Even the angry crash of thunder didn't swallow it.It was female.

All three of us whipped away from the celebration taking place, searching for the voice. It didn't take long to find it. There, on the other side of the river, was a woman in a ruby red dress, her bright blonde hair streaming out behind her like a banner of gold on the howling wind.

It was Everlayne.

And she was flanked by at least a hundred vampires.

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