Page 73 of Reign of Stars and Fire

“Run!” I yanked Elise by the arm, shaking her from her stun. “Get off the land, or you will all be taken much the same.”

I could not warn them again. There wasn’t time.

I raised my sword and blocked a strike from a wild fae. Overhead, the steel rumbled through my arms to my shoulders. Calls for slaughter came from the trees. More of Davorin’s forces stepped from shadows.

Gorm, Cuyler, and the blood fae watchers leapt into the fray. Steel clanged against steel. Metal scraped over flesh. Blood was sour in the air. Their mistrust of me was forgotten, and the warriors of the North stepped into the fight.

Herja clambered onto a boulder, firing arrows into a huddle of wild fae while Gunnar’s father stood back-to-back with Gunnar, Eryka, and the Nightrender. Niklas launched elixirs into the wild fae horde.

Toxic plumes of white smoke grew pustules and oozing sores over their faces. Flame pouches came next. Bursts of oranges, reds, and shocking blue powders caught hold of their tunic hems, their hair, and licked up their skin. Screams chilled the blood as the corrupted folk stumbled back in pain, swatting at their burning flesh.

I swiped my sword at a forest fae with yellow eyes. He jabbed. I spun and landed my blade into the side of his throat.

I didn’t wait for him to fall before blocking a new strike over my head.

My pulse stilled. Davorin stood beside me.

His cold grin shocked the blood in my veins. I fumbled, a slight misstep, but it was enough for him to strike my face with the back of his hand. He wrapped a palm around my throat and pulled my brow to his. His grip tightened until breath came in short, haggard gasps.

“You make this too easy, my love.” He clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Leaving your stronghold. It is almost like you wish to see me.”

I spit into his face and slammed my knee into his ribs. Davorin grunted, but it was enough to loosen his grip to shake him off.

Dark laughter rumbled from his throat, and he looked at me as though he planned to devour me in an instant. “Gods, how I missed the way you try to fight me.”

Gory visions filled my mind of taking those hands that once touched me, the heart he promised loved me, his whole damn head he’d used to control me.

Davorin snapped his teeth. “You pleased me so well, little raven. Your screams, your taste, your submission, are my most cherished memories.”

I spun the blade in my grip. “Strange for a man to admit the only way he could wake his limp manhood was by watching others take his lover for themselves.”

Davorin’s arrogance bled into animosity. I had half a breath to position my blade to take his strike. Pain vibrated up my arms from the force of it. He swung low, aiming for my middle, but met my sword.

I tossed his blade up. He cut at my chest. Back and forth we flung our pent anger and disdain. My focus was on my battle, but my senses prickled at the sounds around me.

Nearby, Gorm battled three wild fae. Calista was swift and used her knives to cut at knees and ankles. From the tunnel, Rune answered the call through the marks embedded on our skin and appeared with Stefan and Frey, swords already slicked with blood.

Stieg tossed air fury in great gusts, knocking more than one of Davorin’s corrupted off the knolls. Hodag joined from her burrow. The troll bit and slashed a curved knife at ankles and ribs near her favorite warrior.

When a wild forest fae with a long-handled axe snuck around Stieg, the troll woman shrieked. “Don’t you be touchin’ him!”

Hodag extended her claws and slashed over the forest fae’s middle. Deep stripes of mangled flesh opened over his skin. He fumbled, astonished, then fell back.

Stieg bellowed a laugh, tugged Hodag against his big body, and planted a kiss atop her thick skull.

“More fearsome than any warrior!”

The troll flushed under his praise and sped off into the crowd, cutting and slashing at any fae who got too close to her sweetlings.

Rune had his wings extended. He killed with silent finesse. More than once, Rune’s eyes glazed into a smoky white. He gripped the face of a fae dressed in Borough fatigues. Screams rattled the gates as the fae’s skin hardened into cracks and chips of pale granite until his screams were wrapped in stone.

Sweat dripped over my lashes. I blinked it away. Davorin dodged a cut to his shoulder. Swift on his feet, he kicked my ankle.

I cursed when my feet failed me and I landed on my back.

“Saga!” Odd, but it sounded as though Elise was the one who’d shouted my name.

Davorin pinned me with his body. His blade tucked under my chin. “Do you truly think you can outfight me, little raven?”