Page 49 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

Ero: A Leap of Faith

I shivered at Austvix’s words.

The “Great War” was supposed to be a nebulous threat that existed in some distant future we never quite reached. It wasn’t supposed to happen now . It certainly wasn’t supposed to happen to me .

Austvix slid his sword back into its sheath.

I sagged. The immediate relief from its absence washed over me, leeching tension from every muscle—even with the threat of imminent battle hanging overhead.

And then Austvix turned away. He was about to be out of my reach, possibly for good.

I sucked in a breath. I couldn’t leave it like that. I shoved my bow and arrows back into my satchel, knowing Austvix would feel the same surge of relief I had. And I took advantage. Before he could step away, I reached through the bars and grabbed him.

He froze.

If his magic was anything like mine—and I hoped it was—the fact that it hadn’t lashed out was a good sign.

“Let me fight,” I demanded.

His eyes were already distant. One foot here, one on the battlefield. He had a hell of a lot more to worry about than a sister he already planned to kill. Yet still, he hesitated.

“Two against one,” I whispered, tightening my grip. “I won’t take my bow. Just let me play for you—and the others. Please. I need them to survive this too.”

The waiting officer bounced on his heels. We didn’t have time to waste. Not even these few seconds. I knew that. If Austvix said no, I couldn’t press him without risking my friends’ safety further.

“Fuck the Fates,” I growled. “We decide, and I want you to win. Let me help.”

I thrust my piece of the holy staff through the bars. The only offering I had. Perhaps it was a meaningless gesture, considering we were on the precipice of a bloody death. Considering we were already entering the war, and peace seemed far out of reach. But the leap of faith felt right.

Austvix stared at it for a long moment. He didn’t take it. “Bring your bow,” he groused. “But if you get a clear shot at Contessa—swear to me you’ll take it. ”

My breath stuck in my throat. He wanted me to swear—not that I wouldn’t turn on him—but that I would shoot a sister I’d never met.

I tried to make quick work of justifying it. Clinging to crumbs. Brü’s story about the Huntress. The fact that the rancid siphon served her, and she let him. But even if it didn’t paint a glowing picture, it didn’t mean I wanted her dead.

With a sigh, Austvix pulled his arm from my grasp.

A desperate hiss escaped me. No . It wasn’t a choice between my sister’s life and her death. It was a choice between Austvix and standing on my own—being the youngest and only factionless sibling in a war I never asked for. Now wasn’t the time for neutrality.

“I swear,” I said.

He’d already taken two steps away, but a flick of his wrist opened the lock on my cell.

He was letting me go. He was letting me fight.

“Keep up,” he said. “The demon has the key to the cuffs.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice. I slung my satchel over my shoulder, struggling a bit with the kitten as I did so. I whispered a frantic “Stay here, baby.”

“He won’t,” Austvix said impatiently over his shoulder. “And he can look out for himself. He’s not entirely a cat.”

I blinked.

Austvix was already halfway to the mouth of the cave, Pax at his heels. My new furry friend wriggled out of my grasp and bounded after his elder. Something akin to horror bloomed, even as my heart melted at the sight. If not “entirely” a cat, what was he?

The gate screeched as Austvix wrenched it open. Right. Questions about my beast could wait. I lurched after my brother before the gate could close and lock me in again.

The kitten—or whatever the fuck it was —fell in at Pax’s side.

“Troop status,” Austvix demanded of the officer.

“Mustering,” he replied, his relief at having Austvix snap into leader mode palpable.

“Specialty forces? ”

“By the gates.”

“Ten minutes,” Austvix said. “Leadership to the square, battle formations.”

The officer saluted and took off at a sprint. Austvix caught my shoulder, steering me sharply toward the gates.

“If we survive this,” Austvix said, “we talk terms. I want to trust you?—”

“Likewise,” I said quickly.

“—but I don’t.”

“Same.”

Without slowing at all, we exchanged uncertain looks.

When I faced forward again, I saw them all.

Brü—with Aelith’s arms around his neck, her lips pressed to his ear.

Hammond, Nigel, Tavish, and Fl?r with their heads bent together, talking intently.

And B?k. Grim and standing apart from the others, as usual.

Other small clusters of soldiers waited nearby, but Austvix marched directly to my people.

Two white blurs shot ahead of us, Pax in the lead with Lyric—a name I suddenly knew, rather than chose—hot on his paws.

Austvix stopped next to Brü. “Take the bard. Return her to the cells when you’re finished. Fire wall in the moat, two layers deep—three if there’s time. Angle them to the gate.”

“Yes, sir,” Brü said.

And then Austvix was gone, giving more orders and winding his way back toward the square.

There was one pregnant beat of silence. Then everyone moved at once.

Well…almost everyone. Aelith’s arms encircled my neck.

Brü gripped my shoulder. Hammond clapped his axe blade with a thundering twang, muttering, “told ya I helped” to Nigel, who shook his head and gave me a little salute.

I caught Ta vish’s face from the corner of my eye—and almost let my attention slide right past him—but caught it and forced myself to stare instead. He laughed.

Only Fl?r and B?k hung back. Fl?r pointedly sharpened his blade, his expression pinched with disgust. That didn’t surprise me. B?k’s stony silence did. He held the key to my cuffs out to Brü, refusing to meet my eyes.

“Tell the bard to play,” B?k said. “We can hit four or five layers if the music is right.”

Despite the warm reception from the rest of the party, my stomach hollowed at his chilly words. As if to punctuate them, a frigid breeze emanated from B?k. Was he mad at me? Now? I should be mad at him . He’d handed me over to my brother for slaughter. How dare he act like I’d done something wrong.

Brü unlocked the cuffs and tossed them to B?k.

Aelith planted a kiss on my cheek, temporarily drawing my attention away from my demon problem.

I looked into her watery eyes and let the calm confidence she pushed into me take root.

That, coupled with the immense relief as my tendrils finally roared back to life, made my power hum with anticipation.

Forget B?k’s sour mood.

We had a battle to win.

I squeezed Aelith tight before she released me to plant a huge kiss on Brü’s lips—which Hammond gave a raucous cheer. Then she loped off to find her place in the formation.

I grabbed my lute.

I didn’t need to be told to play. I would have with or without B?k’s permission, because I had something new to prove. Namely, that I was a sister worth keeping alive.

We rode through the gates toward the danger, the Fated’s first line of defense. My nerves grew with each step, but so did the feeling of invulnerability. I was…half a god, right? That had to mean something. That had to?—

I promptly tripped over a tree root and crashed into Hammond’s back.

Brü saved me from the ribbing that might’ve fetched by choosing that moment to explain the plan.

Our team would lay a wall of fire in the moat surrounding the camp.

Tavish and Nigel would watch the pass for the first sign of the Huntress faction to give us time to get back to the gate.

Fl?r would conjure whatever enchanted traps he had time to set.

Hammond would clear fallen trees and other forest debris that might help the enemy cross the wall of flame.

And B?k and I—well, everyone knew our jobs.

I’d barely struck my first note when B?k abandoned any illusions of humanity. His shadow doubled and then tripled, spreading in all directions to blanket the forest floor in unnatural darkness. And then his body burst into flames.

I didn’t know what they meant by “layers,” but I played like I’d never played before.

I didn’t ask my magic to join me. I pulled it into the strings.

B?k shot into the night, filling the barren moat with flame.

He moved so fast I made a ridiculous noise—remembering the first time I thought I could run from him.

He hadn’t even tapped into this power to find me.

Absurdly, a pang of sorrow hit. Would he ever chase me again? The breeze tickled the bare skin of my throat.

I swallowed and poured the emotion right back into the music.

It was only minutes before he approached again—from the other direction.

He’d run all the way around the perimeter of the mountain base.

Sure. Why not? Inhuman speed, bolstered by madness, apparently made that possible.

He leapt the gate pass, leaving the road to the camp entry clear, then dashed by us again in a blur of flame and shadow.

In his wake, the wall of flame grew higher—a searing red stone base beneath it.

On his second and third passes, he ran on the stone, building the wall higher still.

The heat quickly overwhelmed the rest of us. We wended our way toward the main road, where there was still a narrow pocket of cool air.

“Why doesn’t he do the road too?” I called to Brü. I couldn’t sing anymore anyway, not with the ash in the air. My chords would have to do the job alone.

“He can’t hold it long enough,” Brü shouted back. “They would just wait him out. We’re forcing them to bottleneck.”

In the end, B?k was right about the layers. He was on the fifth lap when Nigel’s whistle warned us of the Huntress’s approach.

Hammond shoved one final fallen tree into the flames. Fl?r, Nigel, and Tavish rejoined Brü and me.

And then I saw them.

Thousands of fighters in formation, marching toward us.

“Retreat to the gates!” Brü shouted.

Everyone but B?k listened. I hesitated—but Brü tugged my elbow, calling over the roar of the hellfire, “He’s not coming, Ero. He has to hold the wall.”

It made sense. I couldn’t even see B?k’s outline inside the ball of flame anymore. Unless he could put himself out on a whim, which I doubted, he couldn’t possibly follow us back into the camp. The others ran for the gate.

Words hovered on the tip of my tongue. I needed to say something to him. But what?

“Ero, we need you ,” Brü shouted.

I was out of time. I ran after my friends and left B?k alone with his wall of flame.