Page 51 of The Demon’s Collar (The Bard’s Demon #1)

Ero: The Huntress

Bardic Advice from Eroithiel von Dua to future generations: You miss every shot you don’t take. And several of the ones you do.

I played until my fingers bled.

All around me, the battle raged. It wasn’t like the skirmishes on the road. It wasn’t quick, or exhilarating, or romantic. Each heartbeat that winked out—whether Huntress or Fated—snapped fresh threads of my psyche.

“What are you doing , Ero?” Brü’s strained voice penetrated my fog.

He swung his sword in a masterful arc at a warrior twice his size and as broad as a boulder—but it glanced wide, somehow missing its mark. His adversary had no better luck with the counter. They looked like green initiates in their first sparring match.

My music raged on. I was playing for…peace?

Shit .

That wasn’t right. It was supposed to be a battle song. I fumbled with my lute, willing the music to turn. It fought me. Not my oft-finicky tendrils, but my own instrument. That was a first.

A low, tiny growl rumbled near my foot. Lyric stared at something in the distance. I followed his gaze and caught my first glimpse of the Huntress.

She stood on a plateau halfway down the mountainside, directing her forces with calm assurance. I jammed a looking glass against my eye.

Magnificent silver and black curls spilled over her emerald robes. Her heart-shaped mouth quirked with a confident smile as she issued orders. My sister. Stunning. Perfect. Mine.

Why couldn’t I have them all? Not just Austvix. The others too. Why did it have to be this way?

A massive rock from a trebuchet smashed into the cobblestone path only a few paces away. A volley of arrows followed. One took out the warrior fighting Brü. His own faction’s arrow. But it could have just as easily hit Brü.

Right. She was my sister. But she was trying to kill my friends.

I couldn’t let the Temple Mother’s words ring true. I couldn’t let them down. Not even for my family.

I dropped the lute to my hip and lifted my bow.

I had the shot.

The Huntress was no more than a dot in the distance, but my bow purred with confidence. I drew and released.

My arrow shot into the fray. It sailed past the thousands of fighters engaged in battle, ignoring everything else in favor of its target—the Huntress’s heart.

I whipped the looking glass back to my eye.

The Huntress held my arrow in her bare fist, staring straight at me across the impossible distance. She winked and snapped it in two. Like we were alone in a room together, not standing on opposite sides of a battlefield.

I dropped the looking glass.

Something told me I’d just messed up in a brand new way. Made a choice I couldn’t take back. I slid the bow onto my back and lifted my lute again.

But then, the smoking column of flames collapsed. The sight punched me in the gut. He’ll be fine , I promised myself frantically. He dies all the time.

Fear snaked through me nonetheless. Without B?k holding the Huntress’s forces back, we were about to be overwhelmed.

I spun to Brü—seeking his guidance. War was not my specialty. I didn’t like it, I decided right then. I didn’t even want to be good at it. But I could follow his orders, right? I could help.

Brü stood immobile. Pale. Open-mouthed.

Aelith had been coming toward us, but she must have stopped when the wall fell. She stared toward it past Brü, watching something neither of us could see while he reached for her. Horror grew in her eyes.

“No,” she breathed.

Her skin took on a blinding sheen, like the sea on a sunny day. It was too bright. I had to look away. When I forced myself to look again, she was no longer Aelith.

She trickled through the grass, under Brü and past him—water come to life. The trickle grew into a wave. Aelith surged high, crashing over the battle and washing half its participants down the mountainside and away from us.

Holy hell.

She was magnificent.

I could have composed a lifetime of ballads about the way it felt for all of those struggles to cease at once. The beauty of the quiet in their wake. But she wasn’t finished—and neither was the battle.

Van stalked forward, the only being able to best the current. Flames engulfed him, but they didn’t hurt him. He smoked, hot with brimstone and fury.

With B?k.

No.

His eyes glowed with B?k’s madness, B?k’s flames raged around him, and when he lifted his arm to wield at the camp—I abandoned every hope I had.

We were going to die.

I’d never seen water angry before that moment. But Aelith rose, a monsoon of rage, to meet the siphon.

The battle B?k and Aelith had both been aching for since I’d met them played out before my horrified eyes.

Steam hissed where they met. Van’s face strained with concentration, faltering here and there with madness that only seemed to bolster his strength, even as it fractured his focus.

But the water answered every blow, dousing what he lit, throwing him off balance when he moved.

Brü fell against me. I held on to him with numb fingers.

“Ero…” he whispered. Tears welled in his eyes.

“How do we help?” I demanded.

We watched Van break the wave and lurch forward—watched Aelith dissolve and reform before him, sweeping him down once more. The steam and wind and fire swirled until we could no longer see them at all.

Brü’s grip dug into me. He rested his forehead against mine.

“We trust them,” he said .

So I tried.

It ended eventually. The storm died in an anticlimactic fade, the way storms do, leaving no obviously living beings behind.

We found the siphon’s naked body, burnt to a blackened husk.

We didn’t find B?k. We didn’t find Aelith.

The Huntress’s forces must have retreated.

The mountainside was bone-dry and empty, a silent tomb.

As our people surged over the fields to seek survivors, catalog the dead, and recover resources, all Brü and I could do was wait.

We came to an unspoken agreement not to discuss possibilities.

Unfortunately, we had to discuss one thing.

“Lord Austvix told me to bring you back to the dungeon after the battle,” he said, the apology in his eyes excruciating. “I’m sure?—”

“No, you’re not,” I said, aiming for a light tone and missing it by a healthy margin.

I wanted to believe my brother would come around on the idea of keeping me alive. But neither of us knew for sure. And although I wouldn’t share my doubts with Brü, I wasn’t feeling great about my role in the battle, either.

What was wrong with me? I’d sabotaged our own fighters.

I hadn’t meant to, but that didn’t mean it didn’t happen.

And I’d be lying if I said it was an enormous shock.

That it went against my own feelings. It had, in fact, followed my feelings perfectly.

I’d wanted the death around me to stop, and I’d stopped it.

Would Austvix know that?

Would he blame me?

I walked arm in arm with Brü until we reached the cage door on the side of the mountain. We shared a wordless exchange. I squeezed his arm, and he squeezed mine back.

The door swung open. Austvix stood waiting. Nerves tingled in my belly. I hadn’t expected him to come right after the battle. Didn’t he have two thousand more important things to do? I’d never been a warlord, but it seemed like they would have a lot to do.

“Come in, Ero,” he said. Like I’d knocked on his castle door rather than stumbled into his dungeon. He dismissed Brü with a wave.

I stepped inside warily. The cage clanged shut behind me.

“I’m sorry,” I said—rushing to speak before Austvix could set the tone and tell me I’d failed to impress him.

“I know I’m no good to you. I tried to kill her—and I’ll be honest, I don’t want to try again.

Ever. I don’t want to fight my siblings.

I don’t want any part in this war. I might be useless to you, but I’m not dangerous. ”

“Are you finished?” he asked.

I looked skyward, even angrier with myself for expecting anything different from him. Why shouldn’t he treat me with contempt? I’d begged for a place on the field—and I’d let him down, possibly getting Aelith killed in the process.

Only his words weren’t contemptuous. He smiled gently and gestured to the cell I’d been in that morning. I turned to walk in—and then stopped.

Miri, Sade, and the three other Huntress women I’d marked in the woods stood watching us.

“They said you saved them?” Austvix said.

“I…” I grappled with that wording. Saved was a pretty strong term for what I’d done. “I didn’t let B?k cook them?”

Austvix nodded. “Well, they came to warn us about the Huntress’s approach.”

I stared.

Austvix gave me a moment to do the math. No, I hadn’t killed the siphon. No, I hadn’t shot the Huntress. Hell, I hadn’t even played my battle song correctly. But in a small way, I had saved his ass. If you carried the five and squinted a bit.

“Contessa retreated to lick her wounds,” Austvix said. “We’ll do the same. And Ero?”

I braced myself.

“I want you on my side.”

My brother clearly did not expect me to throw myself into his arms at that simple statement. Or ever.

But that was his problem.

I smashed my face into his chest and held on tight.