Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Lia was too late. Dread filled her as she tore for the balcony, Kayce hot on her heels.
They heard the screaming first. Wails and snarls bounced off the stone, the streets below a network of chaos. Inhuman screeches pierced her ears. Smoke bloomed in the distance. Lia scanned the misty twilight sky, but no owls blotted its surface.
Still, creatures not of Norenth were here. She’d run out of time.
“You both need to remain here,” Kristof demanded of his parents, his sword drawn.
Red splotched the Lion’s cheeks. “Listen, boy—”
“Da.” Tension bracketed Kristof’s mouth. “Please. Let us see to this.”
The Lion and cub—really a lion of his own right—regarded each other.
The sword glinted. It was the only piece about Kristof that looked battle-ready, his fingertips blackened with ink and several splotches along his billowing white sleeves.
But Lia knew as much as he looked like a scholar, Kristof was as well-versed in battle training as his brothers.
As if recalling this, the king’s passion simmered.
Silva blanched. “Magnar, you cannot—”
“Go.”
With a nod, Kristof jerked his chin for Lia and Kayce to follow.
“What is it, exactly?” Lia bit out.
Kristof ground his teeth. “A living nightmare.”
No.
Her worst fear had come to life. She ran harder than she ever had.
Each step was a beat of her heart. Her home was attacked.
Her home was hurting. She wouldn’t let the Seekers, Malum, or whatever had sneaked through touch one person in Norenth if she could help it.
It didn’t even matter how it had happened; she would not be afraid.
“There’s a tear,” Lia huffed as they ran down staircase after staircase. “I was going to tell you at the tavern—I should have told you before I left, as soon as I knew—”
“Save the regrets,” Kristof bit out. “Highguard will not fall.”
“Though the warning would have been nice.” Kayce’s words held no spite.
The crystalline lanterns shadowed the hard, determined lines of his face.
He was not a boy practicing war games in the woods.
He was not a ranger off to scout for the kingdom.
Nor was he a vigilante against the crimes of the high seas.
He was a prince of Norenth, ready to lay his body down for his land and his people.
Kayce’s sword was out and Lia’s pen mimicked it as they emerged into the courtyard.
Beyond the walls was chaos. Nightmares stalked the streets outside Castle Finerda, warning bells ringing over the night-veiled mist. The three of them wasted no time rushing through the gate that was being drawn closed to fortify the castle.
“Keep these gates shut!” Kristof shouted to the guards before the bars closed behind them.
People ran for shops and homes, falling over themselves to get inside.
Darkness pursued them, shadows peeling from crates and wagons.
Obsidian creatures snarled, their gargoyle forms polished like stone with claws glinting in torchlight.
Bone-chilling shrieks ripped the night apart—human and monster.
Smoke rose, burning Lia’s nose as she tracked black trails down the skyline to the Market Guild’s square.
Lia couldn’t allow her mind to trample over thoughts of “what if”. Her mind emptied, adrenaline pumping blood to her body. A body that had been trained for such a time as this.
She didn’t hesitate. Lia spun toward one gargoyle clawing after a local businesswoman.
It pulled at her skirts, teeth gnashing.
The woman screamed, and Lia was there. Pricking her thumb, she imbued the blade with her blood.
The idea was as natural as breathing. It had worked on the gremlin, the nightmare in her room.
She didn’t know how to Transcribe yet. But she knew how to do this.
With a cry, Lia swung her sword, her pen searing through the gargoyle’s moving stone flesh. It howled, then burned before their eyes into nonexistence. It worked.
The woman scampered against a shop door, trembling. “Th-thank you, my lady!”
“Get whoever you can to safety!” Lia ordered, already turning for the next beast.
But she glimpsed Kayce, whose eyes tracked over her with a heat she’d never—
Another monster, an insect scuttling along thousands of small legs, roared up with giant pincers at his right. Without missing a beat, Kayce whirled and sliced through its head. It rolled to his feet, black lifeblood oozing in a pool.
Chest heaving, he looked back at her, blood splattered over his face. The heat was still there. Her heart pounded beyond adrenaline. He took a step toward her.
Lia inhaled sharply, trying to ignore the responding sensation inside her. “Get to work, Trident. This is what we do.”
This was not a time for teasing, responding to their shared magnetism—whatever this recent shift was between them.
Soldiers from the castle had joined the fray immediately, though most dispersed themselves along the castle wall.
Their copper breastplates shone almost silver under the crystalline’s lantern light.
Their arrows glinted, notched and loosened against the fleshly creatures.
Lia and Kayce doubled their efforts, working to get the beasts away from the civilians trying to find shelter.
It wore on her body, fatiguing her quicker than she thought.
Her arm burned. Her thighs quivered. Her joints strained. Her heart roared.
Lia would not let Norenth fall into darkness.
This is only a taste of what is to come.
The thought was not her own.
Her sword paused, a gargoyle’s claws obsidian shards aiming for her throat before Kayce shoved into it. Shaking her head, Lia leapt onto the creature, piercing through its midsection for it to burn away with an earthshaking howl. It overwhelmed her senses—but not the distant hoot of an owl.
Kayce shot her a worried glance, his brow shadowed. But Lia waved him off.
Focus. Breathe. Fight.
The earlier thought had been so like her intrusive tics, but it held a darker tone than Lia’s own. She scanned the rooftops, several occupied by rangers in gray cloaks, locked with swords and crossbows against nightmares of their own.
No owls in sight.
Clicking slithered up the Market Guild’s streets, Kayce hollering to Kristof to advance. Lia couldn’t divert her focus. Owl taxidermy had to wait.
She was decapitating another insect-like hellion when Terranth whirled into view, Jace beside him as the two tag-teamed against more stone monsters.
Metal reverberated off them with each strike.
Terranth barked an order, Jace pressed against his back.
They were able to face the ends of the street, holding the intersection.
Jace whistled loud. The light blue of his tunic was dark with blood and sweat.
Terranth cursed, his knee buckling as a nightmarish insect snapped at his thigh.
There was no reprieve until Fee dropped from the sky, wings iridescent, with a shock wave that knocked the creatures and two princes off their feet.
One of the beasts snapped back up and Fee flew toward it, striking an open palm to its chest.
Light flared, accompanied by an unholy screech, before the creature disappeared.
A gobsmacked Terranth watched the guardian engage the two that took the creature’s place. “I don’t care how,” he muttered, surging to his feet as Lia, Kristof, and Kayce rushed over. “But I’m going to marry her.”
“Battle first, proposals later,” Jace urged.
“She isn’t able to keep that up for long,” Lia said, keenly aware that her own abilities were finite. Everything—everyone—had their limits. “We need to flank her.”
The princes nodded, the five of them circling Fee with their swords toward the encroaching streets. More of the obsidian gargoyles rushed them, but they allowed those to run past to Fee in what measured waves they could manage.
Because there were more than these gargoyles and insects. Gremlins like the one Lia fought in the alleyway ran around their knees, tiny teeth chomping at the air. Lia didn’t hesitate to plunge her sword into each one that crossed her path.
“I see why you hate these things!” Kayce yelled beside her, slicing through two of his own.
“Aurelia, duck!” shouted Jace.
Lia dropped to the cobblestones. Jace threw his sword like a javelin into an overgrown wolf, red eyes bright, as it bolted from behind a tailor shop.
The blade pierced its chest, and the ground shook when it fell, sliding to a stop at Lia’s feet.
She pulled the sword free, tossing it back to Jace.
He grabbed it by the hilt, swinging in a low, fluid motion to maim the gremlins nipping his knees.
Then Fallon was there, answering his master’s earlier whistle. He snarled as his large paws hit the cobblestones, leaping against another monstrous wolf twice his size that had pounced for Jace’s back. The wolf-dog’s sandy coat turned black as he ripped into the nightmare’s throat with bared teeth.
It was a never-ending sea, like a leak sprung from some—Lia pulled up short, tossing loosened curls from her face. That’s right—a tear. In Norenth.
“Fee!” Lia rasped. The guardian jerked toward her, eyes white like beacons. Twin stars burning toward full power. “Get the Order! We need their help!”
“But what about—”
“Go!” Lia pushed, her pen flaring into a bow, arrow notched.
Fee nodded, wings lifting before pushing down.
The mighty downdraft sent several gremlins scattering across the cobblestones.
Taking Fee’s place in the center, the boys easily fell in step defending Lia.
She took aim and shot arrow after arrow, flying like shooting stars at the nightmares ravaging her home.
So many, such a variety it was almost like it was meant to—
Terranth shouted before she could finish the thought. “It’s a diversion! They’re pulling us away from the castle.”
“Whatever for?” Kristof bellowed, slicing into a smaller wolf.