The Blood Crown (The Blood Folk #2)

27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

N o sooner had Valea stepped onto the stone bridge, and arrows were raining down from the cliffs above.

Aurelia sprinted after, clutching Tanis close behind as Ven and Karro brought up the rear.

Valea swung around, sheathing her blade in one fluid motion as she removed her bow and threaded the white fletching of the arrows through her fingers, marking her targets on the fortress walls high above. Dawn had yet to crest over the cliffs, but the pale winter sunrise was creeping closely enough that she let out a hiss as the diluted light touched her face. She did not flinch as she drew and released arrow after arrow, picking off the archers that fired at them.

Aurelia ran with Tanis toward the end of the bridge. Turning, she looked over her shoulder, her breath cut short.

Ven and Karro fought a crowd of Nostari sentries, their path to the bridge cut off.

Valea stood in the middle, drawing fire from the archers above. But Aurelia watched with horror as the pale skin exposed at Valea’s hands and face grew red, blistering as dawn rose above the cliffs and spilled onto the bridge.

The female grimaced, but she did not retreat. Her eyes flicked to where Karro still fought beside Ven before she loosed another arrow, bringing an archer tumbling down the sheer face of the fortress.

“Go!” Aurelia shouted, flinging Tanis to the end of the bridge, dodging a spray of arrows as she ran back.

Dawn washed over the stone and Valea finally hurtled herself to the ground, her face blistered and raw as she crumpled under the hailstorm.

Aurelia sprinted toward her—spanning the distance to where she lay huddled, stranded in the center of the bridge.

Ven and Karro only needed to take a few steps further and they’d be out of reach, but the onslaught of the sentries was too much for them to move.

Aurelia curled her fingers, willing her magick into her palms. Thunder rumbled in the distance, dark clouds blotting out the dawn for a fleeting moment, letting the sentries gain ground as they fell on Karro and Ven once more.

Lightning exploded, branching across the sky as it met the cliffs.

Great sheets of black rock tore from the face of the mountain, the shouts of the sentries cut off as the rock came crashing down with a deafening roar that shook the bridge, smashing into the stone.

The bridge crumbled under the impact, falling down, down, down into the dark abyss at either side and the churning current of the river far below. The silver-haired Nostari disappeared—along with Ven and Karro.

Horror clenched Aurelia's chest as she sprinted to the ragged edge of the bridge, gripping the stone as she reached—

A large hand clasped around her forearm.

A dark head appeared above the torn stone as Ven gripped her arm, hauling himself onto the bridge.

Beside her, Valea gritted her teeth, her pale skin burning as she threw all of her weight into pulling Karro up.

Arrows rained down, chasing their footsteps across the expanse of the bridge—the cover of the pines only a dozen feet ahead of them.

Valea glanced behind her in what seemed to be a final parting. The cold wind whipped the hood of her cloak back from her face, and in the glow of morning, her porcelain skin began to turn pink, then red. She did not scream, she did not utter a sound as her skin blistered, grasping Karro’s outstretched hand and finally letting him pull her to the safety of the forest.

“We need to be as far from this place as possible before night falls,” Ven uttered as they ran deeper into the Shades.

“I know a place,” Valea panted, throwing her blood red cloak over her silver hair.

They traveled as fast as they dared, cutting through the darkest patches of the forest, where the winter sun was still blotted out by the canopy of pines. The sunlight would keep the bulk of the Nostari forces from following them—but by nightfall they would have not only the king searching for them, but Maloch and his demons as well.

Valea was weak from the exposure to sunlight, and Tanis from being locked in a cell for months. But even so, neither of the females complained as they scrambled boulders and cut through the harsh terrain to find the abandoned outpost.

Dusk began to fall, the pale purple settling into violet and magenta as at last Valea pointed to a pile of boulders. “There,” she panted, the left side of her face still raw beneath the hood of her cloak.

Only a shell remained of the crumbling watch tower, the stone columns and roof mostly collapsed. But the ruins were far enough off any trail that they would be well hidden, and if anyone happened to pass close by, they’d never take notice of the worn remains that looked no more than a collection of stones.

Karro helped Valea into the interior of the darkened ruins with surprising gentleness, and the female must have been hurting enough that she didn’t fight him as he wove an arm beneath her shoulders. She grimaced, looking a little too long at Tanis, hunger apparent in her red eyes.

Aurelia stepped in front of the woman, drawing Valea’s gaze, that familiar cold expression crossing her features once more. The look of a predator.

She angled her body between the two females. They didn’t need a fight in the midst of everything else they were running from, but she wouldn’t sit idly by at a threat to the human.

The corners of Valea’s lips curved up into a sharp smile, challenge glittering in her red eyes—but finally—whether reason won out, or she didn’t have the energy for the fight, she turned away.

It wasn’t until she was out of sight that Aurelia let her shoulders drop. “Don’t stray too far,” she murmured over her shoulder to Tanis.

The space inside the outpost didn’t leave much room for privacy.

Aurelia picked a spot along the wall, legs stretched out in front of her as Tanis took up the place beside her. Karro leaned against a crumbling doorway, knife in his hand, picking at his nails. Ven stood somewhere just beyond the threshold, melting into the night as he kept watch. And even though she couldn't see him, she could feel him. Sense the steady beat of his heart as if it pounded inside her own ribs.

An unnerving sensation that had only amplified since they'd shared blood beneath that cold, dark mountain.

Their reluctant savior had claimed her own patch of floor at the far end, knees tucked under her chin—the position making Valea appear far more innocent than she truly was.

Aurelia watched her, trying to make sense of the ruthless female that had helped them escape.

She’d gotten them out of that place as she’d promised, but could they truly trust her? There was something about the female that spoke to Aurelia. Something buried beneath the hard exterior of the king's daughter that leaked through when she wasn’t careful.

Valea’s pale red eyes flicked up to where Karro stood across the room, tracing the lines of his body until she caught Aurelia studying her and seemed to remember herself. The angles of her face sharpened, the faintest blush staining her cheeks as she lifted her chin. Bright red eyes slid toward Tanis, then back to Aurelia. “You have a peculiar affection for them ,” she drawled.

A deflection.

Aurelia didn’t owe the female an explanation, and she didn’t offer one.

So Valea stretched her long legs out again, crossing lean arms over her chest. “You have not done her a favor." Her full lips thinned into a sneer. “The Shades are no place for a human. She will die a more gruesome death out there than whatever fate she would have faced at Mountveil.”

Something blazed in Valea’s carnelian eyes. Whether it was anger that the human might slow them down, or fear of their own demise, Aurelia couldn’t have said.

“Maybe that’s what’s coming for all of us,” she answered. “But better to die outside those walls than within them.” A harsh truth—but they’d witnessed too many harsh things for her to lie. She glanced through the crumbling stone, out to the inky black that had descended over the forest, and as if in answer—echoing shrieks rose up the mountain face.

Karro looked up, eyes piercing the darkness as the noise rose around them, the terrible sound traveling up into the hills.

“What is it?” Tanis whispered, her brown skin blanching.

Karro threw a glance toward Aurelia, silent as he turned away to scan the mountainside once more.

Valea finally answered when no one else volunteered. “Things far worse than you could imagine.” But her words didn’t have the same bite as before.

Karro went back to cleaning his nails, but the rigid line of his shoulders never quite dropped. The human wrapped her arms tighter around herself, the room falling into silence once more—perforated by the jarring noises out in the mountains.

She hated that she’d brought this down upon all of them. Hated that every part of this had been her doing. Had she not asked for the Wraiths help in the human realm, Karro and Ven never would have been stranded in the in-between without their magick. They never would have encountered the silver sirens—never would have been taken captive by Ven’s father . . .

But there was no use for guilt, now.

She leaned her head back against the rough stone wall, knowing damn well sleep would not claim her. She had only just closed her eyes when the sound of Tanis’ soft voice broke the silence again.

“You killed them.”

The words were hushed.

Aurelia cracked her eyes open at the accusation, holding her breath as Valea’s gaze slid to the human.

Tanis did not shrink from the female’s stare, giving an assessing sweep over Valea’s moon-white face—as if searching for some answer there. “The children,” she breathed.

Karro’s knife stilled from where he’d been twirling it between his fingertips.

Valea's eyes hardened as she held the human's gaze, though she did not deny the charge. She did not move, did not so much as shift her eyes—but Aurelia knew the female was silently tracking every blink, every breath that she and Karro took.

A caged beast, waiting for her moment to strike.

Karro’s expression was carefully neutral, gaze still trained on the floor—but the grip on his blade tightened.

Tanis' voice was soft, low—as if she only meant the words for the female across from her. “I know it for the mercy it was.” She narrowed her green and gold flecked eyes, seeming to see through the fierce warrior, the cold-hearted daughter of the Nostari King. "I watched you whisper words to them, whatever you said seemed to take their fear away . . ." Her brown throat bobbed. "And you killed them quickly. Painlessly." She looked down at her small, open palms for a moment before meeting Valea's stare again. “You saved them from the fate that awaited the rest of us."

The Captain’s expression softened just a fraction, the line of her shoulders dropping almost imperceptibly, though she didn't offer a rebuttal. And it seemed Tanis did not expect one as she let her head fall back against the rough wall, closed her eyes, and curled into herself.

The sharp angle of Valea's jaw twitched as she found a spot on the floor to fix her attention, settling back against the stone. And some of the tension leaked out of Aurelia. There would be no fight tonight, it seemed. She glanced to where Karro stood, his eyes lingering on the female—his expression unreadable as he roughly turned away to stare out into the night-soaked pines once more.