Chapter 7 #2
My body shook from the effort of crouching and keeping my bow steady, but each new survivor I met renewed my vigor.
The maze quieted as each of them followed my instructions and crawled away.
A rustle up ahead made me move faster.
I rounded the corner, arrow aimed, only to be greeted by Clara.
Her gorgeous blonde hair had been tousled with twigs and leaves, her dress as torn as mine. She’d ripped a strand of her skirt to wrap around her hand as she clutched a broken piece of jagged glass hard enough to bloody her hand.
“Thank the gods,” I whispered the moment I saw her.
Clara was alive.
Shaken, but alive.
“You’re alive.” Clara breathed out, on the verge of crying in relief. Then she took a deep breath and composed herself, like any good First Family member in a time of crisis. “Thank Xamor, Allie.”
Our gazes both turned to the left at the same time, as the biggest wave of arrows sliced the air–heading our way.
“Duck!” I roared.
Clara and I both tucked our chins into our chests and tumbled backwards, only stopping until we met twin marble benches, laying on opposite sides of the path.
We barely had time to creep under each one as the sky darkened with arrows. There were so many of them now that they rained down poison drops on the corridor between us, charring the grass.
We both laid down, facing each other, like we did back when we were kids and slept in my bed, whispering until nothing but sleep finally shut us up. Silas used to drop Clara off at our house more often than he bothered to look after her.
Through the sickening green drops and smoke, I looked at Clara and tried to give her a reassuring smile, even as my own lips trembled. “Just like when we were young.”
“I much preferred your fancy bed to this.” Clara gulped and forced her own smile. “If you start snoring again, I swear to gods–”
A painful cackle of laughter, born out of anguish and terror, burst past my lips. “Says the one who used to kick me all night.”
Clara laughed, even as the corners of her eyes began to shimmer with unshed tears. The marble above us began to sizzle under the weight of the poison.
We used to play in this maze.
Now we might die here.
“We’ll survive, Clara,” I said, trying to convince us both.
“Out of sheer spite, if nothing else.” She breathed out, voice shaky. “They’re hunting you, too.”
“What?” I glued my back to the hedge, trying to put as much distance between me and the poison.
“Whoever’s attacking us is sending more arrows after the most powerful.” She gulped. “Someone wants us all gone.”
They’re hunting the most powerful.
But we weren’t.
Not right now.
Someone had voided our Protectorate powers.
I struggled to wrestle with the idea that all these people were dead because someone wanted to kill us .
I wasn’t ready to face that grim reality yet.
Then an even more horrifying thought slashed through my mind.
“Where’s Dara?” My stomach dropped. “You were supposed to help her set up the protective runes around the garden’s perimeter.”
Dara was the best of us when it came to crafting runes, but she got stunned in battle. I’d specifically instructed Clara to protect her. We’d trained with the same instructors–it was as if I’d been there myself.
“She told me to leave,” Clara said. “She saw my father and Alaric stumbling toward the maze and screamed at me to follow and help them and–”
“I told them to go straight to the castle!”
The decades had not been kind to their bones. They couldn’t outrun the arrows in the maze.
“It doesn’t matter what you told them, Dara said they came through here, but nobody’s seen them since then.” Clara’s voice cracked.
Cold dread pooled low in my stomach.
I hadn’t seen them either.
“I told everyone I met to head to the castle,” Clara went on.
“Good.” I expected nothing less of her. “My father and Silas are both old foxes. They must have reached the castle by now.”
They had to.
Please.
Silas for Clara’s sake and my father for the entire Protectorate’s–and mine.
Neither of us deserved to live in a world without their fathers.
Not yet.
The poison drops slowed down, but didn’t vanish.
Clara resettled her back and flinched as the shard dug in deeper.
“Why do you have that?” I asked.
“One of Fabrian’s guards tried to decapitate me,” she whispered. “He’s somewhere up ahead. Kick his worthless body for me when you see him.”
“Why?” I barked.
“Because he tried to kill me–”
“ Why did he try to kill you? We’re all being attacked.”
“Fabrian was attacked on our island, Allie,” she rasped. “The Clan Code demands vengeance and the Serpents will take it, even if some of them would have gladly gotten rid of him themselves.”
“Come off it, Evie only nicked his hand.” That passed as a tap on the shoulder around Clan members. “If that’s cause for a Clan dispute–”
“The Dragon killed him. Sliced him clean in half,” Clara deadpanned. “What’s left of Fabrian is currently fertilizing our garden.”
I stared at Clara as if she’d sprouted three more beautiful heads.
“Fabrian’s dead?” Good fucking riddance . Malhaven was a better place without him. But the louse could have had the good graces to get himself killed somewhere else. Now he’d dragged all of us into this mess. “Shit.”
“Yeah.” Clara gripped the shard harder as the arrows hissed louder. “If The Dragon would have let that waste of space just be impaled by an arrow, we would have all been better off. But nooo , he needed to be self-righteous.”
“We’ll deal with that later.” I’d definitely have to join my father when negotiating with what would be left of the Serpents after today. Killing a Clan heir was the cause for most wars in Malhaven’s history.
The Protectorate might not have struck the final blade, but Clara was right. The assassination had happened on our sacred island and nobody would believe the Blood Brotherhood could have just waltzed here without triggering our protective wards.
“You need to come with us to the negotiating table,” I said. “Nobody knows that blasted Code better than you.”
Clara nodded grimly. “We won’t get out of this unscathed.”
“As long as we get off this island alive, I’ll consider all of us lucky.”
Today, we had to survive.
Tomorrow, we’ll worry about a Clan war.
The poison droplets slowed down.
They must have lost our scent.
“Head to the castle and look for our fathers,” I said. “I’ll keep looking for survivors–”
“I can’t leave you alone–”
Why did everyone in my family need to be self-sacrificing and have a big heart?
“Please, Clara. With Fabrian dead, the Serpent guards who have survived will be out for blood. You need to help my father settle the tension until we can get everyone off this island. The last thing we need right now is a fight.”
Clara opened her mouth to argue, but, finally, mercifully, she nodded.
I couldn’t be The Huntress I needed to be if I was scared I’d be leading her to danger behind me.
I jerked my chin at the other opening and raised three fingers. Clara nodded, gaze not leaving mine.
I dropped one finger.
“Be careful, Allie. We’ll need you most of all after today,” Clara said.
“You be careful, too. To protect is to endure .”
I dropped the second finger.
The poison had almost stopped raining down.
“To protect is to endure,” Clara echoed Grandpa Constantine’s favorite saying. “Grandpa would have been very proud of you, Allie.”
“He would have been proud of you, too, Clara. See you at the castle.”
The last finger joined my fist.
We shared a quick, warm smile, before we each darted in different directions, me delving deeper into the maze to find survivors and her rushing toward the castle to protect those who had survived. Whatever prayers had spilled from my lips left with Clara.
If I fell, she would live.
Clara had enough patience and sharpness to guide my father through his pain to protect the Clan.
I swerved from corner to corner, the arrows haunting me.
No matter how many moons I’d get to see in this lifetime or how much laughter I’d have the good fortune to hear, I would never forget this sound. It was now seared deep inside me, as if their blades had scraped against my bones.
Fewer bodies here.
No survivors.
I swallowed my own despair and pushed further.
The air turned colder.
Tenser.
Quieter.
Just as I rounded a corner near the middle of the maze, where the ancient olive tree planted by Dria Vegheara herself awaited, cries from my right stopped me.
Children.
Frightened children.
Three of them.
I’d never moved so fast in my life.