Chapter 37
Iris
Ialmost eat shit as I narrowly avoid the swinging blade coming straight for my throat. Dropping low, I swipe the blond fae’s legs from under him. A loud crack resounds as the wooden stairs give out under his weight. That shiny armor he’s wearing must be heavy as fuck.
With a quick sweep of my eyes, I assess the situation: Kaiden and Malik are each sword fighting a golden-clad soldier while Rhett uses air against a fire-wielding one. Sam is nowhere in sight.
Fuck.
“Kaiden!” I shout when another fae sneaks up on him. He expertly parries the attack. However, Malik isn’t as nimble. The blade slashes through the skin on his shoulder, and blood gushes from the wound in streams.
I don’t have time to dwell on it. I snatch the sword the fae dropped when he fell.
But I’m not prepared for him to be so inhumanely fast. When I straighten, I’m met with a stunning blow to my temple.
White-hot pain erupts in every single nerve ending.
Ears ringing, I fall back against the open door.
I lose consciousness for a few seconds, only to be brought back when he stomps on the hand I have wrapped around the hilt of his blade.
Snap. Snap. Snap. My bones crunch. I bite my tongue until I taste copper to stop from screaming.
He grabs me in a chokehold and lifts me.
The sword clatters against the wood as my lungs scream for air.
He keeps me just far enough that I can’t gouge his eyes out with my swinging hands.
“You dirty rat,” he seethes, nostrils flaring as though he’s an angry bull.
“You have no right to touch something so sacred.”
I hack a glob of spit and blood at his face before I put every ounce of energy I possess into sending my sole right at his crotch.
He lets out a sharp curse, then drops me like a sack of potatoes.
My teeth gnash as my knees meet the wooden planks.
This time, when he charges, I’m prepared—my uninjured hand grabs the sword’s hilt before I spring upward.
With an agile whirl, I’m behind him. However, I’m not used to the sword’s hefty weight, so my movement is jerky as I thrust it to slice through the tendons at the back of his knees.
His howl is music to my ears when he crumbles behind me.
“How’s that for a dirty rat?” I say, turning. I whack him on the back of his head with my hilt. Hard. There’s a loud thud when he falls.
Sam screams. I forget all about my aching muscles as I sprint toward the sound with everything I’ve got.
I skid to a halt when a behemoth of a fae comes out of the tree line, an elbow crooked around Sam’s throat while she struggles like a fish out of water, her feet in the air.
Blood is trickling down her nose, and her left eye is swollen shut.
The blazing heat of a thousand suns kindles a firestorm in my veins. “Let her go!”
He raises an unimpressed eyebrow, as if I’m nothing more than an annoying insect. “Drop your weapons now, or I will kill her,” he says in a bored tone.
“Don’t!” Sam wheezes out.
A slow, feline smile spreads across his face as he unsheathes his sword, pressing the tip of the blade at Sam’s carotid. Blood seeps out from the superficial cut. She freezes.
“You motherfucker,” Malik snaps. If looks could kill, the fae man would already be a pile of bones on the ground. Kaiden, Malik, and I drop our swords while Rhett lets his arms fall limply at the sides of his body.
The fae man narrows his eyes at Malik before glowering at the other fae knights in blatant disgust. Judging by the lion head on his golden chest plate and the ornate armor he’s wearing, he must be their commander.
“Bested by human rats.” He spits on the ground.
“You’re all a disgrace, not worthy of serving the crown.
You’re to clean the latrines for the next six months. ”
“Yes, sir,” the soldiers collectively murmur, their shoulders slumped.
He tilts his chin toward the cottage. “Bring me the oracle,” he orders. While six more soldiers march our way from the forest, I chance a quick look at Kaiden. Aside from a few cuts and the giant bruise already forming on his jaw, he seems okay.
The relief is short-lived, though. “No! Please! Stop! She’s only a child,” Yana howls as she’s dragged out of the cottage by the hair.
Then a shaking Thalia is pushed out with the tip of a sword between her bony shoulder blades. Despite the silent tears streaming down her face, she holds her chin high. She suddenly looks ten years older. And braver than us all.
My trembling fingers unconsciously reach for one of the daggers I normally carry at my belt. One, two, three, four, I count in order to stop myself from running toward them and pummeling the asshole behind her until he’s six feet under.
The fae commander’s arctic gaze finds Thalia. There’s no trace of sympathy in his eyes—only a thick sheet of ice. “You are charged with high treason against the Imperial Court of Seelie. You’re to be executed in front of the king and his loyal servants, the Seelie fae.”
“No! Please!” Yana begs, crawling toward Thalia. She lets out an oomph when a soldier plants a boot in the middle of her back, flattening her to the ground.
“Kill the big-mouthed one. She’s becoming a nuisance,” the commander snaps.
Before I can blink, the soldier has already thrust his blade through the center of Yana’s chest.
“I love you,” are her last gurgled words to Thalia. Blood paints the ground in crimson streaks of violence. I can feel her soul—a ball of blinding light—clinging desperately to her body. It’s useless, though, because her strained breaths fade with brutal finality.
“Yana!” Thalia launches herself at her sister’s lifeless body. The soldier grabs the back of her dress, halting her momentum.
I’m grinding my teeth so hard, I’m surprised they haven’t turned to dust. The only thing stopping me from moving is the fear that Sam will meet the same fate at their callous hands.
And I can’t have that, however painful it is to hear Thalia’s whimpers.
Somehow, they slash deeper than the most deafening wails ever could.
I might not be able to do anything right now, but I make Thalia a silent promise that I will find a way to avenge her sister’s death.
“Should we kill the humans and the traitor, too?” one of the soldiers asks. I’m assuming the traitor is Rhett for aligning himself with us.
Tilting his head, the commander contemplates his decision. “No. We haven’t had a good spectacle in months, so we will execute them all in the square as an example. Bring the chains.”
“And Evander?”
The commander’s upper lip curls in revulsion as he casts a withering glance at the fae I knocked out earlier. “Weaklings have no place serving the Seelie court. Leave him here for the beasts to feast.”