Chapter 16
Rowan
The hooded figures surge toward me with renewed purpose, no longer concerned with interrogation or answers. A curved dagger flashes in the front male’s grip, the tip aimed straight at my heart and promising a very permanent end to my recent streak of barely surviving impossible situations.
My exhausted body rallies what strength it can, muscles coiling to throw myself sideways. I pitch backward instead, my bare feet slipping on the damp earth. I'm going to die here, I realize. In this clearing, surrounded by flames and fanatics, wearing a torn silk dress and no shoes.
I throw my hands up in a futile gesture to deflect steel with my palms. I can’t.
But apparently, I don't need to.
A blur of motion explodes from my left, black fur and gleaming fangs moving faster than I can track. Logan’s wolf is a battering ram wrapped in fury, slamming into the hooded figure with enough force to send the dagger spinning to the ground—a pair of fingers still gripping the handle.
The beast lands and shoves off the ground, shifting mid-leap back to his fae form. Logan’s powerful arms wrap around my waist, hauling me against his chest as he rolls us both away from where the other attackers are now converging.
"Stay down little rabbit," he says against my ear, his body a solid wall of protection curved around me. His heart hammers against my back.
"Stop!” Talyn shouts again. “By order of Prince Theron -”
“- Oh shut your mouth.” Viera snaps back. “We are helping Theron you bloody idiot. This is what he wants but can’t order.”
“Be that as it may, the Prince’s orders stand,” Talyn insists, not that Viera’s people are listening to him. Hells, he doesn’t seem to want to listen to himself either. “Lay down your weapons!”
Talyn’s patrol moves in to attack Viera’s cabal of hooded fanatics with grim determination and practiced lethality.
Viera snarls something distinctly uncomplimentary about Talyn's parentage, and throws her arms wide, her voice rising in a harsh, guttural chant that makes the air shimmer with malevolent energy.
The ritual fire responds instantly, the flames leaping higher, shifting from orange to a blue-white that burns my eyes to look at.
“What is she?” I ask Logan.
“A problem.”
The fire explodes outward in a wall of flame that roars across the clearing.
Talyn's guards throw themselves from the blaze’s path, not keen to risk being roasted for my sake no matter their orders.
Logan’s arm tightens around waist and propels me up to my feet.
“Run, rabbit,” he shouts, leaping to his feet with a wince just in time to kick an approaching hooded fae in the chest.
The male falls backwards and Logan follows, wrenching a sword from his foe’s grip. Then it is a blur, a wall of angry warrior holding off the world to guard my escape.
I run for the tree line, my bare feet finding every sharp stone and twig.
My abused lungs burn but each breath is proof that I'm still alive despite the cabal’s best efforts.
That has to count for something. Twenty feet to the trees.
Fifteen. If I can just reach the shadows beyond the clearing, I might have a chance to—
A figure materializes from between two burning bushes. Captain Viera herself come to end my existence.
“You are dead,” she confirms as our gazes meet, hers burning with hatred to match the flames.
I leap from her path only to find my back flush against a tree trunk, my head exploding with agony that comes from within and makes the world sway. High pitched, unbearable pain sizzles down each nerve in my body.
Viera smiles. “It’s called a cleansing flame. That’s not true heat you feel, it’s your magic being burned from you. Hurts, doesn’t it?”
It does.
“It will get worse. You will be a husk before you die.”
“Move!” someone shouts and it takes me a moment to realize they are talking to me. Another to work out who they are. Reece. Blue-haired, Ainsley-hating Reece. The one who alternatively tries to kill me and save me.
"Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” Reece yells as he tackles Viera, the pair hitting the ground in a violent tangle of limbs and weapons. “Run."
I try to, but my body isn’t cooperating.
It’s burning with a fire to match the strange flames.
The world flashes, the next moments coming in alternating blinks of awareness and darkness.
There is Reece, wrestling with Viera, the female captain clearly having both skill and experience on the younger guard.
There is the fire. There is a stray fallen knife skittering across the dirt toward my feet.
I stupidly pick up the blade, as if one small dagger can make any difference in this chaos.
"Go!" Reece snarls at me, his face contorted with effort. Blood streams from a gash above his eye, painting half his face crimson. More saturates the top of his tunic. His blood, not his opponent's. He won’t live much longer. Viera won’t let him.
I flinch as Viera drives a knee into Reece’s bloodied ribs, doubling him over with pain. Then there is no hesitation. In one fluid motion, she springs to her feet, her blade poised to pierce Reece’s chest.
Reece’s eyes widen.
Time slows. I can see the weapon's trajectory, and can practically feel the cold steel that will punch through flesh and bone in mere heartbeats. Reece is defenseless, gasping and pinned to the ground. He’s aware of the killing blow descending toward him, but unable to stop it.
The sentries Talyn brought are back by the main fire, as is Logan. There is no one here to help him.
Except me. And the tiny useless dagger I clutch in my hand.
My body moves before my mind can catch up, terror and desperation overriding rational thought.
I scramble forward on instinct, my free hand reaching toward Viera’s sword.
The alchemical magic that usually whispers in my veins suddenly roars to life, drowning out the pain.
Power courses through me, raw and electric, ten times stronger than anything I've ever felt before.
It doesn't just flow through me; it erupts.
Rings of opaque light burst from me, sweeping through the clearing and forest’s edge. Viera's blade, already starting its killing blow, shudders as my magic punches through it, steel crumpling into rusted orange dust that streams like sand between the captain’s fingers.
And it doesn't stop there. It all corrodes. Reece’s fallen blade, the curved ceremonial dagger tucked into Viera’s belted robes, the small knife I still clutch in my fist. All of it.
My heart hammers as I straighten, the vestiges of power still pulsing through me, and meet Viera’s gaze—which now looks unusual.
Unusual, because what I see there, behind the surprise and hatred, is undiluted terror.