Chapter 45
Lessons Learned
My ears rang with a sound so sharp it had me opening and closing my jaw in a vain attempt to dispel it. Blinking, I was met by endless leaves, their russet tones lazily floating down from the blue sky as if someone had taken a manuscript and thrown the unbound pages over a balcony.
“Tarrin?” I croaked, feeling something warm at my back.
No response.
“Tarrin!?” I said with more urgency, flipping over and pressing my hands against him.
No, not him. Against one of them.
My mouth went dry when the taut muscles under the warm, black, leathery skin of the hound shifted as it stood to its full, towering height.
I was caged in by the four-legged demon and swallowed in darkness as it dug its talons into the ground on either side of my shoulders, each paw nearly as big as my head.
Lowering its face to mine, it sniffed in quick succession before revealing its long fangs and bellowing a roar so loud I winced away from it.
Warm, wet saliva dripped on my forehead, and I’d had enough.
Without a second thought, I lifted a dagger in each hand and crisscrossed my arms in an x, the outer edges of the blades against its thick neck.
Then, in one lethal movement, I uncrossed my hands outward with as much force as I could muster, the blades sliced through its jugular.
I pressed my eyes and mouth closed, turning my face just as the deluge of black blood coated me in its slick heat—and fuck, did it remind me of the na’li.
The beast tried to roar, and in its place was a sickening sound of gurgled blood escaping from the slits I’d carved. Seconds later, the ground to my right reverberated as the massive beast toppled to the side.
Blades still in hand, I crudely wiped away the slick blood covering my face and stood up, shifting to a fighter’s stance.
Tarrin was in my line of sight, back toward where we’d entered.
He swung his sword in a wide arc, which seemed to keep the three ungodly beasts at bay, at least for now.
The hounds covered the crisp leaves underfoot in pools of black blood.
Tarrin had injured them, but unlike mine, they hadn’t died.
Their blood ran the same color as the na’li, and like Endymion had claimed—they could only be killed one way.
“Go for their throats,” I called out. “You can’t kill them by stabbing the hearts.”
“Gods, I hate this fucken place and its gods-forsaken magic,” Tarrin grumbled as he shifted his stance.
I couldn’t blame him. It was one thing to fight for your life; a completely different thing when the rules of engagement were different from what you’d trained for.
In Tarrin’s case, he’d trained a certain way for centuries only to find out it wouldn’t be effective.
“Nyleeria,” Sidrick called out from behind me.
I whirled around imbuing two daggers with fire before letting them fly one at a time.
The beast roared as the blades sank into their target, each beady black eye impaled to the hilt.
A heartbeat later, fire exploded from the daggers turning the sockets into empty, blackened holes.
Then, as the weight of the daggers returned to the bandolier, the burns seemingly turned the flesh to dust, the rest of the body disintegrating downward.
It was like watching a god tip over a handful of sand, allowing gravity to pull the granular remnants of the creature to the ground until it was nothing more than a black mound atop brittle leaves crumbling under its weight.
A shiver ran through me, and I ignored it before imbuing another two daggers. “Try the eye sockets.” I threw over my shoulder at Tarrin, who only had one demon left.
“Yeah, I’ll be sure to ask it to lay down so I can reach,” he shot back.
Shaking my head at him, I threw another set of embed daggers toward his beast, turning it to ash.
“Thanks,” he muttered.
“Come on.” Before waiting for a response, I dashed east to Artton who’d been surrounded by half a dozen of them.
“Hey!” I screamed, trying to get them to face me so I could target their beady, black devil eyes.
“Seriously?” Tarrin groused from my side, catching up to me now that I’d stopped.
“What?” I said, brow raised, as one of the beasts shifted their gaze to me. “Gotcha,” I breathed and let my blades fly, only this time the beast was fast. Unnaturally so. Not only did he dodge my blades, but it looked as if a gash to his neck was healing.
“That’s not good,” Tarrin said.
We both crouched into our fighting stance.
Having missed their target, it took a bit longer for the magical daggers to nestle back into my bandolier.
Imbuing two more, I released them at the beast, who was no more than twenty paces away.
Its massive strides chewed up the ground in a hurry, and he hurtled toward us with a deafening roar—it was then I noted its eyes glowed an eerie red.
Just as the daggers struck true, the beast rolled out of the way. It was up in a flash, headed right for us. Panicking, I sent flames so hot that the dazzling white ball was almost blinding as it scorched the earth a few feet below without ever touching it.
At my side, Tarrin raised his sword, readying for battle.
“This one is different,” I panted.
“Red eyes,” he confirmed. “And apparently a bitch to kill.”
“Ahhhhh,” Sidrick yelled, and focus darted to him. He’d killed two more, but claw marks slashed straight through his leathers and down his back.
“Sidrick!” I shrieked taking a step toward him only to be tackled by Tarrin, the move hauntingly close to when he’d saved me from Thaddeus.
Focus snapping back to the flames as we fell, the wild beast emerged through them like some vengeful hellhound, completely unfazed as it jumped through it, landing where we’d just been.
Rolling off me, Tarrin laid flat facing up, and dug the hilt of his sword into the ground.
Lifting his opposite shoulder, he grimaced as his grip closed further up on the blade to brace it at the right angle.
I winced, knowing there was no other way to achieve what he’d planed; and damnation, I wished he had fae healing, knowing the sharpness of a blade didn’t discriminate when it came to splitting flesh, even if you were its master.
Anticipating what would happen next, I held my breath and prayed to the gods of old to let it work.
In a blink, the beast’s momentum carried him into the sword’s path, and a gut-wrenching sound full of hate and malice like I’d never heard before rippled through the land as it impaled itself on Tarrin’s sword right through its heart.
As if puppet strings had been snipped, the demon went limp.
I swung my legs around, kicking it hard on the side with both boots so Tarrin wasn’t crushed.
The leaves shattered under its weight before the valley went silent, our heavy breaths the only sound.
Sidrick’s crunching footsteps came closer as he jogged toward us. Blotting out the sun, his broad silhouette reached a hand down to me, which I gladly accepted. Once up, he did the same for Tarrin, who grunted with the effort.
“Let’s get the fuck out of here,” Tarrin said, then winced as he wiped his blade as clean as he could on the ground before re-sheathing it.
“Agreed,” Sidrick said.
“Let me do a quick check on your wounds first,” I said, slipping the pack off my back and grabbed bandages for Tarrin’s hand. As he flipped his hands over for me to tend to them, I sucked in a sharp breath. “Stars, Tarrin! Any deeper and you could’ve severed muscle.”
He shrugged. “It was that or become lunch meat.”
I poured alcohol on his wound in response, not hiding my smirk when he hissed.
“And your back?” I asked Sidrick, splitting my focus.
“I’m fine. Is already healing, and I think my leathers mended.” He turned for me to look.
“Yeah, your leathers are fine,” I confirmed, wrapping Tarrin’s palm several times. “There,” I said, throwing the supplies back in my bag and swinging it back on.
Conjuring water, I washed the blood off my face and leathers as best I could. When I was done, I created a large sphere of water and gulped it down. “Ah.” I sighed, wiping my bare arm across my mouth.
I looked up to find my companions staring at me with cocked brows. “What?” I said, glancing between them.
“By all means, Ny. Don’t mind us. We love being bathed in the blood of our enemies,” Tarrin quipped.
I gave them a sheepish grin. Conjuring water had become second nature during training that I hadn’t even thought about it now. “Sorry,” I said, both of them looking at me expectantly.
As I raised my hands, Sidrick motioned for me to stop. I froze, suddenly alert. The commander put a finger to his mouth, indicating for us to stay silent. I followed his intense gaze over my shoulder to the eastern side of the aspen forest flanking us on three sides.
“What is it?” Tarrin whispered to me.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I can’t hear anything.”
Sidrick frowned down at me as if he was disappointed that I couldn’t hear what he did. I frowned right back at him, before focusing on the treeline with rapt attention—ready to fight if needed.
Then, a figure emerged from the wall of spotted white.
“Kaelun,” I gasped, bolting toward him across the wide valley, the others hot on my heels.
I scanned for injury, but aside from the dark circles under his bloodshot eyes, he looked unharmed.
I tore across the land, heart racing, not realizing just how scared I was for him as tears pricked at the back of my eyes.
Now only seconds away, Kaelun offered me a soft smile as I continued running, not stopping as I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him tight.
A harsh oof left his lungs as we collided. Catching our balance, Kaelun’s heartbeat thundered, but he held his breath for a moment before wrapping his arms around me, and I sank into his embrace like it was a lifeline. Like it could keep us safe. Like we were going to be okay.