CHAPTER 34 ALEK
ALEK
I don’t know what these idiots are smiling at, because we’re never going to survive this.
If it were in my nature to surrender, I would’ve laid down my sword half an hour ago.
I’ve got a shallow scrape across my shoulder, a deeper one under my ribs, and my head is pounding like I’ve been up all night drinking.
I wish that’s what I was up all night doing.
Hell, I wish I could do it right now.
Instead, I’m swinging a sword at a winged monster who clearly wants me dead, and I’m desperately trying to cover Callyn’s left side in addition to my own.
She keeps leaving herself open, and I’m terrified they’re going to rip her in half when she’s not looking.
She’s strong and capable with a blade, but she’s still too inexperienced.
If she were facing a swordsman instead of fangs and claws, she’d have a sword buried in her ribs already.
There are just too many of them. These stupid Emberish soldiers must be out of arrows, because no one is shooting, and now we’re all relying on daggers and swords.
A scraver lets out a shriek right beside my ear, and I spin automatically, already stabbing, and my blade drives right into its chest, just as claws clamp down on my arm.
I’m glad for the bracer. It hurts, but it doesn’t break the skin. The creature collapses to the ground, and I jerk the blade free.
Almost immediately, another one tackles me. The impact sends me to the ground, and I go skidding through the snow. Grit and dirt scrape along the back of my head, getting under my armor.
Fangs are coming for my throat, and it’s like a repeat of that moment in the sunlight with Callyn. It’s going to tear me apart.
But then I hear a shriek of rage, and this one is purely human. Callyn’s sword drives right into the creature’s rib cage. Its grip immediately goes slack.
She’s panting as she stares down at me, her chest heaving, breath leaving her mouth in short, clouded bursts. A note in every exhale tells me she’s riding a line between panic and determination. It won’t take much to make her yield.
Blood is in a spray across the front of her tunic, and she’s got a line of red down the side of her arm that could be hers or could be a scraver’s. Half her hair has come loose from her braid, and her eyes are a little wild.
I smile up at her like we’re just lying in a field, staring at the stars. “That was exceptional,” I say. “Do it again.”
She huffs a laugh— but she yanks that blade free and swings just in time to drive it right into the next opponent, a new scraver who swoops into the forge, aiming for Sephran this time.
“Grab as many arrows as you can!” Jax yells, and I can tell he’s pulling any he can reach out of the fallen bodies.
Overhead, thunder booms, and we all flinch, and then lightning strikes a tree beside the forge.
Branches and leaves and wood all but explode around us with a crack of sound, fiery bits of ash flickering through the air.
“What keeps doing that?” I snap, trying to scramble to my feet.
“Me,” says Tycho from somewhere behind me. He sounds a bit strained and breathless. “Are they still attacking the barn?”
“Yeah,” calls Malin.
Wind surges, carrying snowflakes and still- flaming bits of wood from the first tree that exploded.
My cheeks sting when either land on me. But thunder roars again, and another lightning strike hits near the barn.
Then another. It’s louder than normal thunder, each crash bringing a surge of energy to the air that makes gooseflesh rise along my skin. I hate it.
It’s clear the scravers hate it, too, because they scatter away from the barn, taking to the air.
I look at Tycho, and the strain on his face is clear. There’s blood on his hands and in a wide spray across his armor, and his eyes are all but glowing. He simultaneously looks like he’s full of lightning himself, yet also like he could collapse at any given moment.
Maybe I should care, but I don’t.
“Can’t you hit them ?” I demand.
“I’m trying,” he gasps.
“I can,” says Jax, and with that, he nocks another arrow.
And just like that, the scravers attack again.
We’re badly outnumbered, and it’s painfully obvious that we’ve never all fought as a unit, because there’s no easy fluidity to our fighting.
Most of us have never trained together, or even trained in the same way.
There’s no real trust or cohesion. At one point, Malin drives a scraver away with his sword, but it spirals into me, and I strike it with mine, but it leaves me open to the winged creature coming right behind it, talons outstretched.
From behind me, throwing knives streak through the air, embedding themselves right in the scravers’ throat. Snick. Snick. The creature drops, twitching.
When I look, I’m shocked to see the queen.
She’s in the doorway. She’s a little breathless, but she already has a new set of blades in her hands.
“Stop looking at me like that!” she snaps at all of us. “You think I can have a husband like Grey and be defenseless?”
I laugh under my breath and turn back for the next attack— because it’s coming.
One of the Emberish soldiers dives for the bodies, pulling arrows and tossing them back to Jax.
It seems useful, but I can already tell that this is going to be fruitless.
It feels like we’re holding them off, but we’re really not.
They’re playing with us, only sending a few scravers to attack at a time, because they know it’ll tire us out.
No, it’s more than that— they know it’ll tire Tycho out.
And it’s working. His strain is obvious.
I can hear his breathing from here. Not just his either.
I don’t know how many arrows Jax has shot, but it’s probably been a lot.
He’s drawing a seventy- five- pound bow at least, and his arm is likely on fire.
There’s a reason archers in battle empty a quiver and then retreat to be replaced by someone else. It’s a miracle he’s lasted this long.
The scravers can tell, too. In battle, you can feel victory in the air from both sides.
Right now, we don’t have it.
“Get the queen back in the house!” Tycho snaps at Sephran. “Now!”
“I can help!” she snaps back.
But Sephran is already trying to maneuver her back in the house.
Callyn has drawn close to me. I’m not sure how I know, because I don’t look at her.
My focus is on the air in front of the forge, on the winged creatures that keep attacking.
But it’s like part of my heart keeps paying attention to her location, centering on the exact space she takes up in the universe so I can make sure she’s safe.
“Alek?” she says.
I can read nothing from her voice. I hope I killed whatever gouged me under the ribs, because it hurts like hell. “Callyn?”
“Are they going to win?”
She says it so softly, but the question is piercing— especially because I really don’t think we are.
But somewhere over the howling wind and the screeching of the scravers, I think I hear hoofbeats. It’s only for a moment, and then it’s gone.
And then thunder rolls through the sky, and I realize I must be wrong— it must be Tycho’s magic. But if I’m right, it could be a second wave— of Truthbringers this time— coming to finish us off.
Lightning flashes. Another tree cracks and starts to fall. Then another. A third tree crashes right in front of the forge, rattling the ground and making us leap backward a little. The scravers scatter wildly, trying to avoid the falling limbs.
But then the thunder goes quiet. Tycho is breathing hard, and the wind is settling. I glance to my left. The queen is back inside the house— with Sephran blocking the doorway, sword in hand. He’s out of arrows. So is Malin. So is Jax.
My gaze shifts to the sky. Between here and the barn, at least ten scravers are left. I have no idea whether others lie in wait in the woods.
I swallow. Callyn moves closer to me. I can hear her breathing shaking from here. Or maybe that’s my own.
The air changes, and I realize the scravers have paused. Several of them hover nearby. They’re watching us.
They know we don’t have much left.
As if they can read my thoughts, the ones waiting by the barn take to the air as well.
Quick as the lightning he just drew from the sky, Tycho moves to my side. “Alek,” he snaps, like I’m a soldier he can command. “Cover the queen. Now.”
I inhale to object, but then I meet his eyes, and I read the bleakness there. I see his exhaustion. I feel the way the wind has dwindled. There’s no more thunder, no more lightning. No more snow.
He doesn’t expect to survive the next five minutes.
“If they take the queen,” he says, “they’ve taken Syhl Shallow.”
I give him a nod, then grab hold of Callyn’s wrist. “You too,” I say to her. “Come on.”
I expect her to resist or to argue, but maybe she hears it in his voice, too. She scrambles after me.
Screeching erupts in the air, and it’s so loud and piercing I nearly drop my sword. Callyn gasps beside me.
“There are so many of them,” she breathes.
I can’t look. I don’t want to look. Panic is a living thing in my chest, gripping my heart with claws.
The queen meets me at the doorway. “Your Majesty,” I say. “Move to the back of the house. Run.”
“We will stand and fight,” she says to me, her voice equally fierce.
“Then you will lose your country,” I say, and she blanches.
I move to shove her back from the doorway, just as a shadow falls over the forge.
Callyn sucks in a breath, jerking free of my grip.
Her sword raises, and I don’t even need to look to know.
The scravers are descending all at once.
Ice forms on every exposed surface from their magic, wind swirling through the space to lift my hair and cool my cheeks.
We’re going to die.