Chapter 18
I’m being dragged by one of my arms through the dirt.
My other arm is locked around something solid.
“Why the fuck is she still holding her sword?” someone new says as I come to a stop. My other hand is unceremoniously let go.
Another new voice. “It won’t move without her. We had to play with her like a puppet to bring it over here.”
Bile crawls up my throat. My temple aches where that strange glowing sword struck me.
The man makes an amused sound. “Play with her, you say?” A pause, and I can only imagine he’s looking me over. “I hope you played a lot.”
“Not as much as I would have liked.”
It takes every ounce of willpower not to open my eyes and swing. But my head is still pounding. My senses are still returning. They have me more than outnumbered.
“It’s a beautiful sword,” yet another says. He pauses. I can hear the dirt shift around his feet. “We should kill her. Take it ourselves.”
The same voice from before is back, with its distinct cadence. “Silence. Lordship will end her. Lordship will be grateful.” He hums happily. “And we will be rewarded …”
“Let’s throw her in, then,” one of the men snaps, irritated.
Throw me in? Where?
“Not until he’s summoned.”
I hear steps moving away from me. Then more men speaking. Two of them, talking about my sword … then about my body.
“Human. Nice and warm,” one of them says. A cold, bone-dry finger runs down my cheek. My hands are shaking, itching, pleading to kill him. “And soft.” Someone tugs at a piece of my hair that’s gone loose from its pins.
I wince in disgust, remembering a time years ago when men were also laughing, when they were planning. The hand stops. “Is she—”
A yell nearby. Boots thudding against compact ground.
“Stay with her,” one of the immortals says as he darts away.
I open my eyes and find a man with the same dry cracked skin leaning down, as if he’s about to touch me again.
I smile.
And my sword goes right through his gut.
Blood spurts onto me. I groan and sit up, throwing him to the side. Disgusting.
I look around. I’m in the rancid woods. Alone. I get to my feet and—I don’t even know where I’m going. Did Raker hear my scream?
If he did … does he even care enough to go looking for me?
Probably not. I have to assume I’m on my own. I look up, as if to use the sun for direction.
A branch snaps behind me.
I spin and hardly get my blade up before it’s meeting metal.
The other sword shatters around us in shards of bronze, but the man is quick, pulling out a dagger.
He lunges for my neck, and I twist away, my sword slicing all the way around his stomach with arm-trembling effort.
More blood spurts, and I nearly vomit, now covered in dirt and gore.
The man falls, revealing a half dozen immortals behind him.
Fuck.
I swallow. Take a step back.
They all race forward.
“Stay still.”
Stellan’s voice is in my head. We’re back in the graveyard where we used to train, because no one would ever bother us there. Only ancient, long-forgotten bodies are buried. Nowadays they’re burned.
It’s dark, but even if it wasn’t, I can’t see anything through the fabric he’s tied around my eyes.
My heart races as I strain to hear his steps. My fingers tremble against the hilt of the blade.
“Your greatest enemy lives within you. It’s fear. Kill it before it kills you.”
I shift my weight. I take a deep breath.
His voice is right in front of me. “No matter what comes at you in this world, Aris, you stand your ground. You take a deep breath, and you focus. You make a plan, and then you do it. There is no fear. There is no indecision. Not for you. There’s no time for anything but one steadying breath.”
The darkness feels like it’s caving in. I’m afraid of it, ever since that night, just like my sister used to be. I’m afraid of this place, where the wind sounds like whispers. I’m afraid of the fire I can feel just in front of me, the one Stellan has set.
“Kill your fears, Aris,” he says. “Before they kill you.”
Then he removes the blindfold.
A dozen men rush toward me, and I don’t flinch. I dig my feet into the ground, sink into the stance I just spent hours practicing, lift my sword just like I did then, and take that one steadying breath.
Then I’m moving.
A sword comes at my neck, and I lean back, watching as he cuts off the head of the man behind me instead. Both hands firmly on the hilt, I swing my sword down in that slicing move I just mastered, right through bone and tissue, until he’s just bloody tatters.
This metal is still too heavy, and I’m sore, but right now, fury ignites my strength.
These men …
They abducted me. They touched me. They plan to offer me to some lord.
No. I am not a thing to be taken and traded. If they want me, they will have me bloody and broken, because I refuse to go down quietly.
A battle cry sounds to my left, and I plant my feet, bend my knees, then turn and stick my sword through the immortal’s stomach with so much force it goes through the man behind him too.
Another immortal moves in a blur, blade aimed at my arm, as if to cut it off to get my sword. So I let it go.
My blade dives forward, taking the impaled bodies with it, and I kick the immortal’s legs out from under him.
He falls back, skewering himself on someone else’s metal. But instead of bellowing with pain, he just closes his eyes in reverence as blood pours from his wound, puddling onto the dirt, and says, “Take it, Lordship. A gift, for you.”
What the fuck?
I don’t want to know what kind of lord wants blood. I need to get out of here. I pounce and take his sword, my fingers curling around the hilt and this—
This is bronze. This is familiar.
This, I can work with.
A smile inches across my face, just as an immortal’s glimmering gaze meet mine. He frowns, skin splitting around his dry lips.
I lunge forward, slicing across his torso, his guts spilling out of him, smelling like rot, then duck out of the way of a gold blade, curved like a scythe.
It whistles through the air, and I kneel, running him through, then rolling out of the way, before slicing the heels of the man about to put his weapon through the top of my head, sending him to his knees.
I thrust my sword through his back. He falls face-first into the dirt.
It happens in a blink. One moment, I’m surrounded, and the next, all the immortals are bleeding out around me.
Fuck, it feels good to actually be able to use a weapon after weeks of struggling to even get my new one off the ground.
But I wouldn’t trade mine for anything.
I rise, walking toward a final immortal who’s trying and failing to pull my sword from the ground. My boots squelch over blood, but he doesn’t even turn, he’s so transfixed by my weapon.
No matter how hard he tries, it remains rooted in place, still buried in two men.
I reach behind him and slit his throat. He falls, and I throw the bronze sword at his body, reaching for my blade again. It slips out of the ground like slicing through butter. I lift my chin, feeling triumphant.
I only make it a single step forward before I’m slammed into a tree.
My head rings. The strange crimson glowing blade is at my neck. I thrash as much as I can, my skin brushing against the cold metal.
“Enough,” the first man says, dirt and spit flying into my face. This close, I can see the cracks in his raw skin. “Lordship is arriving.”
He doesn’t waste another moment before shoving me to the ground. Metal still trained against my throat, he drags me by the hair through the dirt, past all the bodies. I fight against his hold, screaming, swinging my blade, but before I can get a good hit in, I’m being hauled to my feet again.
We’re standing at the edge of a deep crater, lined in a strange pattern.
Before I can wonder how that happened, the dirt begins to swirl. And the hairs on the back of my neck rise one by one.
Somehow, I know this is the root of all this poison. I know that if he shoves me into this hole, I will never make it out alive.
The blade is still against my throat … but he hasn’t killed me yet. He wants his lord to claim my sword. Not him. I take a risk.
I slam my metal through his foot, and he roars, loosening his hold.
He can’t move my weapon. He’s pinned in place. I use that to my advantage as I slip out of his arms and turn.
But his sword has magic. Before I make it far, my blood—
It stills.
And I fall to the ground.
How—
Without my own volition, my limbs start to move. They lurch forward … and I begin to stand. Even though it’s the last thing I want to do, I stagger toward the crater. No. I grit my teeth, trying to fight it …
But the blade is like a thread pulled through my blood and bones, controlling my every move. Its crimson color flashes bright, deepening. Reveling.
I’m forced toward that swirling hole, and I fight every inch of the way, but it’s no use.
I keep shuffling toward my certain death.
My jaw sets, refusing to give up, and I push back.
With a burst of strength, I manage to turn my head to look at the immortal, and that’s when I notice he and I might not be as different as I thought.
He’s struggling to hold his blade too.
It’s fucking heavy. I know. But he’s supposed to be far stronger. I wonder if this rot has weakened him.
My own sword has him stuck. He can’t fall into a better stance. His arms are trembling. I know what that’s like.
He’s going to lose his hold.
I keep fighting. My feet inch toward the crater, but I resist with every muscle, veins straining with the effort.
He does too. But it becomes all too clear that this isn’t his sword. It belongs to someone far stronger. He’s being allowed to use it.
Whose is it? The lord that’s supposed to be appearing any second?
I don’t ever want to learn the answer. I’m not going in that damned hole.
The mud keeps turning. The pit keeps deepening. My voice goes hoarse as I roar, battling the blade’s vise enough to fully turn.
And take a step.
The immortal inhales sharply. His eyes narrow. His skin cracks as he trembles, yellowed teeth gritted, battling my will. But I think about all the gods have taken from me. And my fury?
It’s deeper than this gorge. It could fill universes and galaxies and overflow the fucking ocean, and this immortal has no idea what he’s up against.
Because I will not back down. Ever. Even if it kills me.
I take another step, bellowing.
He bares his teeth at me.
I bare mine back.
He tightens his hold.
I lunge.
He loses his grip.
And I don’t hesitate. I rip my own weapon from his foot and thrust it through his chest in one smooth motion. He falls to his knees, taking me down with him. I reach for his blade—
But he reaches it first.
I wrench my metal from his ribs and retreat, panic gripping my heart. But instead of trying to kill me, he uses his final burst of strength to throw that sword into the hole. The dirt swallows it, before going still.
He slumps forward, dead.
Ears ringing, blood roaring, I stumble back, trip over a root, and hit the ground hard, knocking the wind from my lungs.
My muscles ache. I’m covered in blood and gore and dirt. I gasp for air, my pulse racing, late-afternoon sun scorching my skin.
This couldn’t get any fucking worse, I think.
Then Harlan Raker fills my vision.
He peers down at me with little concern. He’s not out of breath, from running to me. He isn’t already holding his weapon. No, if anything, by the set of his wide shoulders, he looks almost bored.
My voice is a choked rasp. “You were—you were just standing there?” He didn’t just conveniently arrive. No. He’s been here for a while, hasn’t he? I can almost imagine him leaned against a tree, arms crossed, watching as I fought for my life.
Doing absolutely fucking nothing.
Of course he ignores me. His head dips, and I feel his gaze like a brand as he looks me over. “How much of that blood is yours?”
“None of it,” I spit, glaring daggers at him, still trying to find my breath. He studies me for another moment. Two.
“Good,” he finally says. “Get up.”