34. Sabine
Chapter 34
Sabine
G ods, no!
As I rush to Basten’s side, I pray to everything between the grass and the sky that he survives. The Ender can take anything on this green earth except for him.
Enough! I say to the buck. Step back!
I press against the buck’s shoulder to guide him from where his antlers pin Basten to the tree. There’s a sickening sound as the points slide out of Basten’s torso. Fresh blood bubbles out of a dozen puncture wounds to paint his shirt crimson.
Unconscious, Basten slumps forward over the buck’s rack.
Lower him down gently to the grass , I say to the buck, heart pounding.
The buck lowers this head, and I collapse next to Basten, hands hovering over his wounds, afraid to touch his chest. Afraid I’ll make it worse .
“Why didn’t you stop?” I sob, clenching the grass. “I didn’t want to do this to you!”
Gods help me—he’s lost so much blood already. My fingers tremble an inch above his blood-soaked clothes. A creeping panic begins to close up around my throat.
You did this. You killed him. Just like the deer.
I squeeze my eyes closed as panic sets in, turning away to dig my fingers into the grass. I need the grounding force. The cool wash of dirt. Slowly, my breaths begin to steady, the earth beneath my nails anchoring me back to myself.
Only then do I dare open my eyes.
I ask the buck, Can you carry us both?
He nuzzles Basten’s arm to test his weight before answering, Yes. But not far.
I shove to my feet, reaching down to clutch Basten around his underarms as I strain to lift him. As far as you can, then. Back to the castle. Fast!
Basten weighs twice my weight, and it’s an arduous task for the buck and me to roll him onto the buck’s haunches. The only choice I have is to position Basten stomach-down over the buck’s back so that his legs fall on one side and his arms on the other. Which means putting pressure right on his puncture wounds.
If he were conscious, gods, he’d be cursing black and blue. I’m half surprised he doesn’t snap to only so he can growl in pain.
But he remains dangerously pale.
I look up to gauge the sun. I’m not as good at reading time that way as Basten, but it’s clear that it’s hours before dusk. Which is a long time for Artain to find us. For Basten to bleed out.
I swing one exhausted leg over the buck’s back, sitting high near his shoulders in front of Basten’s body. Gripping the base of the buck’s antlers, I nudge his ribs with my heels.
Go.
He takes off at a run as my fire spreads into the clearing behind us.
With every jostle, I wince in fear for Basten. His blood pours down the buck’s rear legs until, when I glance behind us, blood-stained hoofprints mark the mud. The smoke and wildfire will help hide us, but still, that blood trail might as well shout our location to Artain.
Don’t worry about that now.
The buck knows the way to Drahallen Hall better than me, so I concentrate on holding on. Trees fly by us as I blink away tears. The wind tosses my loose hair. Robins swoop from branch to branch, following my path.
Bird-talker , they whisper. Bird-talker . Bird-talker .
As if speaking my name is some kind of a prayer. Like I’m a god to them instead of a desperate girl with thorns in her hair.
The smell of smoke fades behind us, and for a disoriented few minutes, the air is replaced with the smell of pine. Then, I get a whiff of the unmistakable, strong fae scent of myrrh that can only mean a fae is close.
My heart tumbles into a freefall.
To the southern gate, hurry! I tell the buck.
He stumbles, exhausted, as he finally emerges from the trees by the covered pavilion.
It’s empty. No sign of Woudix or Artain or Iyre.
At the sound of hoofbeats, however, Hawk bursts out of the Woodland Garden, snarling. Woudix strides up behind her, his head swinging toward our sound as he splays his hands, readying his deadly power.
“Hold,” he commands Hawk. “Who’s there? It isn’t sunset for eight more hours.”
Samaur runs out of the gate behind him, staring in incredulity. Iyre stumbles after him, fingers tangled in her long red braid, quickly finishing it with shaking hands.
“What are you doing here?” she demands as she ties off the braid. “Where is Artain?”
Exhaustion eats at my bones as I slide off the buck and signal for him to lower himself.
Iyre paces in a tight circle around us, her cheeks blazing red, toe-tapping anxiously, but I couldn’t care less about supplying her answers.
Carefully, I roll Basten’s body off the buck’s back and feel for a pulse.
Come on. Please, Basten. Please still be with me.
There! It’s faint, but the tiny flutter fills me with hope. Urgently, I rip the sleeve off my shirt and tie it as a bandage around the deepest wound in Basten’s chest.
“I asked where Artain is, human!” Iyre shouts, tugging her braid in frustration.
“In the woods!” My voice bursts out of me like a flock of crows. I can’t swallow back my burning anger as I spit, “Where the hell do you think? He’s out there. Losing this damn game of yours!”
Samaur shoves past Iyre, clutching his scabbard strap hard, blinking his golden eyes fast. “Wait. Wait, the human huntsman won? That’s impossible.”
The high note of disbelief in his voice sounds like a rooster at dawn .
Unlike the other two, Woudix remains calm. He slowly crouches, touching the ground as though sensing something. “No—he’s dying. He hasn’t won anything.”
“Dying? How? Artain wasn’t allowed to kill him,” Samaur sputters.
“Artain did not do this.” Woudix stands and slowly tilts his head in my direction.
“Ha!” Iyre smirks so hard that her left eye twitches. She can’t seem to stand still as she paces around us. “ You killed your lover, princess? Now that is a twist!” She cackles. “So, Artain wins by default.”
“No,” I say steadily. “The game isn’t over.”
I curl my blood-soaked fingers inward, marshaling my anger, squeezing so hard that Basten’s blood drips onto the grass.
Go , I say to the buck. With my thanks.
As he hobbles back into the woods, I can sense his exhaustion. His pain. The last thing I want is for another innocent animal to get further caught up in this twisted game of gods.
Iyre cries, “Of course, it’s over! There’s only one competitor left!”
I run my bloodstained hands down my wrinkled grown. “Neither competitor caught me. I came back here on my own. Even if one of them had, the Night Hunt doesn’t end until dusk. A lot could happen before then.”
“Lord Basten will die long before dusk,” Woudix murmurs. “He barely has a few minutes’ life in him.”
My pulse kicks up, threatening to trample me under its pressure, but I force myself to pull in a breath.
“I know.” I spin to face Samaur. “Which is why you’re going to make dusk come early. ”
The God of Day jerks back as though I’ve slapped him, his hand falling from his scabbard strap in disbelief. After blinking a few times in surprise, he slowly settles into a full-bellied chuckle.
“Oh. Sure. Right.” He slaps Woudix on the shoulder. “We’re taking orders from a human now, did you know that?”
“I’m serious.” I close the space between us and grab his scabbard strap. An inch away from his face, I hiss, “I know you can do it. You did it when Basten brought Tòrr to the castle in daylight hours. Do it again now, or I’ll reduce Drahallen Hall to rubble. And everyone in it. Including those pretty twins you like to bloodsuck on.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Iyre’s smirk fall, while Woudix rests a hand on the knife at his side.
Samaur’s eyes widen. He flicks an uncertain look to Iyre, who slowly shakes her head.
He forces another laugh. “And how will you do that, little human? Hmm? This castle has stood for three thousand years. You couldn’t bring it down even if you commanded every animal in this kingdom to try.”
“I don’t need every animal,” I say. “I only need one.”
The ground begins to rumble under my feet. It starts softly at first. If I wasn’t waiting for it, I might not feel anything at all. A chill breaks across my skin as I widen my stance. Steadying myself. With Samaur’s scabbard strap still clutched in my fist, I stare at a fixed point on the high stone wall that separates the castle’s Woodland Garden from Vallen Forest.
Samaur frowns as he senses my attention shift. “The gate! Iyre, shut the gate!”
Her red hair flashes in the sunlight as she lurches toward it, but before her hand grazes the iron latch, an explosion rings out.
A shockwave tears through the castle, sending a fiery burst scorching up toward the sky.
Iyre stumbles backward, off-balance.
I duck, sheltering my head behind Samaur’s broad shoulders.
“What the fuck?” Samaur yells.
Another explosion crashes inside the castle, this one closer. The ground rattles underfoot. Startled screams ring out from inside the towers.
In an instant, Samaur drops his human glamour. Fey lines burst across his skin as he latches his hands on my wrists. “What the hell did you?—”
A third explosion slams through the southern gate. Wood and stones are thrown upward. A wall of heat blasts through the air. Sparks rain down like fiery embers. More screams ring out from inside the castle.
Iyre, closest to the gate, is flung fifteen feet backward, her spine crashing against a stump as wooden beams crash around her.
Broken bits of stone rain down as I clutch my arms over my head.
Samaur squeezes my upper arms so hard I cry out in pain. His sunlit eyes are wild with adrenaline. “What the hell did you do?”
Woudix holds out his hands, bruise-black fey crackling at his fingertips with the promise of death itself, ready to strike—but to defend Samaur or me, I’m not sure.
My chest heaves as I wrestle against Samaur’s hold. “I didn’t do anything— he did. ”
As the dust settles, Tòrr strides through the breach in the southern gate.
His black mane and tail ripple over his powerful muscles, and his coat is caked in stone dust. His monoceros horn—fully exposed to the sunlight—stabs toward the sky like an abalone sword.
Heart racing, I strain on tiptoe to peer through the decimated gate to make out two more equal-sized holes in the walls that flank both the Hailstrom Tower and Sunflare Tower.
As soon as I catch my breath, I point out to Tòrr wryly, You know, you could have done that with a single explosion.
Don’t question greatness, little fae , Tòrr retorts as he lifts his chin high so his mane whips in the wind.
I don’t have time to reign in his ego, because the moment he lifts his horn to the sky, Samaur drops my wrists and holds out his hands toward the monoceros instead, golden-orange fey bolts sparking at his fingertips.
“Don’t try to stop him,” I choke out. “You might be the God of Day, but he’s the one who wields the sun’s power.”
To my right, Hawk growls low in her throat, and I whirl toward her and her master.
“The same goes for you, Ender,” I tell Woudix. “Before you can spread your fey two feet, Tòrr will reduce you to ashes. I doubt even the God of Death is impervious to a solarium hit—but I’m willing to test that.”
Rubble shifts to my left, and Iyre extricates herself from the pile of broken wood. Dust covers her from her hair to the hem of her white gown, and her exposed skin is covered in deep, bleeding gashes. Yet, almost immediately, her wounds begin to heal .
She narrows her eyes at me and croaks, “The monoceros stall is unbreachable. You couldn’t have gotten him free.”
I blink at her, with Tòrr standing behind me as my only answer.
She scoffs, rubbing a scrape on her throat. “How? It takes ten men to slide open the drawbar. No animal is that strong except the monoceros itself. Or a—” The arrogant lift of her upper lip slowly lowers. Hoarsely, she mutters, “Or a goldenclaw.”
I rest a hand on Tòrr’s withers. “All goldenclaws want is someone to listen to their riddles. They’ll do anything for a patient friend.”
Iyre tips her head downward like a predator, glaring at me through her eyelashes as a line of silver blood rolls down her forearm. “I told Vale this charade of his wouldn’t work—keeping you in the dark. We should have told you the truth from the start. Like the other times. And if you’d resisted again? Bend you to our will.”
Her words prickle my mind. Keeping me in the dark? What does she mean, about them being fae?
Basten moans, stealing my attention. I fall to my knees by his side.
“Basten? Basten!” I stroke a tender hand down his blood-soaked temple. “Hey, you’re going to be okay—I’m going to get you help.”
As fear weaves between my ribs, I throw a glance over my shoulder at Vallen Forest. A robin flits from one branch to another.
I ask in a rush, Where is the fae huntsman?
He has your trail , the robin replies. He approaches fast.
Swallowing, I glance at the high sun, and then thread my fingers through Basten’s blood- soaked hair. “Samaur, do it. Now. Bring dusk early. And I’ll save your twins before Tòrr launches another blast.”
Samaur rests his boot on a broken hunk of stone, leaning forward with golden eyes sparking. In this instant, he’s never looked less human. “Go ahead. Plenty more fawning little humans where those two came from. Twins aren’t that rare.”
Coldness settles deep in my belly. “You’d throw away your acolytes so easily?”
One look at their frigid faces—Samaur, Iyre, even Woudix—and the answer is an obvious yes .
“I’ll have Thracia soon, anyway,” he scoffs. “Then, I’ll need acolytes less for companionship and just for blood—and they don’t have to be pretty to give me their veins.”
Feeling sick, I scold myself with an inner lashing that I thought the fae could be anything but cruel.
I whip back to Basten, whispering, “Hold on. Don’t you dare die.”
I shove to my feet and rest a hand on Tòrr’s muzzle. He presses his nose into my palm, reassuring me that we’re in this together.
Then, I face Samaur.
“What about something you hold more precious than your acolytes’ lives, then? My father toured me around the fae artifact room. The one that’s housed in Cloudveil Tower. So many objects that would be devastating to lose—but maybe none as much to you, in particular, as Thracia’s Midnight Vase.”
Samaur immediately strides toward me like he’s going to wring my neck. “You scheming whore, you wouldn’t dare. That’s her most prized possession.”
“Try me. Try him .” I tweak Tòrr’s nose, and he tosses his head in confirmation. “You might not care about your acolytes, but you’re fated to love Thracia. The God of Day and the Goddess of Night. You said it yourself—you win her over each Return with the midnight vase. Without it, do you think you can still earn her favor? Is it worth the risk?”
Samaur’s fey lines burn brighter as his rage rises to the surface. He glances at the sun, and Iyre strides up to deliver a sharp smack to his cheek.
“Don’t you dare consider it! Not over some bauble.”
“A bauble? That bauble wins me Thracia every Return,” he snarls. “We know her location. She’s almost at my fingertips. I’ve waited a thousand years to be with her again.”
The tension between them is thick enough to cut, and I curl my toes as I look over my shoulder at the castle. Dammit, we don’t have time for this. Every second they argue is a second that Basten might slip away. The fear of losing him lodges so thick in my throat that I can barely swallow around it.
A robin swoops down in front of me, flapping hard in warning.
The fae huntsman is ? —
Before it can finish, a gold-tipped arrow slams into the bird’s breast with enough force that feathers burst out. The robin tumbles onto a piece of rubble, its neck hanging at an impossible angle.
A scream pierces the air—my own.
As my fingers tighten in the base of Tòrr’s mane, I spin like a whip, ready to lash out.
At the edge of the woods, Artain holds another arrow at the ready. “Hello, princess. This time, I’ll shoot straight through your damn lover’s head and roast his brain on a spit. ”
And it’s Too. Fucking. Much.
Anger floods me like a raging river, drowning me in a torrent of fury. Bile rises up my throat, choking me with bitter rage until every nerve ignites. My vision blurs as I feel a scream clawing up from the depths of my chest, ready to rip free and end this—once and for all.