Chapter 21
Isla
I need a plan.
I’ve been trying to come up with one since they bound my wrists and threw me onto the back of this horse. I need to find a way out of this.
Unfortunately, I keep coming up with nothing.
My magic well is nearly empty. What little remains is a thin, flickering thing at the bottom of my chest. There’s barely enough to light a candle, let alone fight my way free.
The shadow bindings around my wrists are tight, biting into my skin every time the horse shifts beneath me.
They pulse with someone else’s magic, cold and suffocating.
There were nine guards when they captured me. Two rode ahead a while ago to announce our arrival at the castle. That leaves seven.
Seven against one half-breed with a depleted well and bound hands.
Arghhhh!
Up ahead, the towers of the shadowfae castle rise above the tree line. They’re closer than I’d like. Another half hour of riding, maybe less, and we’ll reach the gates.
Since I won’t say so much as a word about what I know, I’m going to die in that castle.
The guard leading my horse yanks the reins, pulling me forward. I grip the saddle horn to keep from toppling. My thighs are sore from riding.
“Keep up,” he snaps without looking back.
I bite back the retort sitting on my tongue. Antagonizing them won’t help.
Think, Isla. Think.
If I could get my hands free, I could use the last dregs of my magic to create a distraction. A burst of shadows. A flash of fire. Just enough to spook the horses and buy myself a few seconds to run.
But run where? I can barely ride. I definitely can’t outrun them on foot. And my magic…
I flex my fingers, testing the bindings. They don’t budge. The shadow magic holding them is strong, fed by the guard who cast it. As long as he’s conscious, they won’t release.
I’m trapped.
The castle towers loom larger with every stride. My heartbeat kicks up a notch or two. My breathing is shallow and too fast. I force myself to slow it, to draw air deep into my lungs.
Panicking won’t help me.
Several guards turn back, their hands going to their sword hilts.
“Rider approaching!” one of them calls out.
“It’s a single rider,” another confirms. “Moving fast.”
I twist as far as my bindings allow, straining to see.
A figure on horseback is bearing down on us at a full gallop. He has no saddle and no armor. Just a tall, broad-shouldered male riding like his life depends on it, his dark hair streaming behind him.
My heart stops because it’s Sebastian.
I know it.
He’s too far away to tell for sure, but I know it anyway.
He came for me.
He came.
The guards react instantly. “Form up!” the leader barks. “Protect the prisoner!”
Three of them wheel their horses around to face the approaching rider. Swords ring as they’re drawn from scabbards. The others close ranks around me, boxing me in.
At this point, I can see clearly. The horse is bareback. Sebastian has determination in his eyes. He doesn’t slow down as he draws nearer. If anything, he speeds up.
He comes at them like a battering ram, steering the mare straight for the line of guards.
At the last moment, he veers hard to the left, ducking under a sword swing that whistles over his head.
He slides from the mare’s back with a grace that shouldn’t be possible without stirrups and hits the ground running.
His hand closes on the nearest guard’s arm, and he wrenches the fae from the saddle with a force that sends the guard crashing to the ground. In the same motion, Sebastian rips the sword from the guard’s grip and spins, bringing the blade up just in time to deflect a strike from a second attacker.
His own sword stays untouched in the scabbard at his side.
He’s fast, especially for someone his size. He parries the guard’s blow, pivots, and catches the fae across the ribs with a strike so brutal it dents the breastplate. The guard crumples.
But the others aren’t waiting. The leader shouts something, and four of the remaining guards raise their hands in unison. Shadow magic erupts from their palms in thick, dark ropes that streak toward Sebastian from every direction.
He dodges the first tendril, cuts a second apart with his blade, and drives his shoulder into a third guard hard enough to send the fae flying off his feet. But a whip of shadow catches his left arm and yanks him sideways. Another wraps around his ankle.
He tears free with a snarl, raw strength shredding the shadows like cobwebs, and buries his fist in the nearest guard’s face. The fae’s head snaps back, and he goes down hard.
But more magic comes. It’s relentless. They’re not fighting him like soldiers anymore, but like hunters intent on capture. Every time he breaks one binding, two more replace it. A tendril wraps around his sword arm. Another coils around his chest.
Nooooooo!
He’s going to lose because it is impossible to fight magic with a sword.
I have to help him. I reach deep, past the hollow ache of my depleted well, past the thin remnants, and I pull. It hurts like dragging a blade across my hands. But the ember is there, stubborn and small and mine.
I hold on to it. I think of Sebastian shackled and cowed before the queen.
The guard who cast my wrist bindings is focused on Sebastian now, his concentration split. I wrench my wrists apart. The shadow bindings flicker, shudder, and then shatter like glass.
I give a shout of triumph because I’m free.
Then I slide from the horse and go to work.
I reach for the shadows beneath the horses, beneath the guards’ own feet, and I yank them upward. They snap around the nearest caster’s wrists like shackles, jerking his arms wide. His magic dissolves, and the tendril holding Sebastian’s sword arm evaporates.
Sebastian surges forward, arm free, and cuts the guard down with a single savage strike.
He presses forward, and I cover his flank. A guard hurls shadow magic at Sebastian’s back, and I counter with a thin shield that deflects it just wide enough to miss.
I gasp from the sheer exertion.
Another guard swings his sword while simultaneously casting shadow tendrils from his free hand.
Sebastian catches the blade against his own, steel screaming against steel, and I wrap shadows around the guard’s casting arm, wrenching it down.
Sebastian finishes him with a devastating strike to the temple. The guard drops like a stone.
Fire next. I reach for the air around me, calling on my firefae blood. I pull it tight, compress it, heat it. Fire blooms between my palms; it’s nothing like the roaring inferno I could have conjured at full strength, but it’s enough. It has to be.
I throw it with everything I have.
A searing bolt catches the nearest guard square in the hands. He screams, his shadow magic snuffed out in an instant. Sebastian is on him before he can recover, a vicious pommel strike to the jaw that sends the fae spinning into the dirt.
Two guards left. They look at each other, then at their companions groaning on the ground, their magic shattered, their leader face down in the road.
They wheel their horses and ride hard toward the castle.
Sebastian lets them go.
He stands in the middle of the road, chest heaving, sword dripping. His knuckles are split, and there’s a bleeding cut above his left eye. His shirt is torn, and I can see the hard lines of muscle beneath. His tattoo is partially bared.
He looks magnificent.
The silence that follows is broken only by the groaning of one of the fallen guards and the nervous stamping of riderless horses. One whinnies and gallops away.
I lower my hands; my arms are shaking. My well is now completely depleted. My shoulders slump, my breath coming in rapid gasps.
Sebastian drops the bloodied sword on the ground and crosses to me in three long strides.
“Are you hurt?” His voice is rough.
“I have no magic left, but otherwise I’m fine.” I’m tired and bruised, but I’m alive, and we’re free, which is more than I expected not so long ago. “You came for me.” I sound shocked. I still almost can’t believe it.
He nods once.
His eyes move over me, checking for injuries. They linger on my wrists, on the angry red marks the shadow bindings left behind. His jaw tightens.
“You are not fine.” He takes my arm, his thumb gently running along the raised welt.
“This is superficial,” I tell him.
He looks at the red welt, nods once, then lets me go and turns away.
“We need to leave,” he says, striding to Jack, who is still waiting close by. “It won’t be long before they bring reinforcements.”
“You’re right.” I grab the saddle horn, putting my foot in the stirrup. After fumbling, trying to mount, Sebastian grips my thighs and hoists me onto the horse in one easy movement.
“Thanks,” I mutter, trying to find the other stirrup.
Sebastian mounts one of the guards’ steeds. He swings into the saddle, gathering the reins.
“Can you follow me?” Sebastian asks, turning his eyes on me. “Will you be able to keep up?”
“Why did you come?” I ask him. I still can’t believe he’s here.
“I heard about your capture, and rescuing you was the right thing to do.”
“Funny that.” Those were my words exactly. “Does this mean that you trust me now?” I ask.
“It means that we are now well and truly even,” he tells me. “We need to go, Isla.”
My heart sinks. He still doesn’t trust me. I’m not sure why I care so much, only that I do.
“Will you be able to ride hard, or do you need to sit with me?” He looks down at the space just in front of him. “I’ll lead your horse.”
The thought of being in the saddle with him flusters me. I lift my chin. “I will keep up. I can ride by myself.”
“Good.”
“Why are you still here, Sebastian? Why didn’t you leave?” I ask.
“Now is not the time. We need to go before we are recaptured.”
He’s right.
I nod once.
Sebastian spurs his horse into a fast lope, and I follow, holding tightly to the saddle horn.
I feel like I am slowly getting the hang of riding.
We cut through the trees, avoiding the main roads.
The forest finally thins. The land opens up.
The shimmer of the dome appears ahead of us, and beyond it, the gray expanse of the deadlands stretches toward the horizon.
As we reach the edge of the court, Sebastian reins in his horse. Jack stops without my having to ask.
Sebastian looks at me, his face unreadable. The cut above his eye has stopped bleeding, but dried blood streaks down his temple and cheek. His dark hair is disheveled, falling across his forehead. His pointed ears poke out through the strands.
He looks savage and beautiful. I’m so busy staring at him that it takes me several seconds to register what he says next.
“You need to leave this court,” he says. “Ride hard, and you should make it to a settlement okay. Thank you for your help before, but this is where we part ways.”
I stare at him.
I heard him, but the words don’t make sense.
“What?” I finally choke out.
“Ride through the barrier. Head south and don’t look back. Go now.” His voice is flat.
“Does this mean that you aren’t leaving the court? Or that you are leaving but are still refusing to travel with me?” I suspect that he isn’t leaving. It’s worrying to say the least.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says, his voice deep with urgency. “Both have the same outcome. Go already!”
“No,” I tell him. “I’m not leaving.” I shake my head. “We tried it your way, and it didn’t work.”