Chapter 19
Tears roll down Evie’s pale cheeks. Her bottom lip quivers. “Cynthia?” she calls out.
Two more assassins emerge from behind the trees, shoving my parents forward.
Their hands are bound, gags tight around their mouths.
Mom is pale, her nightdress too thin for the cold air.
Her knees shake as she stares at me. Dad shouts into the gag and writhes against his restraints.
His captor slaps him in retaliation, whipping Dad’s head sideways.
I swallow a scream. “It’ll be okay. I promise.” I have to believe it. I have to get them out of here alive.
The lead assassin lowers his sword and backs away from us, knowing he’s already won.
Desmond’s grimace slackens into shock. “Conan?” Then he stiffens, looking back and forth at the trees. “Isolde? Adder? Saoirse?” The shock twists into agony.
“Drop your sword, Prince of Death,” Gashil orders.
“Do it!” I shout at Desmond. “I can’t let them die!”
“They’re already dead!” Desmond fires back.
How could he say that? My family is right there, begging for mercy with their wide eyes.
Evie gasps as the sword nicks her neck. Rage shakes me with every drop of blood that rolls down to her collarbone. I clench my hands, my nails biting into my palms. The pain is the only thing that keeps fear from devouring me.
“You’ll let them go?” I plead with our attackers. I’ve never felt so frightened, but a wrongness slithers through me. My magic prickles along my skin. I ignore it, blinking through the hot tears that sting my eyes. “You won’t hurt them. Swear on it!”
Gashil sneers. “I swear, human, but the prince must drop his sword and stay where he stands.”
I can’t trust him, but what choice do I have?
Evie whimpers. “Cyn, I’m scared.”
“Shut it!” the female who’s restraining her snaps.
Desmond shakes his head, stumbling back. “I was desperate to survive. I didn’t think I had a choice.”
“You do have a choice. Choose my family!” I shout.
“Your family?” Desmond frowns, not in refusal, but confusion. He tightens his grip on his sword. “What do you see, Cynthia?”
“My patience is wearing thin,” Gashil warns.
Why is Desmond asking that? What’s going on? “They have my family. We just need to surrender and—” I scream as the female assassin slashes her sword across Evie’s neck.
Blood gushes, painting her nightdress red as she falls to the ground. She draws in one ragged breath as her brown eyes turn glassy. Then she stills.
My world ends.
The other assassins draw their daggers and raise them over my parents’ chests.
“No!” I try to freeze their blades midair. But I can’t feel the blades, too shaken by grief to focus, too slow, too weak.
They slay my parents with quick stabs through their hearts. I shatter. Cries rip from my throat as my magic whips out, uncontrollable. Rocks rise. Dead tree limbs shake. If I hadn’t left. . . If I had stayed with them. . .
Gashil charges me. A gleeful grin crinkles his eyes as he swings his sword. I can’t bring myself to move. Misery consumes every thought, every sense, until all I feel is nothingness. Each shout and step around me plays in slow motion, time having marched on without me.
If I die, I’ll join them. They wouldn’t be alone.
Desmond throws himself before me, his sword narrowly blocking the slash.
I stumble backward, my vision too blurred by tears to see my family’s faces, yet their bloody bodies are still. They’re dead. These killers took my family from me.
Magic bursts out of me again, and I sense the wrongness. But I don’t understand it. I stumble toward Evie, ignoring the other assassins as they unsheathe their swords to kill me.
Evie’s hand is open, fingers stretching out as if reaching for me. Her nightdress is torn, her shoes unlaced.
I reach for her hand, but mine passes through it. There is nothing there but empty air. No dress. No shoes. No lifeless body.
“Thank the gods,” I rasp. One of the attackers is an illusionist.
My family and the three assailants who held them all vanish, part of the illusion.
Then a jet of flames blasts toward me, and I fall onto my back to dodge it. The air above me wavers with stinging heat. A fire-wielder dressed in the same armor as Gashil springs out from between the trees. The fire confirms she’s real. Another sphere of flames curls between her hands.
That means Gashil is the illusionist. How could he be so powerful?
Swords clash again behind me. “Your ghosts have disappeared,” Desmond says with a ruthless lilt that makes me shiver. “Ran out of magic, Gashil?”
“Not yet.” A low, raspy laugh violates my mind. It drowns out my thoughts, echoes between my ears, and I resist the urge to cover them. A clammy shiver slides down my back.
I lunge away as flames barrel toward me. When I scramble to my feet, the fire-wielder runs into the shadows and banks right. I whirl around, searching for her. Where is she?
The knife I dropped glints in the faint moonlight. I levitate it to me. My pulse pounds. Blades clash, Desmond and Gashil still locked in battle.
“Your attachment to your human pet makes you weak,” Gashil taunts Desmond.
“Call her that again, and you’ll feel your skin rot off your bones,” Desmond snarls. Their blades clash.
I press my back against a tree, clenching the knife as I watch the shadows.
Gashil laughs. “Did you know my fire-wielder likes to play with her prey?”
Desmond’s rage burns through my veins like liquid fire as he warns, “Touch her, and you die. I’ll make this forest your grave.”
“Aren’t you dramatic?” Gashil lunges out of Desmond’s reach and unsheathes a second sword.
The one in his left hand is curved, a sharp stainless steel forged to slay.
The other has a duller sheen and lacks the blue-gray tint of steel.
“Do you like it?” he asks, glancing at me.
“It’s iron. No metal is better for slaughtering fae. ”
Desmond slashes, again and again, forcing Gashil to defend with both blades.
“What are you?” I ask, still watching for the fire-wielder, still terrified.
“The last voice you’ll ever hear,” Gashil purrs with malice. “And before you die, I want you to know that your prince is no innocent fae. Helping him is certain death for everyone you hold dear.”
A knife soars at me from between the trees. My magic halts it halfway, and I thank the war goddess that Desmond made me practice that. It’s my blade now. But it’s larger and heavier than the guild’s, and my aim is already poor against moving targets.
Two fistfuls of fire flare behind Desmond. The fire-wielder rolls them across the grass, and the dry autumn leaves burst into flame, trapping Desmond between the twin lines. It cuts me off from them.
I run between the trees. If I can’t attack head-on, I need cover. I slink toward Gashil, the crackle of burning brush hiding the sound of my careful footfalls. His deranged laughter echoes in my head as he duels Desmond.
The fire-wielder searches, swiveling between the trees as the glow of her flames illuminates her sinister mask. She draws nearer, and I move faster, positioning myself behind Gashil.
My pulse pounds as I levitate pebbles and sticks into a swarm. When Gashil dodges again, I’ll be ready.
Now. I pelt the narrow slit in his mask. Gashil staggers, unable to swat the debris away with both hands full. He blocks Desmond’s next blow, but fumbles his counterattack. Desmond knocks the steel sword out of his hand with an upward thrust.
Gashil hisses. He lunges for the sword, but I’m faster, my magic flinging it into the bushes.
Shit. I should’ve brought it to me instead.
The fire-wielder saw the rocks. She sprints, closing in on me.
I run around the trees, glancing each time I hear a foot slide in the grass or a loud clash. Gashil has resorted to defense now that he’s down to one blade, but he’s armored, and Desmond isn’t.
Where is the sword? It’s too dark. I can’t see!
I reach out with my Gift. Rocks, dead tree limbs—There! I feel the sword’s cold weight in the underbrush, and levitate it to my waiting hand.
A bright glow flares around me. Heat singes my hair.
She’s found me.
I whirl, clumsily slashing with the sword.
The assassin cackles. Fire vortexes around her as she builds an inferno that will roast me alive in seconds.
I’ve beheaded draugr. I once helped Dad poach a bear.
Yet terror crawls up my spine as limbs overhead smoke and burn, as heat wavers through the air. I run and trip over a root, falling hip-first to the ground. Pain shoots through my body, and my leg locks beneath me.
I’m doomed.
I swivel to face the fire-wielder. I want to scream, but my throat clenches too tightly with a primal, instinctive panic. The blood rushing in my ears is almost as loud as the fire-wielder’s mocking laughter.
She steps closer, malice carved in the glints of her pale eyes.
I throw the sword at her, too desperate to think of a better plan.
She dodges with ease. Fire crawls toward my feet, then licks my boots until the soles burn.
I gasp, crawling backward. She’s toying with me, and my magic is useless against her.
If only I had been born with Evie’s Gift like my parents wanted!
Rage cuts through my fear, dark and merciless. It consumes me, flaring hotter than the spitting flames.
The emotion isn’t my own.
Desmond’s sword plunges through the assassin’s body from behind. She gasps. The flames snuff out as the blade twists, carving a gash beneath her ribs. Her hands clutch her wound, but fail to stop the silver blood that pours out. Then she falls to her knees.
Behind her, Desmond’s eyes are wide. His chest heaves and his lip is curled. The blood drips from his blade, runny and lustrous like quicksilver.
I realize he’s staring at me. Maybe he can feel the relief flooding my body, the tears pricking my eyes as I realize he just saved my life.
His hands tremble.
“Behind you!” I scream.
Gashil’s iron sword cleaves into Desmond’s shoulder. I fling Gashil’s throwing knife, but he knocks it aside with his bracer and parries Desmond’s unsteady thrust.