Chapter 30
My body shakes as I struggle to wrench myself free from Gashil’s torment. Every second hurts, the pain flaying my mind and soul. There’s no end to the screaming, like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.
“It’s not real!” I yell. I anchor myself to the ground and will my magic to feel the walls, the weapon racks, the armor of the fomorians, and my strewn knives.
At once, I awaken on my knees.
“Impressive,” Gashil says into my head. “Not many can shake themselves free from my power.” Then he glances at the doorway and smiles. “He finally shows.”
“Gashil,” Desmond says as he steps beside me, his voice as cold as death’s caress. His hand brushes across my cheek, but his gaze doesn’t leave the assassin. “What did you do to her?”
Gashil glances at me. “Why don’t you tell him how much fun we’ve had?”
“Nikolai’s dead,” I rasp. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed glass. I must’ve been screaming after all.
An indescribable energy permeates the room. It’s different from the anticipatory thrum before a thunderstorm, more akin to the coolness one feels when passing from sunlight to shadow. It shivers along my skin, whispering its desire for malevolence, promising death.
Whatever it is, it’s utterly terrifying.
Gashil laughs, but the female fomorian gasps. She releases Finnian from her chokehold, and he falls to his knees, his face sheet-white. The fomorian stares at Desmond, failing to notice Finnian crawling toward Min’s fallen form.
“You forfeited your lives by harming them,” Desmond warns Gashil.
And then his attack begins.
With Gashil forced to parry and the other assassin still gawking, I don’t waste the opportunity. I sprint to the weapons rack even as the raw slice of skin across my upper arm throbs in protest. I grab a spear in hopes it’ll pierce through the assassin’s mail armor like butter.
Then I heft it as Desmond fights Gashil with the ceaseless fluidity of water, every slash and block blending into a relentless assault.
A bash of the hilt to Gashil’s chest, a kick that sends him sprawling.
A slash meant to sever Gashil’s head from his neck fails when he rolls sideways, but Desmond lands another kick before Gashil jumps to his feet.
The way he moves is beautiful in its lethality, entrancing me. I’d watch longer if I didn’t have my own opponent to face and people I need to protect.
The female tears her gaze away and focuses on me. She grins, moving into a low stance. “Let’s get this over with, shall we?”
“Let’s,” I agree. I charge at her. Gritting my teeth, I plunge all of my magic into the momentum of the spear’s thrust. The fomorian laughs and doesn’t dodge. She believes I’m too weak to pierce her chainmail armor.
She believes wrong.
The tip drives into her chest. Her gasp gives me a heady burst of victory, but anger swirls in her watery eyes. It’s not over yet.
I pull the spear back. It snags on the chainmail. I tug again. The fomorian hisses in pain. It’s not coming out. “Shit,” I rasp, letting go to retreat.
Someone cries out. I glance away for a fraction of a second. It’s Desmond, one hand clawing at his head as the other white-knuckles his sword. “Cyn!” he yells, my name drenched in hysteria.
Gashil laughs. “It’s too easy to mess with your head, foolish prince.”
I have to help him. I levitate my knives from the floor—
Strong hands grip my neck. The fomorian lifts me off the ground, the spear shaft sliding against my torso as she squeezes with relentless strength.
I try to gasp, but there’s no air. I kick her and claw at her fingers. I don’t need to see her eyes to know all I’d find there is a cold, merciless desire to kill.
I shouldn’t have looked away. I shouldn’t have lost focus.
My throat throbs, and my head feels too light. Every thought and regret scatters as my vision blurs. All except for one.
Evie stands in a field of flowers, twirling her skirt to the rhythm of birdsong.
She laughs, then extends her hand to me.
She’s young, still soft and ruddy-cheeked.
Fantasies dance in her merry eyes, dreams of waltzing in the royal court with Prince Ronan, his ruby signet ring on her delicate finger.
Soon, she’ll let those wishes drift away like lost seeds on the wind, lamenting that they were the foolish daydreams of a foolish girl.
She’ll find solace in the rhythm of clucking hens and scraping rakes, constancy in torn soles and hollow pockets, and love for a toiling life that will wear her as thin as the socks she mends.
I have failed her. I have failed the child in her.
My knees hit the ground with a jolt of pain. I gasp; the breath burns through my lungs. Above me, Desmond releases the fomorian. She pales as she scratches at the dark handprint around her throat, as if trying to scrub the pain away.
Desmond yanks off her helmet. His sword slices through her neck.
I flinch as her head lands beside me. He kicks it away, and I look up at him in a coalescence of awe and shame, catching an emotion in his hazel eyes that has me blink in shock.
Rage.
“Gashil is gone,” Finnian says from across the room. “He shoved the archery cabinet aside and scrambled off through the secret tunnel. I tried to go after him, but I can’t crawl with this giant gash through my hand.” He pauses, and his voice cracks as he says, “We lost a good man today.”
My mouth tastes like bile as I look at the utter carnage of the training room.
The headless body of the female fomorian.
Nikolai with a pool of blood seeping around him.
I’ve never felt so angry. He was kind, earnest, and he was my friend.
Gashil has ripped a loving father away from his family.
His girls will grow up never seeing his smile again.
I will make him pay, I vow in a hoarse whisper only meant for myself.
Min shudders as Finnian touches her shoulder. Her pained roar rings in my ears.
“I’m sorry!” Finnian yelps. “I just want to help. I don’t know what to do.” He buries his face in her fur and says, almost too low to hear, “I can’t lose you, Min.”
“She’ll be alright,” I try to assure him, but no more than a hiss comes out of my bruised throat.
It finally hits me, and a hot tear streaks down my cheek.
I lost the fight. I’m exactly what I feared I was.
Weak.
“Are you alright?” Desmond asks me. His offered hand is blistered pink and white, burned from the fomorian’s iron helmet.
“I’m—” I blink at the unmasked fury across his face as his gaze snags on the throbbing handprints around my neck. His emotions batter me in a relentless wave, so much darkness that I struggle to find myself within it. “I’m fine,” I grit out.
His hand still waits for me to take it, but I hesitate. It was humiliating enough when he had to force-feed me salt, then bandage my back because I couldn’t defend myself on the heist. A web of shame and resentment twists inside me. This time, he saved my life.
I should be grateful, but all I feel is shame.
He fought Gashil and isn’t winded. I couldn’t stop even one fomorian on my own. My parents were right. I was born with the wrong Gift.
Desmond’s face clouds with worry, and he drops his hand to his side.
“Dez, is everyone else okay?” Finnian asks him.
“Auri’s fine. We took out five in the foyer.”
I push myself to my feet. Of course they did. Auri is a lightning-wielder and Desmond’s an Elite. They could’ve survived a dozen.
“Maeve? Rune? And Nog?” Finnian asks. “We could really use Maeve right now, if she’s alright.”
Brandur isn’t here. He left for a guild job this morning.
“Maeve knocked one out with a frying pan in the kitchen before I told her to hide. She’s worth more after the fight than in it,” Desmond replies. “Nog knows how to conceal herself. Not that the same can be said for the three of you.” He runs a hand through his curls, revealing a gash in his temple.
“You’re hurt,” I croak. Instead of examining the wound, I clench my hands into fists. He’s obviously fine.
“It’s nothing,” Desmond says. See? I tell myself. Fine.
“Where’s Rune?” Finnian asks.
Maeve runs in with an armful of bandages. Auri follows behind her, carrying a box of tonics and salves, but she glowers like she would rather still be in the throes of the fight than tending to the wounded. A shallow gash runs up her forearm, and a bruise colors her collarbone.
Maeve doesn’t have a scratch. “Rhea was on our side,” she says with a sigh of relief. “Everyone’s alive.”
Then she sees Nikolai. All of the bandages drop. Two roll across the training room through the pool of blood, trailing streaks behind them. Maeve doesn’t stoop to fetch them. She stands paralyzed, her bottom lip quivering.
“He—” she chokes out. “He said—He promised—”
Tears well in her eyes as her body caves in, the first sob wracking through her. “I’m sorry,” she blubbers between cries. Then she kneels beside him, gently rolling his body over. His black eyes are wide and unblinking. She closes each with her shaking fingers.
I don’t dare utter a word. I have no idea what I could say to console her. He invited her into the guild and must’ve felt like family more than anyone else here.
Finnian rubs at his teary eyes, then clears his throat. “Maeve, I know how much he meant to you, but Min really needs you, too.”
Min chuffs and shakes her giant head, blood flinging off of her incisors like spittle.
“Don’t pretend you’re fine, Min,” Maeve says. She fights another sob, then tuts. “Everyone can see you’re hurt.”
Desmond has already gathered the bandages, and he cuts the soiled ends off with his dagger.
Maeve kneels beside Min, and Auri sets the box down and walks the perimeter of the room. “Is that where he escaped?” She points at a three-foot-wide hole in the wall, the archery cabinet shoved aside to reveal it.