Chapter 21 #2
I clamber backward, my knees hitting the headstone behind me. It tilts, the old stone groaning under my weight. I try to scramble over it, but the tether pulls taut.
Then Arwyn drops the rope, and I fall.
Sight is stolen from me, it’s all a sudden whirl of darkness and crimson light, blending and spinning together, until I hit the earth, hard.
My backside drags down the harsh stone, tugging on my tightly fastened sweatpants.
I kick my legs, fingers gritting into the soil, as I drag myself back—and once I’m free from the snag, I flip onto my side and look ahead, expecting to see the chalky black sword coming down on me.
But Rust doesn’t charge at me.
Arwyn has chased ahead to block him.
He wields a weapon, a short, curved blade that glows faintly, like moonlight trapped in quartz.
In one fluid, vicious motion, Rust’s black blade slices upward.
Arwyn blocks it, the two weapons locking with a snarl of light and sound. The impact sends a vibration through the earth beneath me—
And just as it does, Samick has spun around, his back to the general, and has charged into a run for us.
I back myself into the headstone behind me. The rough edges bite into my spine.
Gasping, my breath fogs in the chill. My shin throbs—bandaged, oiled—and it feels like it’s pulsing with its own heartbeat.
Arwyn, sword raised, pushes back against Rust’s downward strike. Sparks scatter across his face.
But I’m not safe.
Only a row between Rust and me, he could jump it, distract Arwyn for the quickest moment, and that will give him the second he needs to reach me.
Fuck that.
I scamper to my feet and push into a run for the path, towards the familiar soft face of Mika still standing on the headstone.
I make it two steps before a flash of frost comes from my right.
Samick barrels into me, hard—and I’m thrown off my feet.
I hear myself cry out, a strangled, shocked sound, as the path comes rushing up at me.
I land on the coarse gravel, the world spinning, dirt in my hair, the coil of pain in my knees as they strike down.
My hands slap to the path—and I throw a furious look up at him.
Cold, his eyes flick over me, impersonal, indifferent—then he’s gone.
He charges at Rust, and his sword is a flash of ice through the warm campfire air.
I blink, and it’s all changed.
Arwyn is on me again, his hand fisting in the back of my jacket, and he drags me away from the fight, scraping me over gravel and onto the cold grass.
Samick and Rust blur together, white and black, frost and ember, until I can’t tell them apart.
The air between them seems to warp, bending around their weapons. Each strike echoes like thunder muffled by soil.
The fae press closer. Their eyes shine like a thousand tiny fires. Their excitement is not human; it’s fierce, predatory. Some hiss encouragement. Others whisper names. I see teeth glinting, sharp nails shivering.
The captives are gone, swallowed by the dark edges of the camp, hiding out from the violence.
Arwyn drags me until my back hits the base of a cracked angel statue far on the other side of the path, a safe distance from the fight that Samick pushes out further.
Arwyn plants himself in front of me, a sentry of stone and winter.
I look around the bulk of his left side, and I see the general. She’s come closer now, wandered towards the smell of blood and weapons.
Her armour glimmers red-black like Rust’s blade, her hair braided tight. Her eyes are alight—not with joy, but with something hungrier, colder.
Behind her stands a towering male whose face is cast in shadow. He’s watching the fight over her head, unmoving.
The general doesn’t speak. She watches every strike, every block, every hit, every kick, and she watches until the fight slows.
Rust is breathing hard now. His mouth is bloodied—thick black blood dripping down his chin and staining his teeth. His nose runs dark, his chest heaving.
Samick moves with the same deliberate control as before, though there’s a thin line of white blood streaking down from his eyebrow.
Rust swings wide again—and there’s something desperate in it.
Samick catches the blow, twists his blade down, and sweeps Rust’s legs out from under him. He hits the ground hard, the impact sending up a puff of grass and soil.
Samick doesn’t hesitate. He steps forward, his glass sword driving down—not to kill, but to pin.
The glinting tip of the blade digs into Rust’s collarbone and holds with an unspoken threat.
Silence crashes over the camp, like a violent wave drowns a shore.
Every fae freezes. Even the flames seem to steady, as though the world itself leans into us.
Samick stands over him, chest rising slow, his expression unreadable.
Rust’s breath rasps. His red eyes roll toward the general, then back to Samick.
For a long, suspended beat, no one moves.
The general lures in Samick’s gaze, just by standing there, watching quietly. His jaw feathers—tight, reluctant—then he tugs back a step.
The decision ripples through the crowd like a wave of shifting leathers and rolling jaws.
Rust coughs, and a dark splatter hits the ground—thick, oily. He pushes himself up, his gaze burning into Samick, then he spits again, the tar-black saliva steaming on the cold dirt.
Without a word, Rust turns and stalks away into the darkness beyond the campfires.
The onlookers part for him.
Samick lowers his blade, the faint frostlight along its edge dimming. His expression doesn’t change, but something in his shoulders shifts—a loosening before he turns toward Arwyn, toward me.
I don’t move.
I’m parked where Arwyn dragged me, knees drawn up, dirt on my palms. The pain in my shin throbs in time with my heartbeat, but the thick cramping sensation in my belly pins me.
He must’ve knocked me in the middle when he slammed into me and threw me off my feet. But it was such a blur, a shock, that I hardly remember more than a solid wall of ice and then hitting the path.
Samick turns his cheek to us and looks at the general.
Mika slides down from her headstone. She glances once at Samick—then at me. Her face is pale, her eyes luminous with something soft.
Shark turns and heads back to the campfire.
The fae soften.
The excitement fades, and they disperse.
But I don’t move, not with the general’s gaze running me over like a grater scraping down my flesh, and not with her gaze flicking to Samick every other heartbeat.
But after the world’s longest moment, she says nothing, she just turns her back on us and stalks to the head of the camp.
It’s only then that Samick moves for us.
His boots flatten on the grass, frosting under his steps, and that same frost of ice flexes in his grip as he sheaths his sword.
Ice-white eyes cut into me. “I told you,” he says, glacier, “not to run.”
The look I give him is stupid before my face crumples. A disbelieving huff jolts me.
He heavily fucking implied not to run from him. He said not a damn thing about not running from a maniacal fae returned from stray life, and suddenly all about the end of my existence.
That stroke of tension down his jaw turns to me, and he looks to where Rust disappeared into the dark. Then, with a slow breath, he takes the tether Arwyn passes to him.
Samick ties the loose end of the rope back to his belt before tugging it once—
I get to my feet.
My stare burns under my lashes, as violent as the storm rolling around my insides.
But what other option do I have other than to follow him back to the campfire?
The ruby lights dance over the carved faces of angels and forgotten names etched in stone. The graveyard smells of dust, moss, and firewood.
Somewhere beyond the camp, something screeches—metal or a bird, I can’t tell, and just as I focus on it, it’s gone.