Chapter 6 #3
For one frozen heartbeat, JingYi witnessed the calculation in their eyes—a silent, unanimous verdict.
The carriage door flew open. A firm shove sent her tumbling out.
She hit the ground hard, the impact driving the air from her lungs.
Stones scraped her palms and knees. Gasping, she scrambled to her feet and lunged back for the door, grabbing the handle.
It didn’t budge. She glimpsed LánYàn’s pale, determined face just before she drew the leather curtains tight.
Darion’s voice ripped through the battlefield. “Protect the princess!”
Heavy boots thudded against the dirt. The Wulfbane men closed in, shields raised, forming a protective wall around her.
JingYi pressed her back against the carriage door.
The veil, which had been a soft filter, was now a maddening blur—tangling with her frantic breath, smeared with dust, turning the dusk and the flash of steel into a chaotic, indecipherable painting.
Shadows, figures, everything was obscured.
She should’ve been safe inside the protective ring of soldiers, but the bandits kept coming. A shadow broke through the formation. A hand seized her wrist. She twisted, not at all like a fighter, but like a healer trying to slip a splint—useless against brute force.
Then, a blur of silver. A sword punched through the bandit’s leather jerkin below the sternum. Angled upward—a trajectory she knew would pierce the diaphragm, the heart. The man made a wet, gurgling sound. She had heard it only once before from a man whose lungs had filled with blood.
Darion ripped his blade free. The corpse collapsed. He barely spared her a glance before turning back to the fight.
“Stay down, princess!” he barked.
JingYi crouched, scrambling away from the chaos. She must get behind the shields—
A war cry rose above the din of the battle, so fierce that each man looked up.
The ground shook beneath the horses’ hooves.
From the treeline, a dozen men charged forward on their mounts, the glowing blue of limyerite torches blazing.
Armed with bows, they fired arrows at the bandits with deadly accuracy.
Seeing the tide turning, the bandits fled as fast as they could, but the mounted cavalry ran them down with ease.
One man stood out. He rode a magnificent horse through the swarm of bandits as if they were nothing but stalks of wheat—his limyerite-tipped axe a blur of glittering steel, cutting down men without pause.
Black leather armour, ebony steed, and against it all, the crimson lining of his cloak snapped behind him like a bloodied war banner.
His mount wove past sword strokes and arrows alike with almost supernatural grace.
A calloused hand seized her wrist, yanking her away. She stumbled, veil slipping askew. The bandit grabbed the back of her dress and dragged her along the ground. She clawed at his hand, trying to wrench free. He gasped. Stopped. Let her go. She looked up and saw a blade sticking out of his ribs.
A soldier with auburn hair—young, lean, quick as a striking hawk—materialized beside the bandit. He didn’t spare her a glance, only barked in a sharp voice, “On your feet, Highness!” before whirling to block another strike.
For a heartbeat, she thought she might be safe, until a third attacker lunged from her blind side, where the carriage wheel jutted out, dragging her away. Pain shot through her right leg. She resisted. He wrenched her around to face him, teeth bared.
The air keened. An axe slammed into the bandit’s neck from the side, a brutal arc of steel and limyerite.
A hot, wet spray hit JingYi’s face and veil.
She watched, stunned, as a pulsing fountain of crimson arced from the severed artery, and the axe sliced deeper.
A metallic tang of blood flooded her mouth and nose.
The bandit’s fingers stayed clenched around her wrist, an iron shackle dragging her to the ground as he fell.
JingYi stumbled as her right leg—the weak, traitorous limb—buckled beneath her. She hit the ground hard. The air punched out of her lungs.
A high-pitched ringing filled her ears, muting the world.
Her body felt distant, numb. The blood on her face was just warmth, the screaming just a buzz.
She recognized it—not a physical wound, but the body retreating from what the mind refused to hold.
She’d watched it happen in soldiers at the infirmary a hundred times: the glassy stare, the stillness that mimicked peace.
She’d never understood it until now. The dust swirled around her as she tried to steady herself.
Above her, the first stars of dusk pricked through the darkening sky, indifferent and cold.
The ground shook, and a shadow fell over her. The rider stood steps away, a giant of black leather and blood-spattered steel. Through her tangled veil, she saw him lift his visor.
His eyes were an unnatural, piercing blue, like shards of sapphire.
They seemed to see straight through the veil and into her soul.
His expression was utterly devoid of any emotion—no triumph, no fatigue, no trace of the violence he’d just inflicted—as if he hadn’t just cut through a swarm of bandits to reach her.
As they stared at each other, she knew.
The Wolf of Tremore had come for her.