Chapter 36
The breath punches out of my lungs as I slam into the earth. Pain explodes along my ribs as I cough and try to catch my breath. Each gasp shoots searing pain through my chest. Grimacing, I sit up and blink through the dust swirling around me as I try to get my bearings.
The battlement crumbled beneath me. I should be dead, crushed beneath the stones, but I’m not. I’m bruised, and I’m fairly certain I cracked at least a few ribs in the fall, but I’m alive.
I’m also furious with myself.
In my hubris, I lost focus. I was more concerned with showing off for my father than with paying attention to my surroundings. There must have been a distant trebuchet pointed in my direction. My light and red cloak made me an easy target atop the battlements.
I was foolish and prideful, just like he always said I am.
I grit my teeth against the pain as I scramble down from the rubble.
My red cloak snags on a stone, and I rip it off my shoulders.
I leave it in the mud, stepping on it with my boot for good measure.
I never want to see it again. Shame burns through my veins.
I squint up through the dust, toward what remains of the battlement wall, but I don’t see the Dead Queen anywhere.
The air is thick with dust, making me cough. My lungs seize painfully with each breath. I stagger, ears ringing, and my vision swims. The ground feels like it’s tilted and shifting beneath my feet.
A Fox Soldier charges from the right, his axe held high. I dive, rolling through the blood-tinged mud. The impact jars every bone in my body. I land beside a corpse half-buried under rubble, and my fingers brush against the hilt of their sword. When I grab it, it’s slick with mud and dust.
A shout tears the air behind me. I spin, barely raising the blade in time to block.
The clang reverberates through my arms, nearly knocking the weapon from my grasp, but I stand my ground.
I send a whispered thanks to Tristan for the past few months of training.
Without it, I’d surely be dead. I try to reach for my light power to blind the Fox Soldier.
Nothing happens.
Horror fills my chest.
The soldier presses forward, his breath rank and hot against my face. I twist, using the moves Tristan drilled into me: pivot, slice low, step back. The edge of my stolen sword bites into the soldier’s thigh where his flesh is exposed between plates of armor. He yells and falls to one knee.
I don’t wait. I drive the blade upward into the gap between his armor and his helmet until his voice cuts short. Crimson blood streams over his copper chestplate. When I draw my sword back out of him, his body falls to the ground with a clatter.
My head is pounding, and my light power is flickering inside me like a dying flame. All around me, the world is chaos: soldiers shout, arrows shriek past, feet stomp through the mud-soaked earth. Fear claws at my throat, threatening to unravel me.
I have to stay calm. I grit my teeth to keep focused. My hands grip the hilt of my stolen sword tighter, even as a wave of dizziness makes nausea rise in my stomach.
Another Fox Soldier rushes toward me. I raise my blade, slower this time.
His strike glances off my sword, knocking me back into the rubble.
Pain blooms white-hot in my back. I heave my sword upward, catching him across the chest. He stumbles, armor screeching.
Once again, I reach inside my core, calling for my power.
I’m met with hollowness instead.
“No, no, no, no, no,” I say to myself as I scramble off the rubble.
The Fox Soldier raises his blade to swing again but stops short.
Behind him, there’s a flash of movement, followed by a sharp, wet sound.
A pike shoots through the front of his chest. He blinks down at it, surprised, then collapses.
So much for Father insisting Fox Soldiers don’t need stronger armor than bronze and copper.
A young Gwyllion fighter stands behind the collapsed soldier. I recognize him instantly. He’s the boy I saw with his mother before the battle began. He looks almost as stunned as the Fox Soldier did. His face is smeared with dirt and blood, but he’s alive.
“Thank you,” I say, my voice raspy. He nods, then turns and rejoins the fight, his boots sliding in the slick mud.
The first heavy raindrops fall, and thunder rumbles over the clang of battle. My arms are shaking, and I’m dizzy. I duck out of the path of a silver greatsword, wielded by a copper-clad giant. Somewhere in the distance, the roar of corpse beasts echoes along the outskirts of the fight.
I blink against the falling rain and try to focus. My brain is a jumbled mess, and blood trickles from my temple. Frustration builds in my chest. I can’t fall apart like this! Even as I think it, I know it’s not weakness that’s making my brain muddled and my limbs weak.
It’s burnout.
And most likely a concussion as well. Nausea swells within me again as rain streams over my face. Between my shaking arms and head injury, I can barely hold the sword. What was the point of those months of training if I can’t even focus enough to use it?
Even as the thought crosses my mind, I know I’d be dead already without Tristan’s training.
Still, I drop the sword and draw Grandmother’s moth knife out from my boot.
Thank the old gods, I haven’t lost it in the chaos.
The bronze hilt kisses my palm as I grip it.
It’s a poor weapon against an army, but I know how to use it on instinct.
And right now, with my head a jumbled mess, I need to rely on a weapon that I can wield in my sleep.
The rainfall is steady now, dripping into my eyes, turning the ground into trenches of mud.
Another Fox Soldier spots me and lifts his sword to strike, but I twist away just in time. I try to call my power, but it’s useless. Panic shoots through me like lightning.
The soldier turns toward me again. I rush at him, tackling him to the ground before he can strike.
We land with a clatter that reignites the pain in my skull.
Before the soldier can react, I slice my blade through his neck.
I don’t wait for the telltale gurgle of blood pooling in his mouth before I’m up again.
All around me, Annwyn men and women are dying. We can’t stop the flood of Fox Soldiers, and even I can see our numbers are dwindling. We won’t win this battle. The pain of crushing defeat and grief threatens to overwhelm me.
“Sienna!”
I whirl around, searching through the chaos. My eyes have trouble focusing. Finally, I see him. Relief washes over me with such intensity that a sob bursts from my chest.
“Sienna!” Hunter is sprinting toward me. He’s soaked, and not just from rainwater. His exposed arms are coated in mud and blood. It streaks down in dark rivulets, dripping from his elbows as he swings his sword into the side of another Fox Soldier. It hardly slows him down as he runs.
When we collide in a breathless whirl, he wraps his arms around my shoulders.
In the midst of death, all the anger and betrayal between us extinguishes.
Nothing else matters now beyond this: Hunter is here, alive.
The heat of him, slick with rain and blood, cuts through the surrounding carnage.
Tears stream down my face as he squeezes me tighter.
“Thank the old gods,” Hunter gasps into my rain-soaked hair. Then he steps away, grabbing my hand. “We have to get you out of here.” He pulls me forward, and we weave through the piles of dead and dying.
Three Fox Soldiers spot us and charge in our direction. But instead of bracing himself to fight, Hunter surprises me by pivoting.
“What are you—”
He grabs me around the waist and tucks his face toward mine. “Trust me.”
Suddenly, the soldiers stop advancing. Their eyes grow wide. “What the …?”
“They were just here!”
“Impossible!”
They whirl around, only feet from us, eyes wide and searching. As if they can’t see us.
I stare up at Hunter, wide-eyed. “How …?”
He presses a finger up to his lips.
I look back at the soldiers, my heart hammering in my chest. A swirling mist, thin as a spiderweb, dances along the edges of my vision.
It’s so negligible, it could easily be missed.
For a moment, I think the head injury is messing with my vision.
But no. Light and shadow bend around us in a shimmering ripple as the world distorts, hiding us in plain sight.
The soldiers locate a new target and run in the opposite direction.
Without a word of explanation, Hunter grabs my hand, and we run through the mud-slick battlefield, light and shadow swirling around us. We are little more than ghosts.
So, he knew. He denies being the Heir to the North, but he knew he was different. That’s how we survived all those years, growing up in a hostile palace. The invisible children. He used his power to hide us.
How had I never realized?
An Annwyn fighter crashes into us, and Hunter drops my hand, dispelling the illusion.
“S-so sorry!” The fighter says, his eyes wide with panic. “I didn’t see you! I swear.” He scurries away, tripping over fallen bodies as he goes.
Hunter reaches for me again, but a surge of Fox Soldiers pushes more Annwyn fighters back. The press of bodies is suffocating. They flood between us, separating us farther. I can’t reach him.
Then I hear another voice, sharp and clear: “Sienna!”
I whirl around to see a woman riding toward us on a dark horse. Her face is streaked with blood. Her long blond braid is soaked with rainwater.
Nalina.
In one swing of her silver sword, she decapitates a Fox Soldier in her path. His armor-clad body thumps to the ground. Blood spatters the horse’s flank, washed instantly into red streams by the rain.
When she reaches me, her horse digs his heels into the mud, spraying muck in every direction. Without a moment’s hesitation, Nalina reaches down and grabs my arm.
“Where’s Tristan?” I yell toward her, terror seizing my chest.
Her only response is a quick shake of her head.
My eyes grow wide. “Tell me he’s alive!” I don’t miss the edge of panic in my voice.
Her mouth is a thin line. “I haven’t seen him.”
“Nalina!” Hunter yells above the crowd. “Take her!” He’s fighting his way through the masses, swinging his father’s sword at the soldiers.
“Hunter, no!” I gasp, twisting in her firm grasp.
With one final push, Hunter finally reaches us. He grabs the reins of Nalina’s horse. “Bring her to the castle.” His voice is urgent yet calm, like a well-trained commander.
“Not without you!”
Nalina’s grip tightens on my arm. I dig my fingernails into her hand. She grimaces through her split lip, but she refuses to let go.
Hunter finally reaches me. He grabs my shoulders, his deep brown eyes staring intently into mine. “I’ll find you.”
In one swift movement, Hunter grabs me around the waist and kisses me so deeply, the world vanishes.
The blood, the screams, even the rain dripping down my face fades away.
I lose my breath, my thoughts, everything but him.
His mouth is fierce and desperate, tasting of blood and sweat.
His kiss feels achingly like a farewell.
Like he knows this might be the last time. My heart breaks even as it soars.
He pulls away, his eyes staring fiercely into mine. “I promise.”
“You’ll die.” An unexpected sob chokes my voice. I can hardly get the words out.
His gaze burns, unflinching. “I swore to protect you.” His voice lowers, just for me. “But you know it’s more than an oath, Sienna. It’s you. It’s always been you.”
A sob builds in my chest. I believe him wholeheartedly. I trust Hunter completely. He will come back to me and we will find our way through this. All of it.
Nalina jumps down from her stallion and grabs my upper arm in an iron grip. Her voice is terse. “We’re leaving. Now.”
She lets me go and draws her sword so suddenly, it makes me flinch. She cuts down two encroaching Fox Soldiers in barely more than a breath. Their bodies collapse in the mud at our feet, but all I can feel is the weight of Hunter’s hand still pressed to my waist.
“I can still fight,” I lie. My head is pounding, vision swirling. I can barely focus on Hunter’s face in front of mine. The world is a blur of rain and blood, but he is painfully clear.
Hunter steps backward, eyes on me one last time. “You will fight. Just not here.” He nods to Nalina.
She doesn’t waste more time. She grabs my waist and practically throws me up onto her horse, then she leaps onto the saddle behind me. She clicks her tongue once, sharply, and the horse bolts, hooves cutting through muddy puddles swirling with blood, insects, and rainwater.
But I look back and see Hunter standing alone. It’s a familiar sight, him on a battlefield. Me leaving him.
Only this time it’s different. This time, he begged me to leave him. The irony of it is enough to break my heart in two.
Nalina grabs my head and pushes it down just as a spear whistles past, close enough to split the air beside my ear.
“Eyes open, Fox,” she growls, kicking her heels into the horse’s flank for more speed.
We charge through the battle and into the castle’s splintered gates, narrowly avoiding colliding with Fox Soldiers and Gwyllion fighters alike. The horse skids through the castle grounds, leaping over fallen debris.
Nalina draws the horse to a stop at a wooden door along the castle’s interior wall. She jumps down from the saddle, not even bothering to tie the stallion anywhere before she pulls me roughly from the horse.
“Where are we going?” I ask. My head aches so much, I fight the urge to vomit.
She draws out her silver sword. I turn to fight whoever’s behind us, but there’s no one there. When I turn back toward her, her eyes are on me, hard and dark. She spits a mouthful of blood onto the cobblestones and tightens her grip on her sword’s hilt.
My stomach drops. Something is very, very wrong here. I reach down to grab my silver knife from my boot, but I can’t see straight, and it clatters to the ground. My head is swimming. Nalina stares at me wordlessly.
My heart pounds through my skull. I have to get away from here. I look between her and an alleyway. I make a run for it.
I don’t get far.
Nalina kicks her legs under my feet, knocking me to the ground.
My knees crack painfully against the stone.
This time, I do vomit. When it’s over, I roll onto my back, gasping.
She steps over me, looking down at me from above.
Through the encroaching darkness at the edge of my vision, I see her face as rain drips from her hair, her chin, her nose.
This can’t be happening. They need me. Tristan. Hunter. The people of Annwyn. I refuse to die like this. Not before I’ve killed the Fox King.
“Why?” I ask.
Without a word, she lifts the hilt of her sword and brings it down.
The world goes black.