Chapter 49
Forty-Nine
With You or Not at All
Asher stepped through the doorway, moving slowly and keeping unblinking focus locked on me.
“You,” he seethed. “And Thainalan the Ravager. This is an act of war.”
“The act of war was when you tortured a fae of the Autumn Court!” Thain roared, starting to grow into the beast I’d seen him as on the training field. “Wren, run.”
Thain shoved me behind him into the bottom of the lift, but the shelf lifting Schula was still at the top, not yet lowered down again for the next passenger.
“You will not escape me again!” Asher roared.
I took in a sharp breath as Asher came at us at a frightening speed. But Thain met him in the middle of the room, claws out and eyes blazing silver as the two hulking fae crashed together with a terrible sound.
The butcher-block table that had been between them was in splinters and thrown to the side, narrowly missing a cart holding an elaborately decorated cake.
The shelf hit me with a dull thud, and I whipped my head up in the shaft to see Schula.
“What?” I began.
“We’re all getting out,” Schula said. “All three of us.”
My eyes flicked over my shoulder to the kitchen door where two more fae had arrived.
Both were dressed in brown fighting leathers and bore the Winter crest on their shoulders.
One of them held a sword, and the other a bow.
The archer nocked an arrow and aimed for the scuffle between Asher and Thain.
“No!” The word ripped from my throat before I recognized it had come from me. I gripped either side of the entrance to the lift and flung myself out toward the new fae. I let out all the rage I had toward the Winter Court in the form of a stream of fire.
Protect Schula. Protect Thain.
That was all that could run through my head as I released my fury on them.
Unlike anything I had created before, this was white-hot fire.
The heat from it suffocated the room. I just hoped it wasn’t affecting Thain.
The bright flames licked at the warriors as they tried to jump away.
Still, I knew I’d burned the archer’s arm, and it satisfied me that she could no longer draw an arrow.
I yelped as my legs were pulled out from under me and I slammed into the stone floor.
Over me, one of the Winter fae sneered and held his blade high, ready to strike.
I flailed and clawed, trying desperately to roll out of the way or at least conjure more fire, provided I hadn’t spent everything with my last display.
“Wren!” The screech like a banshee chilled the hall and lifted my heart into my throat. I felt her before she reached me, ice creeping on the floor in her path and sending jagged shards at the male standing over me.
I turned to Thain, who now had Asher pinned under him, a bloody hand half buried in Asher’s chest as he roared in anger. Asher wasn’t giving up, though. Despite the line of blood at his mouth, he drew back a clawed hand, striking for Thain’s throat.
Thain growled as an arrow sprouted from his collarbone, and Schula and I gasped.
Schula ran to Thain, and I ran for the doorway where more fae were coming into the kitchen. I spotted the offending archer right away and snarled as I released more white-hot fire into them.
Asher recovered somewhere behind me, or that was what it sounded like anyway, and he retreated into the line of incoming soldiers.
“Can you get him to the lift?” I shouted at Schula over the sounds of fighting.
“I’m fine,” Thain grunted as he grabbed the arrow protruding from his collarbone and snapped it off near the base of the wound.
Then he stood, not taking his eyes off the wounded Asher, who was already being tended to by the Winter Court fae who had been arriving in a steady flow. By now, we were dreadfully outnumbered.
“Go,” Thain said. “Now.”
I gritted my teeth and looked at Schula, who was just as resolved as I was. She nodded at me and wrapped an arm around my waist.
“We all go or none of us go,” she said flatly.
Thain looked like he was about to argue, but then something in him hardened. “Schula, Wren, it has been an honor. If you will not run, then help me bring it down.”
I looked at Thain, who promptly cleaved the arm of a large green soldier in a gory mess. His chest was heaving, his eyes gleaming wildly, his wounds bleeding slowly. He was in the battle now, mind and soul, and from his words it seemed like he thought it would be his last.
“Always, old friend.” Schula just gripped me harder and added her ice to my powers.
I was afraid to look at her face, but I was resolved to end with her, if that was what she wanted. I didn’t want to run either, so I couldn’t blame her for standing by Thain as we tried to tear Icehold down.
Once again, the pressure exploded around us. Something about the hot and cold didn’t mix well, or mixed too well, I supposed, depending on the results you wanted. The flames and ice licked the walls and chased out all but the most hardened warriors. But still more came to take their place.
During our assault, Thain had felled the enemies before him and gone to another doorway in the crumbling wall. With a low rumble, he called on the gale he had summoned before and began hurling his might down the halls.
The cracking and creaking overhead were surely heard in more parts of Icehold than just the kitchen, but Schula and I tore through the few warriors left in our path and left the kitchen entirely.
A rumble in the distance told us that our efforts were working elsewhere. That or Thain was to blame.
“We’re not done yet,” Schula breathed. “DuVarick has this disgusting gauntlet, it’s his favorite punishment.”
She ran a finger down her hip. A place, if I remembered correctly, that held one of her nastier scars. She grinned, but it was filled with no warmth. “If I go down, so does that damned thing.”
“Show me.”
And she did.
There was a great deal of rubble to handle now as we picked our way through what was obviously a forge and an armory.
It took us to a tunnel, then another, then another.
Screams around us told of more soldiers looking for us, but our destruction was everywhere, and there was no clear path to where we were.
The mad gleam in Schula’s eyes told me she would welcome the destruction of this gauntlet if it was the last thing she did.
I had few regrets. Not having more time with Schula, Thain, and Eberon was one.
I’d also wanted to search for the witches, or maybe the elves, for more answers about my parents, and though it would not break my heart to not find out more, it did sadden me.
Puko, I would miss. Nassir, I would miss.
Perhaps whatever afterlife awaited an elven witch would allow me to see Bryn again. Or Lark.
Schula flung ice periodically, destroying weapons and rooms as she saw fit in her path to the gauntlet, until finally she stopped before a giant iron doorway at the end of a long, empty hall. It was heavily decorated and stood out from the corridors around it.
She let out a slow breath and pulled the door open with a grimace.
Shouting behind us told of more soldiers approaching, but we stepped inside the room, ignoring them. For this was it, this was the gauntlet.
A long tunnel of grotesque iron sculptures and tools.
Pits of spikes, swinging blades, and heavy chains.
Every bit of it had the brown splatter of old blood on it.
My mouth opened in horror as I looked into the nearest pit, where several mostly whole skeletons now rested, a little meat still on the bones.
“What is this place?” I whispered.
Schula looked over the room darkly, her eyes resting on a golden throne at the back of the room.
“A place to suffer. Bring it down.”
She turned suddenly and hugged me tightly, twisting our bodies as she cried out in pain.
“Schula!” I screamed as an arrow struck her arm. She had used her body to block it.
“Now!” Schula kissed my cheek, tears in her eyes as she turned us to the gauntlet.
I was now the one with tears in my eyes. It would have been nice to have more time with Schula. It would have been nice to see Thain once more.
We raised our arms and let out everything. Let it out as it burned my skin, let it out as it cracked walls and froze the iron around us. As it melted the door and blew out the walls. The ceiling screamed overhead with the burst of pressure and loss of supports.
In a palace of DuVarick’s warriors, sometimes you had few choices.
And our resolve was strong as we brought the gauntlet down.