24 #2
“Treason!” Vael shouted from the chancery table, hitting the stone as the first crossbow bolts whistled overhead.
Out of the open postern and service conduits poured scores of warriors swathed in oiled leather coats and gray cloaks trimmed with dried salt.
These were no common bandits, no ragged sellswords; they advanced in disciplined wedge formations, heads clad in conical dark-bronze helms, armed with curved shortswords and weighted harpoon-spears.
Across their leather cuirasses gleamed the outlawed crest that Maevra had tried to burn and Soren had hidden in the blocker: the circular carving of the three waves of the Gray Tide.
The clash that tore through the courtyard was a savage whirl of blood, iron, and fire.
Darian partially shifted on the dais; muscle swelled beneath his mail, his eyes flared like pools of liquid gold, and his primal Alpha fangs lengthened behind a thunderous roar that shook the flagstones.
With relentless fury, he cut down the first three attackers attempting to mount the steps, splitting an ash shield with a devastating two-handed blow and hurling another over the rail with a brutal swipe.
Around him, ten loyal guardsmen locked ranks before the lectern, thrusting their halberds to hold off the charge.
“Liora, stay behind me!” Darian shouted, his voice rough with strain. “Do not leave my back!”
I tried to keep my feet, but the smoke choking the courtyard was no ordinary haze; it was the catalyst Iven had feared.
With every breath of that brine-laden vapor, the genetic beacon fixed to my red blood cells flared like an open furnace.
My limbs turned to lead, overwhelmed by a pheromonal surge so violent that silver sparks streaked across my vision and my knees buckled beneath my wool skirts.
Yet I refused to be dead weight.
I snatched up a parrying dagger dropped by a fleeing guard and backed against the marble balustrade, watching our left flank.
The Gray Tide raiders had not come to slaughter the court or seize the throne of Vhal.
They had a single objective, driving toward the dais with a fierce, single-minded focus that brushed past every other target.
“The coastal heir!” barked a harsh, booming voice over the din of battle. “Secure Elayne’s daughter!”
Six rebel warriors breached the right flank of the defensive square using weighted nets and pots of burning pitch that set the crimson silk hangings ablaze.
A broad, towering warrior with silver hair plaited in sailors’ braids and a deep furrow of a scar slashing across his left eye socket bounded up the steps in two strides.
He carried a bronze buckler etched with wave crests and a boarding hook in his right hand.
Darian roared and lunged to cut him off, locking into a furious clash of steel against bronze that showered the stone with sparks.
Yet while Darian held their leader at bay, three other Gray Tide fighters slipped around the rear of the dais, dropping down from the architraves of the eastern tower.
One of them cast a heavy mantle soaked in brine and numbing resin straight toward me.
I moved with the speed ten years of survival had driven into my bones: I ducked the first throw and drove my dagger into the nearest attacker’s shoulder, sending him staggering back with a grunt of pain.
Yet the second warrior pinned my arms from behind with the crushing grip of an Alpha seasoned on coastal galleys.
“Quiet, girl!” he hissed against my ear, his tone carrying no malice, only a raw, urgent insistence. “We didn’t come to hurt you!”
“Let me go!” I shouted, thrashing with everything I had and driving my heel back into his shin. “I am Liora Valen, lady of these lands!”
The one-eyed warrior with the silver braids battered through Darian’s defense, slamming his buckler to shove him toward the coals of a burning banner, then wheeled on me, fixing his single gray eye on my face with an overwhelming mixture of reverence and sorrow.
“You’re no Valen, child. Your name is Liora Mael, daughter of Captain Elayne and blood of the western tides. Your true pack has come to pull you from this cage of wolves.”
“Darian!” I screamed, my voice tearing in my throat.
Darian threw himself clear of the flames with a howl of raw despair that split the air over Asteria.
His primal beast tore into the attackers with unbridled fury, cutting down two men and hacking a path of blood and iron toward the edge of the dais.
He reached for me, his bloodied fingers brushing mine for a fraction of a second, so close I caught the searing heat of his skin.
“Liora!”
Then the one-eyed warrior hurled a white phosphorus canister onto the stone between us.
A blinding wall of fire and dense smoke erupted between our reaching hands, forcing Darian back before the glare could sear his eyes.
The warrior holding me bundled me into the dark cloak and threw me over his shoulder, while four more raiders locked their curved shields to screen the retreat toward the lower postern.