Chapter 13
Kiera
Davka gasped, her face pale.
“N-No. No!” I cried.
The Wolf kicked her body off his sword and turned to me.
White-hot wrath poured into my veins like lightning. “You bastard!”
My fingers seized the hilt they’d been searching for. The Wolf stabbed for my heart. I sidestepped and whipped the sunstone sword through his neck like it was a twig.
Just as Renwell had done to my father.
It was easy. So very easy.
The head tumbled away, and the body collapsed at my feet. Blood and gore dripped from the long, glittering black blade. But I felt nothing. Death came for my rage as it’d come for the Wolf.
A harsh gasp tore my attention away. Davka had rolled over, a crimson puddle blooming around her.
I hurried over and fell to my knees at her side, dropping my sword. Blood soaked her chest and my fingers as I tried to cover the wound.
“It’ll be all right. I can stop the bleeding. I’ll—I’ll get some bandages. Some herbs. Nikella probably has some. There’s also a healer’s shop nearby,” I babbled.
Davka shook her head, grasping my fingers. More blood trickled from her lips as she opened her mouth.
“P . . . protect,” she said in a garbled whisper.
I nodded rapidly, my tears dripping onto her chest. One breath. Two breaths. Then she was gone.
Protect. Protect what? Whom?
It was the only gods-damned word she’d ever spoken to me, and I didn’t know what she wanted me to do.
Throwing my head back, I howled at the burning night sky.
She’d died protecting me because I couldn’t fucking fight. The burn marks on her arms from the Den battle weren’t even healed yet.
A shout drew my attention to a distant corner of the square where Aiden fought three different Wolves. His sword was soaked with blood, and several other Wolf bodies lay in a mangled heap.
I watched in awe as he attacked like a feral animal without hesitation. Like he knew every one of their moves before they made it.
But he was outnumbered.
I seized my sunstone sword and raced toward him. I swung at the legs of the nearest Wolf. His body fell. Legless.
Blood coated my boots. My mind.
The sword was so light in my grip. So deadly. Having it in my hand made me feel powerful. It was intoxicating.
My eyes landed on the dead gaze of a Teacher next to one of the severed legs. My mother’s eyes had looked like that. My father’s. Now Davka’s. And so many others.
I gripped the sword harder. Whatever blood I shed, it wasn’t enough. Never enough.
“Kiera!” Aiden shouted.
I glanced up in time to see a Wolf lunging for me with a knife. I swung for his arm but missed. The force of my swing spun my back to him. Fiery pain exploded across my shoulders as he sliced me.
Aiden roared with fury, taking a step toward me. But his distraction cost him. The Wolf who’d been on his knees in front of Aiden flung a knife, which burrowed into Aiden’s thigh.
I cried out as he stumbled.
Gods, no. Not Aiden, too. I can’t—
With a growl, he ripped the knife from his leg and whipped it toward me. I gasped. It whirred past me and sank into the neck of the Wolf who’d been about to strike me again.
But the remaining Wolf had seized Aiden by the throat, knocking the sword from his hand. Aiden kicked backward, but the Wolf held on.
Hefting my stolen blade, I stumbled forward.
Seeing my intent, Aiden used his whole body weight to spin the Wolf toward me. I lunged and stabbed the Wolf’s armpit.
He released Aiden. Aiden snatched up his sword and whirled in a flash of silver to slit the Wolf’s throat.
Then, it was just the two of us, standing ankle-deep in bloodied bodies. We stared at each other, panting.
Something warm trickled down my back. My shoulders burned every time I shifted. But I shoved the pain to the back of my mind. I was still alive. I could still fight.
Aiden’s eyes raked over me. I waited for him to tell me to go back, to stay behind.
Instead, he murmured, “Stay close to me.”
I nodded. We picked our way across the square. I couldn’t help glancing back at Davka, her unseeing eyes fixed on the glowing sky.
My throat tightened. Gods, what was I going to tell her family? And Maz . . . I was going to break his heart. Again.
Someone shouted from the north end of the square. Yarina waved to us. “Our warriors broke through to the shore, but we need to help them!”
Aiden strode faster, blood trickling from his thigh. I hurried after him.
Yarina was splattered with blood, but otherwise looked unharmed. She gave me a tight grin, waving a gory scythe in her good hand. “And they thought I couldn’t beat everyone one-handed.”
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell her about Davka. But then something whooshed overhead.
A burning barrel careened into the tall wooden building next to us and exploded.
Aiden, who’d pulled ahead, jerked around and locked eyes with me, just as the building buckled.
I grabbed Yarina’s arm and flung us backward. The building crumbled at our feet, pouring rubble between us and Aiden.
“Kiera! Yarina!” he shouted.
Perhaps I was imagining the panic threaded in his voice. But it warmed my weak heart, anyway.
“We’re here!” I tried to shout back, but immediately coughed on the cloud of dust and smoke that billowed over us. Yarina groaned.
“Gods damn it,” I muttered.
Her foot was stuck under a burning timber. “Go on, get out of here, princess,” she said through clenched teeth, trying to tug her foot out. “Or we’ll both be easy kills.”
Protect.
Davka would never leave her sister. But there was no way I could lift that log. Even with leverage.
“Hold still,” I ordered.
I lifted my sunstone sword and brought it down on the thick wood.
Yarina shouted in surprise. Aiden yelled again from his side of the wreckage.
The sword had bit nearly halfway through. I just had to make sure the next strike didn’t go too far.
Yarina and Aiden continued their ruckus while I focused. Sweat dripped into my eyes, and I wiped it away. I raised the sword again.
Breathe in. Breathe out. One, two—
I swung. Splinters flew. Yarina cried out in pain. I yanked the sword out of the cracked wood. Yarina dragged herself away, swearing up a storm. Her ankle was bent at a bad angle, and her boot had a gash in it from my sword.
“Gods-damned lunatic,” she growled.
I collapsed next to her. “You still have your foot.”
She squinted at me with a smile twisted with pain. “Pure fucking luck. Remind me to take your training more seriously after this.”
Aiden bellowed, “Kiera, if you don’t answer me in the next gods-damned second—”
“We’re fine!” I shouted back. “I’m taking Yarina up the ridge.”
Immediately, Yarina protested. “I can still—”
“I will knock you out and drag your stubborn ass all the way back to Yargoth if you don’t cooperate,” I snarled.
She blinked twice at me, then grinned. “Spoken like one of my sisters. Fine then. Help me up.”
My heart stumbled over the word “sisters.” She didn’t know she had one less of those.
“Keep your guard up,” Aiden called out. “We’ll rout the ship and meet you on the ridge.”
Be safe, my heart murmured. Words I didn’t have the courage to speak.
Instead, I focused on Yarina. I wrapped her arm around my shoulders, biting hard on my lip at the sudden pain.
“What’s wrong?” she asked as we hobbled upright.
“Nothing.”
We traipsed back through the square. I avoided the spot where Davka lay. We would have to collect our dead later.
Footsteps pounded.
“Left!” Yarina shouted and dove to the side.
I raised my sword and turned just as a Shadow-Wolf’s sword arced toward my neck. I blocked. The sunstone blades shrieked against their jagged edges. My arms throbbed.
I stared at the Wolf’s snarling metal mask, wishing him and all of his brethren to the Abyss.
He came at me again and again. I kept blocking. But my movements grew more sluggish. Yarina crawled through the spilled vegetables she’d fallen into, screeching curses and threats at him and swiping at his ankles with her scythe.
The Wolf bellowed in pain when she nicked one. He delivered a swift kick to her head. She dropped like a stone.
Fucking Four, don’t do this to me.
I attacked him again, but I wouldn’t last like this. I had failed Davka as I would fail Yarina and so many others. It was like I was back in that alley in Aquinon. That same desperation and hopelessness swimming in my veins.
Perhaps death hadn’t liked that I’d gotten away that night. But Aiden couldn’t save me this time.
Gritting my teeth, I ducked another swing and stabbed for his gut with all the strength I had left. He shifted. But I still caught his side, slicing through skin and ribs.
He howled and swung for my head. I pulled back. The black tip grazed my nose. Then—
An odd whistle. And a black arrow slammed through his neck. The Wolf wavered, then crashed to the ground.
I looked up, gasping.
A cloaked figure stepped from the shadows between burning buildings with an empty bow. My heart beat slower and slower. Then stopped.
Dark eyes and an even darker smile. Renwell had found me.