Chapter Fifteen Rage
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
RAGE
Reya pushed up onto one elbow and clutched her forehead. There was a pulse on the right side of her skull making her eyes water, her first migraine in days.
Nothing remained of their campfire except a handful of glowing embers that scattered on a whistle of wind.
Caelan stood at the threshold of the temple, one arm on his sword.
“Caelan,” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
A shiver slid over her skin that had nothing to do with the morning chill. Where were Ash and Ciz? She went to his side. “What is it?”
Caelan’s face was inscrutable. “I’m not sure.”
The All-Gods looked down on them with faces of stone, watchful yet unseeing. The forest was quiet. All seemed well.
She listened for whatever had set him on edge and was about to tell him they could probably grab another hour of sleep when she heard it.
As one, their heads turned straight ahead—toward a snarl so faint it could have been mistaken for a rustle of nearby brush.
Rotting hell.
Her Ire spread down her arms and legs like a warning bell, lighting up the darkness with blazing violet light.
A pair of yellow eyes came into view. Then another. And another.
“Move,” Caelan growled.
Reya snapped up whatever weapons she could and backed toward the tree in the center of the ruin, Caelan at her side.
One by one, they emerged into the moonslight, bodies jerking with the rhythm of their overlong hind legs. Reya wondered if the walls of this temple, with their ancient carvings of the masters of fate, would shield them somehow.
That proved to be folly as six Dread Wolves entered and fanned out around them. Her shoulder twinged as if in reminder, and her fingertips flared white as the floodgate around her power shuddered.
Reya dared tear her eyes away from the wolves to look at Tika, at the devious glint in her eye. But Reya had no more tricks. No cards to play.
You will need all your gifts for what is to come.
Caelan drew Hellfire, and flames ran down the blade. “Go for their heads. Their hides are too thick.”
Reya nodded in silent confirmation, though he wasn’t looking at her. Then the world exploded into chaos.
Four Dread Wolves charged for her, the other two for Caelan. Her ruby dagger glinted as it flew and landed in an eye of one of the beasts. It screeched, pitching about like a furious, rabid dog. She threw two more blades, her training like a song in her blood. Another.
If this was to be her end, then it would be an end worthy of the mountain folk.
Fire and steel drove through fur and flesh. The Dread Wolves were too fast and too deadly to cease moving even for a moment. It was an entirely different kind of fight than she had ever participated in. It was carnal. Vicious. She wondered if this was what war felt like.
Reya waited for Caelan to turn them to ash, but, for whatever reason, he held back, every pulse of flame careful and calculated, moving with his sword like they were one body.
We will take no chances this time, one of the creatures said as it leapt.
She rolled, nose inches from those ebony claws, her father’s sword already arcing toward another wolf.
The blade sliced clean through flesh and bone.
The Dread Wolf roared as its front paws tumbled to the earth.
Reya stared slack-jawed as it continued to advance, stumbling forward on its bones.
Then Caelan was there, driving a blazing Hellfire through its open maw.
She lost all sense of time and space, leaning on her immortal grace to dodge the next set of snapping teeth, leaping into the air to bring the sword down on another Dread Wolf’s neck with a defiant scream. The blade didn’t cut completely through, but it managed to get halfway, and that was enough.
Blood sprayed across her chest and hair, and she didn’t bother to wipe it away as Caelan took on the last Dread Wolf in the den.
“REYA!” Caelan roared.
The sword slipped from her bloody fingers as a wolf she’d missed in the mayhem tackled her to the ground.
Teeth gleaming in an otherworldly smile, it stretched out its gnarled, pink tongue and licked the blood off her neck like one might savor a rare cut of meat.
Her ruby dagger still protruded from its eye.
She yanked it out by the hilt, and the wolf’s mouth opened wide in a roar. Reya screamed right back and slammed the dagger into the side of its head, once, twice, again, again. She didn’t know how many times she stabbed, only that its jaws finally slackened and it crumpled on top of her.
Then Caelan was above her, shoving and cursing in an ancient tongue.
Silence fell over the ruin as he lifted her to her feet, interrupted only by their winded breaths.
Caelan slid his hands over her neck and arms. “Did it bite you?”
“The horses,” she panted, eyes frantic. “Where are Ash and Ciz?”
“Did it bite you?” he repeated as her head swiveled.
“No. Caelan, I have to find him—” Ash had never left her. Not once. She choked on a sob. “He could be hurting, please, he’s—” Gone. “He’s all I have.”
Caelan smoothed the blood-soaked hair back from her forehead, his fingers like a brand, grounding her with heat, to him, to safety. “We’ll find him.” She nodded, wanting to believe him. “Ciz knows to run from danger. Maybe your pet is learning.”
She wanted to laugh, but she was still shaking. Caelan’s grip tightened.
A hard wind blew through the ruins, sending Reya’s tangled red hair flying. Caelan scented something on that wind, something she either couldn’t or was too distracted to detect. Whatever it was, she could tell by the look on his face it wasn’t good.
“Oh, come on,” he said.
Cold terror overtook her as six more Dread Wolves stalked into the temple, stepping over their fallen brothers. She tried and failed to follow their movements as they came in and out of her line of vision.
Caelan’s mask was gone, and he looked, for the first time since they’d met, truly afraid.
That frightened her more than anything. He positioned them back-to-back.
As one, they spun, and flames seared the earth in a circle around them, but it was not the inferno, flickering cobalt with power, that he had been wielding.
Still, the Dread Wolves paused their advance.
Caelan had never told her how long he could burn, and she suddenly wished she’d asked. Reya’s magic hummed beneath her skin. She could end this in a minute.
“Thief,” Caelan hedged.
Reya swallowed, unsure whether the sword would be enough to ground her if she summoned enough light to kill them all. She might kill Caelan. Not to mention what she could do to herself.
You’ve done it before.
Reya looked at her hands and shook her head, her reply a helpless whisper. “I can’t.”
Caelan’s flame guttered, and one of the Dread Wolves leapt over the flicker. Reya shouted in warning, but Caelan was already there. Hellfire swung twice, and the beast howled as steel tore it in two. It dawned on her then that Caelan had done it intentionally.
One at a time.
Reya bent her knees, waiting for the next opening.
But the wolves treaded back with a growling chorus, prepared to wait until the fire burned out.
Caelan let out a slew of choice curses. When he had nothing left, they would be left wide open.
And if they died, her brothers were as good as dead, too.
You’re in control.
The more she used the floodgate, the easier it was to find. It was controlling what came after that was the problem. But it was either try or die. She lifted her palm.
Before she could lower the floodgate, a silver spear shot out of the darkness like a shooting star—straight through the head of the wolf closest to Caelan. Then the weapon retracted, like it had been summoned back into the shadows, and was caught by a pale, slender hand.
Caelan blew out a relieved breath and said something in that beautiful, long-dead tongue that she was sure translated to thank you.
Two Sages, one male and one female, stepped through the archway.
In black leather armor like Caelan’s, they were two twin shadows silhouetted by the night sky.
They had the same proud and achingly beautiful features, and the icy blue Ire that peeked out on their necks and wrists matched their otherworldly eyes.
Two of the wolves broke off to face the two newcomers, whom they clearly deemed the lesser threat.
But Reya had a suspicion that wasn’t true, and was proved right a moment later when the female briefly locked eyes with Reya before charging like lightning into the temple, white-blonde plait whipping around her shoulders.
Meanwhile, the male looked almost tranquil as he followed her.
Everything around the male began to levitate—boulders, branches, fallen daggers.
He tossed his own short swords into the cloud of them, and they soared through the air like hailstones.
Reya had never seen anything like it.
When one of the wolves leapt for the female, mouth open, she grabbed onto its exposed lips and held them open, laughing like it was the best fight she had ever had.
She let go only to deck the wolf in the side of its head with her bare fist and a wicked grin.
As it reared up, she plunged her spear through its open jaws and out the back of its head.
A Dread Wolf came at the female from behind, but a snake made of cobalt flame slithered up from the ground and coiled around the beast’s middle.
The save cost Reya and Caelan. The circle of flame dipped low, and Reya was met with a pair of hungry yellow eyes.
Grass and dirt were shredded as the Dread Wolf leapt over the barrier, teeth bared. Reya acted on instinct.
One hand on her sword, she let down the floodgate. Her skin prickled as she sent the magic rippling out from her core and down her arm. Light erupted from her palm in one quick blast. It hurt—like she’d ripped off a scab. Too fast.