Chapter Twenty-Four
TWENTY-FOUR
It can’t be him. He wouldn’t risk it.
Not in a crowd like this.
Would he?
My eyes fly over the bodies, all the blades sheathed in fine leather and jeweled hilts at hips. But none of them are the simple black leather jacket and hooded cloak I swear I just saw.
“Maeve!” Talon shouts as I push my way into the crowds, but I’ll be right back. I just need to see…
None of the eyes narrowing on me are green, but I swear he was just right here.
I saw him blending into the shadows of a stall hung with inky-green-and-white banners that sells what look like nuggets of precious metals.
A thin swirl of smoke twists from the edge of the banner, voices rising as the vendor shouts for help to put out the sudden flames.
A rush of gardai carrying buckets press in as the flames spread, devouring the banner.
Stupid, irrational fear twists a cord around my neck.
Could the Lady of Shadows pry every one of our names out of Wolf with the torture Talon warned me about if the gardai ever catch him? Would he break, under the pain?
I think I would.
A shudder rips down my back. I can’t even imagine what she would do to me—what she would do to Finn—if anyone realized why I’m here.
A shadow shifts at my side—but it’s not him.
Disappointment tastes as bitter as ashes. A quick rush of apprehension follows. Wolf and me… we’d tear each other apart in a heartbeat, and not in a good way.
We would absolutely destroy each other.
Wouldn’t we?
Another shadow nears, this one with a dark hood pulled up to hide their face. And now it’s not just apprehension twisting in my gut—it’s fear.
A third one slinks up, then a fourth.
They’re flanking me, like dogs herding sheep, and a surge of dread floods my limbs.
I can’t run, can’t escape. Not here. The crowd is too thick, bulging with the rush of gardai around the burning stall and nearby vendors rushing to protect their wares.
My chest goes tight.
I cut diagonally through the crowd, pushing toward the edges of the fencing yard. The sand fades into long grass, and I can just make out the curve of the path back to the castle behind a thick copse of rowan trees, not far from where the grounds jut from the sea cliffs.
With the sun at my back, I can see four long shadows stalking after me.
Fuck. They’re definitely following me.
The primal need to flee rushes in again. The backs of the stalls and the thatched fencing along the edge of the training yard shield the copse of trees, down a slight hill from the yard toward the cliffs, from the crowds thick and dense around the vendors.
If I can get there, could I hide?
Fear pulses in my throat. The rowan trees’ blush berries hang in lush bounties on heavy branches, but the trees are thinner than I thought as I get to the copse.
I can hear Wolf’s warning in my mind: It’s not safe for you out here alone.
And damn it, he was right.
I need to get back to the crowd—right now.
The crisp grass crunches under my boots, and I whirl to my right. If I can just get back to the edge of the festival, surely someone will hear me scream, even above the shouts from the burning stall. Talon, or Aoife. Maybe even the gardai, if they haven’t been paid to look the other way.
The sharp, cold hiss of blades being drawn slices the chill air.
My muscles freeze.
“The higher the climb, the farther the fall,” a lilting voice sings in the creepiest fucking tone I’ve ever heard. Every inch of the skin from my waist up the curve of my spine crawls.
Gritting my teeth, I reach both bandaged palms for the blade at my hip and the sheath at my thigh and turn to face what is very possibly my own impending death.
Four of them. All lined up, circling around me like wraiths. The hoods drawn up over their heads hide their features, and all of them move as smoothly as ink in water. Just one of the long, narrow daggers they each carry could gut me in an instant, or spear me clean through.
Or both.
All I have are my knives, and hands already screaming in pain.
“Don’t bother fighting,” the tallest of the four tells me, slinking across the grass and brushing back the last rowan branch hanging between us. “This will all be over soon.”
Not if I have anything to say about it.
Hesitate and die.
I lunge, using one of the advances Finn taught me, striking out with a deep, quick slash into the crook of the first assassin’s right elbow.
And I have no doubts anymore that’s what they are.
Assassins.
A scream tears from my throat—nerve pain lances up my palms, my wrists, all the way up my forearms. Like fire, scorching where I clench tight around the hilt.
The assassin hisses and switches the blade to her left hand. The right one hangs uselessly, blood dripping in quick rivulets down her fingers into the grass.
“Fighting will only prolong the inevitable,” the figure to my left says in a rough lilt. She comes at me in a ferocious slashing advance. I leap back, stumbling and dodging the vicious edge of her blade by an inch.
The two of them rush me at once, and terror sharpens every sense. I can’t fight them both. Not like this—it’s not supposed to end like this.
Agony tears up my limbs. My hands feel like I doused them in oil and lit a match. I can’t feel the blade in my hand, in the palms hammering with the surge of blinding nerve pain, and lash out to strike the second assassin.
Furious. Slashing. Wild.
Exactly what Finn always drilled me not to do.
It’s all I have left now—and fuck, it’s not enough.
It’s two on one, and the other two linger at the sides of the copse like hounds eager to lap up the scraps of a fresh kill. One blow will end me, but it won’t end at that. I know it won’t. Excitement seethes off them and poisons the chill air, choking me of my last breaths.
They’ll make this hurt.
Terror swallows me up, and the grass crunches beneath me as I fall back. Rowan berries stain my hands red as I grasp at the low branches.
But I won’t lie down and die. If they want to kill me, they’ll have to kill me with a blade in my hand and every ounce of strength scraped from my bones.
A scream rips from my throat. Bitter fury overpowers me, and I hurl my blade with the last bit of feeling left in my hands. It buries to the hilt in the ribs of the first assassin who came at me, the one with my knife’s slash in her arm.
She staggers, falling over on herself just a few feet from me. I manage to snatch the knife from her stilling chest, eyes blurring at the pain in my hands.
The second assassin steps over the corpse and stalks closer. So close, I can see the malice shining in crystal-blue eyes beneath her hood.
“Just close your eyes,” she whispers, as if the words are a kindness. “It will only hurt for a moment.”
“Good advice,” a savage voice snarls.
The second assassin sputters.
Steel blooms through the front of her throat in a burst of crimson spraying across me, and she falls to the ground in a heap of stinking iron and salt.
What—?
Wolf rips the hood back from his dark hair, throwing his cloak to the ground. Blue steel flashes. He dodges the sharp stabs and ducks and twists of the two uninjured assassins left, but even together, they’re not a match for him.
Wolf moves without a sound, one leg kicking out to slam into the shorter assassin’s knee and buckle it.
She goes down hard, a furious shout wrenching her face into a grimace as her kneecap twists behind her leg.
He doesn’t waste the opportunity. He just rips the dagger in his left hand across her throat, and blood pours out over her front.
Horror surges at a sudden blur of movement approaching from his side.
“At your left!” I call out.
Wolf twists and flips the dagger, slamming it into the chest of the fourth and final assassin, and she sucks in a gasp.
He kicks her onto her back. Catches the blade in his right hand, and offers it to me.
“End this,” he says with searing intensity, eyes on the dying assassin. “Now.”
Pain colors my entire world, staining patches of black and blinding lights across my mind.
There’s no pushing past it. But I crawl toward them anyway—claw myself forward by inches.
I swallow down the pain. When I reach her, the assassin’s skin is already gray, blood trickling from her lips.
But I pull her hood back, lock what’s left of my rapidly blackening sight on her pale eyes, and bring the knife to her neck.
“It’ll only hurt for a moment,” I spit through shaking teeth, and press my blade across the fading pulse beneath her ear.
The last assassin seizes, then stills.
Ringing buzzes in my ears. My mouth fills, sour and acid, and I fight the urge to vomit.
Wolf’s hard hand grips under my shoulder. He pulls me up on shaking legs and loops one arm around my waist. “We need to move. The gardai will have heard the shouting.”
“I screamed and they never came.”
His gaze burns mine. “Are you surprised?”
Pain turns the world fuzzy. Burning in my side, scorching up my hands.
I can’t see straight, and the rowan copse blurs with brown dirt, with the feel of grit and gravel crunching underfoot. Everything shifts around me, and all the feeling in my legs goes cold and numb. A dull ringing thrums a steady din in my head.
“Fuck,” Wolf rasps, catching me, and time slows.
My head finds hard, warm leather. The soft relief of smoke and sage fills my lungs. I fight to move away from him, but my muscles won’t obey. Something rough but gentle brushes along the length of my cheek, like the stroke of a thumb…
Not him. Can’t possibly be him.
But who else could it be?
Old Ones, the pain is everywhere.
“Fight, Maeve.”
His rough voice rumbles through me. The grip pulling me flush against the warmth of his side tightens. Another arm curls around my shoulders, and my feet leave the ground. Blue sky flashes up above. Keeping my eyes open is a battle—and I’m losing.
Nerve pain ricochets through my body, clenching my muscles tight, locking them in spasms that feel like lances piercing deep between my flesh and my bones.
At least I didn’t make it easy for the assassins. I’m still here, even if it’s just barely. Still clinging to the fight that’s left in me.
I hope my mother would be proud, if she could see me now.
The leather against my cheek rumbles again—I feel a soft, low tone rising in his chest and Wolf’s arms tightening around me.
A faint, haunting hum vibrates through him, words I can’t understand slipping whisper-soft from lips so close to my cheek that I can feel the warmth of his breath.
The melody pierces through the dark fog weighing over me, through the blinding nerve pain igniting every inch of my flesh.
“Fight,” he murmurs again, this time so close I swear his lips ghost against my hair.
Defiance stirs in my blood, coaxing the stubborn spirit left in me back up to the surface.
I hear muffled, soft voices, and a face peers over mine—eyes like topaz, and hair the color of spun gold, blurring with an amber carriage at her back.
“Get her in here,” a sharp voice urges Wolf. “Hurry!”