Chapter Thirty-Three
THIRTY-THREE
A horrible, bone-rattling screech splits the air into shards of glass.
The shadow soaring above us sweeps down over the castle gate, and the gasps from everyone gathered around the sodden garden turn to screams.
Enormous claws crunch into the ledges of the impenetrable castle walls, plucking gardai from watchtowers and tossing them into the crowd. A smell like the undersides of the quays fills my nose, damp and tingling and cold. My heart hammers—flaps.
No.
A wave of fear crashes over me.
That sound isn’t my heart.
It’s wings.
Saraid ducks beside me, yanking me down with her just as black claws, long and thick as the spikes on the Black Quay, sweep down just feet above our heads.
“Get your fucking weapons!” she snarls, and I grasp for the hilts Oona took from me, scattered in the mud in the feet around us.
Each one slides into my sheaths as the thrum of dozens of wings drowns out the thunder of my pulse.
Scales the color of the deepest, darkest pools glint in the rain, shimmering like…
Like magic.
Did I fall? I fell, and smashed my head open, and this is my brain playing tricks before I die. It’s the only possible explanation, because the fangs snatching nobles out of the crowd, the talons ripping gardai up and flinging their weapons across the yard—none of this can be real.
“Stay down!” Saraid screams over the howl of the storm, and a burst of lightning splits the skies, cracking the air and striking the tallest turret of the castle. Huge chunks of rock burst along the top, and trembling fingers fly to my mouth.
That’s where I was. Just… just heartbeats ago, that’s where I was.
She grabs my wrist, yanking me after her, ducking and swerving.
“Where are we going?” I yell back at her, searching the dispersing crowd.
Talon. I have to find Talon. But the yard is full of strewn and broken bodies down over the ruins of the rosebushes, lying at sickening angles in the mud.
“Out of their fucking way!”
Saraid dodges falling debris, massive chunks smashing into the earth all around us. All I can taste is salt and iron. I’m covered in it. The gown Wolf gave me is in ruins, ripped off at the knees where I’ve stepped on it and shredded the hem.
Then fresh thunder explodes, and the tang of metal and sharp static flood my lungs, every hair up the back of my neck crackling.
Saraid whirls for me, eyes flying wide. Conflict rips across her face, then resolve, and she roars at me as a shadow sweeps overhead. “Down!” She hits the ground, flat on the drenched grass at the top of the hill.
My skin sizzles and I drop—just as lightning incinerates the space right where I stood.
It hits a running figure right behind me, their outstretched arm now frozen as their charred and smoking husk disintegrates in the relentless hammer of the rain, flaking as they fall to the mud.
Saraid wrenches her narrowing gaze up, up, up…
I follow the track of her stare—
And whatever’s left of my nerve crumbles.
The storm-blackened sky unleashes a torrent of furious wind and low clouds the color of ashes. But they aren’t dark enough to hide the creatures diving through the twisting mist into the crowd, plucking bodies and heaving them into the walls.
Long, serpentine shapes writhe through the churning mist on wings so ragged and spindly they can’t possibly be enough to keep the creatures airborne—but they are.
Figures in navy cloaks straddle their scaled backs, legs gripping the grooves in front of the wings and their arms outstretched to the skies.
Caoranachs.
These are caoranachs soaring and shrieking through the air, gnashing teeth ripping through flesh and bones. Their wings look like soaked and worn leather, and their tails—barbs cover the ends, smashing stone from the walls and carving out chunks from the ground with each menacing swoop.
Columns of gardai pour out from the castle with swords raised, uniforms soaking through in an instant. But what good are swords against mages and fangs?
The walls of Castle Mount have never been breached. Not by any battering ram or army.
This is no mere army, though. These are mages. These are caoranachs. I know it in the marrow of my bones—this is war. This has to be why Wolf told me to run after I kill the king when we danced last night. He knew this was coming, within hours.
The Whisperers are making their move. Launching this war in an attack just as the last test of the Assay ends—while they think the High King is dead.
I can’t let them down.
Another bolt of lightning sizzles in a dizzying fork from above, smashing the tallest turret and sending blocks hurtling down into the nearest column of gardai—nearly striking the figure at their helm, wielding a broadsword in soaking, dark velvet.
“Cash!” I scream his name, forcing myself up on shaking knees.
Saraid grabs at my arm, yanking me back down. “What the fuck?”
I wrench her fingers off where they dig into my elbow. “We need him!”
He’s the only person other than the High Queen that the gardai would surely let in to see his father, with an attack underway. I need him to help me and Talon get into that room.
Her cat eyes narrow, and rain rips down her cheeks.
“You’re working with Wolf.” I drop my voice as much as I can beneath the roar of the battle.
“You know what I’m here to do. And I’m telling you—I can do it, right now.
But Cash is the only one who can get me to his father.
” Her eyes flash, but the words spill out of me.
“He wants to help us. He’s the one who planted the magic on Eavan. ”
She tilts her head, a predatory look in her hard stare. “That’s what’s turned the nobles against the High Queen.”
“Yes.” Pride presses up against my ribs. “It is.”
Saraid looks me up and down, but I can see the resolve in her eyes. She turns her back to me, face slick with rain, eyes surveying the chaos. I can’t follow whatever she’s searching for, but she finds it, waving her axe high.
A figure runs toward us, wearing the black and crimson of the gardai, and I recognize the shaved copper hair, even in the downpour. Relief floods over me.
The freckles across Talon’s cheeks tug into a grin that feels completely at odds with the danger swooping and diving and shrieking around us. “You’re not dead!”
I can’t give them any points for eloquence, but honestly? I don’t know if there’s a more Talon way to admit I’m not just someone Wolf ordered them to look after. We’re friends now.
I clap a hand on their shoulder, throat tightening. “Want to help me keep it that way?”
“Fuck yeah.” Talon dodges a blast of rock exploding from the wall fifty feet behind us.
They glare up at the track of a menacing black caoranach and the figure—the mage?
—in a navy cloak on its back. That cloak’s the same color as the one Fang wears, and as I scan the skies, I realize every one of the wraithlike figures on the caoranachs wears the same navy robes as the Whisperers’ mage, except for one figure in green-black armor, flashing with every bolt of lightning.
Saraid looks between the two of us as if we’ve suddenly sprouted serpent tails ourselves and groans.
“Okay, this is lovely and heartwarming and all that shit, but can you two stop having a moment? We’re kind of in the middle of a battle here.
” Her eyes flash to Cash, yelling at the gardai flanking him.
She drops her voice, glancing up at Talon.
“You know what she’s here to do. She says he can help. You trust her?”
Talon doesn’t hesitate. “I do.”
“Then get her there in one piece. And you better be right.” She glares at me. “Or by the Martyr, I don’t care what Wolf wants. I’ll kill you myself if you fuck this up for us.”
Saraid reaches her free arm behind her shoulders and draws out a long, needlelike blade. Old Ones, it must’ve been sheathed right down the length of her spine. “Use this—it’ll take them longer to figure out how he died than if you use a sword or a knife. Now go!”
I seize the narrow blade and run.
The skies above boom, a blinding flash breaking across the clouds. The gardai around Cash fly back into the castle walls, but he manages to remain standing. I scream his name, the sound raw in my throat, across the thirty or so feet between us.
His eyes match the blackened storm all around us, darker than I’ve ever seen them. They lock on mine, and the cold armor masking his expression melts away. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“None of us should be!” I shout back over the chaos. Pain rips through my skull at the raw crack of scales on stone and claws tearing into metal. “I need to know—you said you want to help us.”
Cash’s eyes fly to Talon, widening. “Maeve—”
I reach out for him, gripping his arm. “This is it. Right now. I think you know that. So did you mean it? Are you really ready for this?”
His navy eyes burn like ice on bare skin, eager hunger flaring there.
You rebels want my father dead, right? That’s what he said to Wolf in his chamber. Good. So do I.
Cash’s shoulders tense as a stream of rain streaks down the planes of his face. “I’m in.”
“Good,” I say, and pray I’m not making a terrible mistake. “Because I’m about to kill your father.”
Steel hisses—the sound cuts through the screams and crashes all around us. Cash draws his broadsword between us, and my heart leaps into my throat.
Talon doesn’t step in front of me, but one hand snakes around my shoulders, gripping tight and ready to yank me back, sword drawn.
The two of them freeze, eyes locked on the other.
And for a single, terrifying flash, I fear the world is about to fall out from under me.
But Cash’s eyes fly to mine, lighting with something colder—harder—just as thunder splits the sky right overhead.
“Come on,” he shouts for me, slashing his sword above us as a long, black claw swoops down and eviscerates a guard mere feet away. “You won’t make it into his rooms without me.”