Chapter 19
M yth felt hands on her shoulders, and she was roughly yanked backwards. She tried to yell a warning, but someone was already pushing the doors shut. Arvel, his daggers out, barely slipped through before a man slammed the doors into place.
The crown prince chopped the side of his hand into the man’s throat, toppling him, then tried to open a door. Two more men were on him in an instant, lunging at him with short swords as a third man slipped a timber of wood through the door handles, barring it shut.
The doors shook—presumably as Thad and his Honor Guards rammed into them.
Arvel tried to kick the timber out of place, but his assailants were keeping him too busy.
Myth struggled, fighting against the man dragging her deeper into the hall. It wasn’t until she thought to elbow him in the throat that she got a chance to scream. “Arvel!”
With a curse, Arvel gave up on the doors, evaded the two swordsmen, and chased after her.
Myth shook off her gurgling captor and fled, meeting Arvel at the halfway point.
She could hear the piercing whistles of the Honor Guard—Thad was calling for help—as she set her back to Arvel’s.
The man she had elbowed was still recovering, but at least two dozen men emerged from the shadows of the hall.
“Arvel,” Myth whispered as a chill climbed up her back. “What do we do?”
“We try to hold out until help comes.” Arvel offered Myth a dagger, but he didn’t take his eyes off the men, who started circling them.
Myth glanced from the brigands to the balcony of the second floor, and was relieved to see no one lurked there.
He’s right. We can survive this. Myth wasn’t actually certain if it was true, but she was going to make it be so.
Something big slammed into the Celebration Hall doors, and the entire doorway buckled.
The men closest to the entrance jumped and gazed at it as the doors rattled with impact, their panels creaking ominously.
“Don’t just stand there—reinforce it!”
The swordsmen Arvel had evaded rushed to reinforce the door, pushing heavy furniture in front of it.
It was then that Myth spotted a man standing with his back to the windows of the Celebration Hall, his features cast in shadows.
Arvel’s expression was unreadable, but his voice was hard when he spoke. “Haven’t you had enough punishment yet?”
Lord Julyan laughed as he took his time approaching them, stopping at the ring his men created around them. “I’m hurt, Arvel. You won’t even call me uncle anymore?” He fixed his grip on the hilt of his bared sword, which seemed to glow in the dull afternoon light, and smiled brightly.
Arvel narrowed his eyes. “Not when you’re contemplating my murder.”
“Ahh, yes. Well, you have forced my hand. But it doesn’t have to end in blood, as long as you revoke the punishment you’ve inflicted on our family.”
Myth gripped the borrowed dagger and watched the men slowly closing ranks around her and Arvel.
Like the assailants in the gardens, they were masked—except for Lord Julyan—and they were armed with short swords, although a third of them had spears.
Spears, a weapon made so the fighter can keep their distance. They planned for Arvel’s skill with the dagger.
“The Fultons deserved the sentence. If I had my way, I’d strip you of your title,” Arvel bluntly said.
Lord Julyan shrugged. “I don’t deny we deserve it, but I still take offense to it. You’ve cut off our only livelihood.”
“You’re still free to trade locally.”
“Locally? There’s no money in that,” Lord Julyan sneered. “And it’s a pitiful market—nothing can come of it. There’s no way to use it.”
“And that’s the crux, is it?” Arvel tilted his head, listening as the doors bulged from the Honor Guards’ onslaught. “You want power, but you’ve proven yourself unworthy. I’m determined that you won’t have it.”
“You can be as determined as you like,” Lord Julyan said. “But you’ll also be dead.”
Arvel raised an eyebrow. “At least I’d take you and the festering family down with me.”
Myth wanted to elbow Arvel for the gruesome thought, but she didn’t want to risk distracting him, and the air was so tense she wasn’t sure she could have moved if she wanted to.
“True,” Lord Julyan blithely agreed. “And she’ll fall with you.” He raised his sword, using it to point at Myth.
Ah. He is using the High Elf sword that was on display in his house, Myth noticed with a fuzzy sort of detachment as she studied the sword pointed at her.
The wing-like adornments forged around the hilt were very distinctive, and though she wasn’t close enough to read the inscription on the blade, she recognized the Elvish script and the symbols High Elves used in their magic.
Arvel stiffened. When he moved closer to her, briefly brushing against her, she could feel the tensed bunch of his muscles. “She’s a translator and an elf,” he said. “She’s innocent in this.”
Lord Julyan smirked. “Hardly. I know it was she who fetched my private ledgers.”
He peered in her direction, seeming to expect a reply.
Thankfully, while Myth’s knees were starting to shake, she was able to speak with a shocking amount of calmness. “You were the one foolish enough to leave records of your illegal activities out in the open.”
Lord Julyan peeled his lips back in an angry sneer.
“She has a point,” Arvel added.
“You…” Lord Julyan growled.
He was interrupted when one of the men reinforcing the door yelped in surprise as a battle ax bit through the wood.
Thad and his men had managed to crack the door with whatever they were using as a battering ram. Now they were making short work of the door, ripping it apart with a surprising amount of speed.
“We can’t hold them back—” The man standing closest to the door cut off with a squeak when an Honor Guard reached through, grabbed him by the neck, and then rammed his head into the door.
The brigand went slack and toppled to the floor as Thad and his men opened up a hole wide enough to crawl through.
Arvel relaxed minutely, and it occurred to Myth that his gruesome taunt had been all for the sake of stalling.
It must have dawned on Lord Julyan, too. He cursed and gestured again with his sword, swinging the massive weapon around with a surprising amount of ease. “Get the prince—subdue him!”
His shouts were barely audible over Thad, who hadn’t stopped blowing his Honor Guard whistle.
Lord Julyan’s henchmen surged forward, swords and spears extended.
Arvel threw his daggers, striking the men in vital spots so they fell with shouts and gurgles of pain.
Myth, using her borrowed dagger, swung out at any of the attackers that tried to make a grab for her, and she and Arvel continuously circled as Arvel tried to protect her.
It was impressive how fast Arvel was able to strike, moving at a blurred speed.
In the span of a breath he threw one dagger—taking down a brigand—then struck out at an enemy that was lunging for Myth, stabbing him in the side before kicking him in the face and sending him to the ground with a crack.
However, all too soon, he ran out of his daggers. When one of the henchmen with a spear jabbed at him, he was forced to evade.
Myth’s heart pounded in her throat as she watched Arvel, scared beyond words for his life.
Arvel, casually dodging, seemed not to share her fear. “Try to hold on. She’s coming!”
She ? Myth wondered.
At that moment, the hairs on the back of Myth’s neck stood on end, and the air seemed almost electric .
Somewhere outside a large cat screamed, its roar so fierce it made even Lord Julyan look back at the windows.
The doors on the far side of the room glowed white hot before disappearing in a pulse of magic, so obliterated that not even a sliver remained.
Princess Gwendafyn stepped through the gaping hole, looking vastly different from usual.
Magic glowed at her feet, and she held a sword that was wrapped with lightning. The sword shed electric sparks and hissed and popped as she adjusted her grip on its hilt and smiled.
The brigands closest to her fled, but Princess Gwendafyn was on them in an instant, laying waste to them as her sword sang.
Behind her trailed her grizzled companion. Today he was wearing chainmail and a tunic—which again was emblazoned with Gwendafyn and Benjimir’s emblem.
The man caught sight of Arvel and chucked a brown canvas roll.
Arvel caught it and snapped his wrist, unrolling it with a flourish. Inside the canvas roll was a complete set of throwing daggers, neatly organized.
Arvel yanked several blades free and chucked them, downing an enemy with every dagger he tossed.
Myth stuck to ducking and evading whenever one of the attackers tried to make a grab for her.
One actually managed to grab her wrist. Myth—remembering the way Arvel had cut at their attacker’s arm during the Fultons’ first attempt—twisted her wrist in his grip so she could skewer her borrowed dagger and slice up the side of his arm.
Another brigand jumped at her, and then a shadow passed across the windows of the Celebration Hall.
A pane of glass shattered, and—blessedly—the brigand swung around to face the window.
Myth smiled when she saw Lady Tari standing on the windowsill with Sius, his tail twitching back and forth. Blades made of light ran down the elven lady’s arms, following the curves of her muscle.
“Sius,” Lady Tari purred. “Go have some fun .”
The snow cat leapt off the windowsill, the claws of his massive paws extended.
“Stand your ground,” Lord Julyan yelled as his men fled the feline.
Thad, having dismantled the door with a war ax, pushed aside the settee that the rogues had been using to bar the doorway. “Rally to the crown prince!”
Honor Guards shouted war cries as they moved in, marching in a square formation as they fought their way to Arvel and Myth.
We just might make it out of this.
Arvel was a whirlwind of movement, cutting, slicing, and jabbing with his daggers.