Chapter Thirty #3
“I’m going to kill you!” Arwen bellows at her half-sister, fighting against Soren’s arms with nearly as much violence as the Earth Remnant had displayed. Harpina hovers close by her flight leader’s side, her sleek silver bow twanging again and again as she covers them with unshakable focus.
“Go,” I repeat firmly.
He finally complies, lifting Arwen into his arms and sprinting up the steps, Harpina shadowing. Arwen bellows the whole way, her screams not fading until they are on the ramparts, out of sight.
I keep myself planted between the stairs and the remaining cluster of soldiers as they scurry into a fresh formation, surrounding Melité on all sides.
Relief crashes through me as I spot Cadogan, Jac, Farley, Mabon, and Penn barreling down the opposite staircase, only to pull up short on the stone landing when they spot the shocking scene below.
“Right on time,” Melité hums. As her voice lifts to call out, her siren song spins through the air like smoke. “Cadogan, my love. Come to me.”
His handsome face contorts into a lovestruck mask as she pulls him into her thrall. I cry out to stop him, my voice carrying across the courtyard. Penn reaches for him. So does Mabon.
But it is too late.
Too late.
All we can do is watch in horror as he complies with her orders—taking a step out into empty air, plummeting from the landing onto the courtyard. His body hits the flagstones with a sickening crunch.
He does not get up.
Fresh grief explodes through my body. My scream is swallowed up by the collective roars of the Ember Guild.
Everyone erupts into motion at once—Farley firing arrow after arrow, straight for Melité’s heart; Jac reaching for his battle-axe as he pounds down the steps; Mabon’s heavy crossbow twanging as he fires indiscriminately at the clustered guards.
Penn reaches the ground first, his face a mask of wrath.
The blade in his hand blazes red, though its color is more muted than usual.
Thankfully, he does not require maegic to fight like a daemon.
He cuts a path through the soldiers, cleaving bodies in two, driving his sword home again and again and again until the flagstones are awash in rivers of clotted black blood.
I cross the courtyard in a single bound, vaulting through the air to Cadogan’s crumpled form. My tears fall in a torrent onto his bloodied face as I gently roll him onto his back.
Please, gods, please do not be dead.
His handsome features are fractured irreparably—straight nose gnashed, full lips torn, expressive eyes swollen shut. He breathes, but barely. His chest rises and falls in halting shudders that tell me his ribs are likely broken. His legs are both bent at unnatural angles, as is one arm.
“Cadogan,” I whisper.
“Is he alive?” Jac is suddenly there, crouching at my side. He reaches out as if to touch his friend, but pulls back before making contact. “Ace, is he alive?”
“He’s alive.”
There is a short silence. “Will he stay alive?”
Our eyes meet. His, like mine, are glossed with tears.
“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully, hating the tremor in my voice.
“But if he’s to stand any sort of chance, you need to get him out of here.
Get him back to the ship.” My gaze swings around until it lands on Mabon, who is still firing bolts at the guards.
“Mabon! Get over here and help Jac carry him up the stairs.”
He rushes toward us instantly.
“Farley!” I yell up to him on the landing, where he is still shooting off arrows. “Go with them! They need cover.”
He nods, never taking his eyes off the courtyard as he nocks back another arrow and sends it sailing straight through the heart of a mottled guard.
I bend forward and brush my lips against Cadogan’s forehead before Jac and Mabon hoist him into their arms. Farley shadows their progress toward the stairs, his arrows finding marks without reprieve.
I do not even have the luxury of watching the four of them go, for Penn is still battling in the thick of it, his red-hot blade whirling so fast I can hardly keep it in my sights as he hacks a path straight toward the half-siren.
She is, I notice, no longer laughing or taunting.
She actually looks a bit nervous as their ranks drop below twenty for the first time.
Penn continues to cut them down, his blade vicious as it clashes and parries, the tangs of swordplay rebounding against the stone walls.
I join him, battling at his back whenever he charges forward to engage new enemies, my wind currents knocking inbound arrows and bolts off course before they can graze him.
My whip cracks out again and again, lightning to accompany the thunder of his strikes, turning the mottled soldiers to steaming skeletons.
We’ve culled the group to about a dozen guards when I feel Soren’s mind brush mine from somewhere far in the distance.
“Rhya,” he calls, his voice barely audible. “Tell me you are on that second dinghy.”
“I’m on that dinghy,” I lie, blasting an incoming volley of arrows off course with a pulse of air.
“Gods damn it, skylark, what are you thinking?”
“Cadogan was wounded.” I allow the horrific visions of his fall to furl down the bond. “They could not afford to wait any longer.”
“We’re bringing the first dinghy back for you and Penn.”
“Thanks. I don’t much fancy swimming.”
He does not seem amused. “You need to get the hell out of there.”
“I’m not sticking around for the ambiance, trust me.”
“Get up to the ramparts. Wait for us there.” His worry is palpable. “There are ships on the horizon, closing in.”
Skies.
Efnysien is close.
“Penn!” I yell. “We need to get out of here!”
But Penn is caught up in the fury of battle, his fiery temper raging out of control. I have seen him like this before; seen how he loses himself beneath the surge, how he cannot pull himself back from the brink.
I grab his arm and cling, even when he tries to shake me off. It takes a toll on my remaining strength to summon an air shield that will keep us momentarily safe from enemy fire.
“Pendefyre!” I send a sharp pulse down the bond—the strongest one I can muster without hurting him. “Listen to me. Penn, please. Look at me.”
He finally manages to focus, his flaming eyes locked on mine. He blinks slowly, the haze of battle clearing. “Rhya.”
“We have to go. Now.”
“Not until I kill her. She has to pay. For Cadogan.”
“You cannot kill her if you are dead,” I snap. “There is a ship inbound with gods only know how many men aboard.”
He stills. “Efnysien.”
Perhaps I should not have told him that. He sees it as an opportunity, not a deterrent.
“You cannot take him on alone.”
His jaw clenches. “This may be our only chance.”
“It will not be.” My fury mingles with frustration. “We will kill him, and her. But not this night.” I inhale deeply, trying to calm my thudding pulse. “Your men need you. Cadogan needs you. Who will hold them together, if you are not there?”
He stares at me, uncompromising.
Three bolts bounce off my air shield and clatter to the ground.
“I do not want to lose you,” I tell him, reaching out a hand and pressing it against his heart through the fabric of his shirt. “For once, please do not argue with me. For once…let me win in our butting of heads. Can you do that? For me?”
His eyes flare with heat and then, with sheer force of will, he locks down his scorching anger.
I watch it ebb from his frame in slow degrees as he exhales, the tension leaving his stiff shoulders, the clench of his jaw relaxing slightly.
He shoots one fleeting look at Melité, who has retreated into the shadows with her remaining contingent of protection, before he nods.
“Let’s go.”
Together, we sprint for the steps on the opposite side of the courtyard.
I close my eyes as we leap over Alaric’s dead body, not wanting to see how his kind eyes stare blankly at the skies.
Several guards give chase, their pounding boots in close pursuit.
I send a blunt blast of air over my shoulder, knocking them off the steps and onto the ground.
Finesse is a distant memory. My maegic is flagging, pushed beyond the pale.
We rush along the ramparts toward the grappling hooks still embedded in the stone. Below, there is no sign of the rocky beach. No place for a dinghy to put in. Waves throttle the base of the walls with the force of a battering ram.
“Fuck,” Penn clips, his jaw tense.
My eyes fly toward the horizon. I see the shadowy silhouette of our brig with its black sails and, far closer, the much smaller shape of a dinghy moving toward us at immense speed, no doubt propelled by Soren’s maegic.
“That’s them,” I breathe.
“Should we jump for it?” Penn sounds grim. “Try to swim to them?”
I shake my head, eyeing the thrashing waves. They will break us like glass against the walls.
“I have a better idea.” I gulp nervously. “But you’ll have to trust me.”
Penn’s head turns my way. His eyes are very solemn, as is his voice. “Rhya. I would trust you with my life. I would trust you with anything.”
Our gazes hold for a long moment.
My maegic gathers in the air all around us, swelling from a gentle current to a solid stream as I wind it around his broad frame. I give him no warning as I lift him off his feet. His shout of surprise makes a laugh spill from my lips.
“Rhya! What are you—”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him, grinning. “I’m right behind you.”
With that, I sweep him higher into the air, then steer him out over the dark waves.
My grin fades as the true weight of this task swamps me.
I nearly bite through my lip in the effort not to drop him.
I have never done this before—at least, not for so long a distance. And he is solid muscle. So very heavy.
Still, I cannot let him drop.
This is Penn.
I will not let him drop.
I watch the dinghy slow to a crawl as the men aboard spot my delivery sailing through the sky toward them.
Black waves of exhaustion press in at my temples as I slowly lower his hulking form into the boat.
As I release my hold, I collapse forward against the stone railing, sucking huge gasps of air into my aching lungs.
I’m about to pass out.
“Clever.” Soren sounds slightly amused by my methods, even from afar. “Now get your ass off that island and into this boat.”
“I need a minute.”
“Rhya, you do not have a minute.”
He’s right. I can see, closing in, several foreign ships on the horizon. They are far larger than our brig and, if I had to guess, loaded with more than mere reinforcements. They surely have cannons, too, fully capable of blasting us out of the water.
“Deke is already underway, sailing north. It will take all our combined powers just to catch up.”
I push myself upright.
One last breath.
In through my nose, out through my mouth.
My mind is sluggish, my maegic drained. The poisonous ore has parched my inner reservoirs. The mark at my breast is icy with cold. I push through the fog of exhaustion as I step back from the rail.
Closing my eyes, I summon my frail wind. I don’t open them even as I lift up off the stone rampart into the sky. For I do not need to see where I’m going. I only need to follow the thread that connects me to that dinghy. To the two souls who bob there in the darkness, waiting for me.
The first bolt of iron pierces me in the right lung.
The next tears a clean path through my stomach.
The final nicks my heart.
I fall, a bird plummeting straight down from the sky, flight abruptly ended. My body hits the ramparts hard enough to expel whatever air remains in my one functional lung. My head cracks against the stone, shattering my consciousness. And I am grateful for it.
The haze lessens the pain of my impending death.
I blink up at the night sky. There are no stars here. Only an endless expanse of black. It seems fitting somehow. A match for the blackness that encroaches at the edges of my vision, sweeping me away.
I hear the familiar cackle of Melité’s laughter, ringing in my head.
I hear Soren roaring my name down the bond.
Then, the world goes dark, and I hear nothing at all.