YOUR HIGHNESS,” ROLF CLIPS, “I RECOMMEND we attempt to move you to the back quarters until we can clear an escape route.”
The battering ram thunders against the door again, making the wood squeal just as a man’s sharp whistle erupts from behind us, beyond the door I came through. The captain of the guard solicits the king’s nod before releasing the handle, and another Faelen knight comes tumbling inside. The sounds of shouting and sword fighting ricochet around the room, dimming as soon as the wood’s slammed shut and the plank dropped in place.
“How many are there?” demands King Sedric.
“At the moment, forty to our twelve.” The newcomer sweeps an eye over me. “Thirteen if you count the girl.”
“Count the girl.” Eogan pulls two knives from his boot and glances at Rolf. “How fast are your men at climbing?”
“We have to help Colin and Breck,” I say.
The captain ignores me. “Fast enough, but the cliff is blocked.”
“It won’t be for long. I’d advise you to pick your two best guards to send with King Sedric and Princess Rasha up the ridge,” Eogan says. He looks back at me, his gaze gentle. “Are your horses up there?”
“They are. But what about Colin and Breck?”
“We’ll help them as soon as we’re able, Nym. Right now we’ve got to protect the king.”
He tips his head to King Sedric. “Your Majesty, I’ve no time to make apologies nor assurances other than to say I am not my brother, nor do I condone his actions. But I suggest you prepare to scale the mount—”
“I’ll not scuttle from a fight,” the king interrupts. “Especially one for my kingdom.”
“Your Highness, I respect your courage, but if you fall, so does Faelen. As long as you’re alive, your people have hope.”
King Sedric looks to argue further but instead turns to Rolf, who dips his head in agreement. The king pauses, followed by a firming of his jaw, and he turns me a look that seems to convey his agreement to our earlier conversation. “Fine. Let it be done.”
“When you reach the ridge,” Eogan says, “Princess Rasha will know how to find our warhorses. Take them and ride.”
The princess nods as the clamoring outside grows louder. She draws a knife from beneath her cloak, as if ready to take on the entire Bron force herself, and steps near the king.
She flutters a smile my way.
I swallow and nod, and try to ignore the sudden fear lurching up my spine.
“Aen, Frederick, you’re with the king and princess.” Rolf beckons two of the knights. “The rest of you come with me. We’ll hold them back until you’re safe, m’lord.”
He strides to the door, then peers back to ensure we’re all with him. The pounding outside is deafening.
I pull a knife from my boot and catch Eogan’s attention long enough to wish I hadn’t. Because what I see there looks very much like an emotion I don’t want to feel.
He tips his head at me and then stoops as the captain wrenches the door open.
As if on cue, the battering ram thrusts into the room along with four Bron soldiers. Eogan puts a knife through two of their throats before either gets beyond the first step. The other two are dispatched by Rolf’s men as three more appear with swords drawn. The captain and Eogan take them down.
Abruptly, the entire courtyard breaks into chaos.
“They’re over here!”
“It’s the king’s men!”
“King Sedric is over here!”
Clattering footsteps reverberate off the stones as excited voices ring out and the clang of steel shifts our direction.
In one morphing unit, our group scrambles over the battering log and dead bodies, surging out into the cold just as the evening sunset flares and flecks my vision with white and black spots. Half blind, I launch through the door only to feel a metallic edge swipe at me. I lash my blade out, but Eogan’s broadsword has already felled the man by the time I can see again. I jab my dagger toward another, but this time Rolf is there first. A helmet cracks above a chain-metal chest, and a spurt of red blossoms out on the fortress’s stones.
Oh litches, I don’t know how to do this.
I don’t know how to fight this way.
I glance around.
I don’t want to fight at all.
Ducking back, I suck in a frozen, salty-aired breath and shove the blade in my boot. Come on, Nym. Get your bearings or you’re going to get yourself killed. I gag as a spray of hot blood sweeps over me from a living, breathing, dying person.
I think I’m going to be sick.
Then I notice the hundreds of giant airships hastening past us through the gorge. Carrying those bombs in their undercarriages . . .
Just focus on those.
A sharp wind whips up and draws in more clouds.
I step out and lift my hand.
A crackle of air thrusts back the larvaelike balloon of a ship just as something whizzes near my shoulder, barely missing me. What the—? I turn but can’t even see the man’s face through his helmet. I just feel the madness rolling off him. I swing my palm over and touch his body with a shock of heat that crumbles him like straw.
But there’s another man behind him. Then another. I stoop. My leg screams. I scream and begin crawling along the soldiers’ feet, using my deformed fingers to tap their boots.
And all the while I’m shuddering and hearing myself yell that I’m sorry and I’m begging for them to stop.
But they don’t.
They just keep coming.
When I can’t take the horror anymore or the bodies toppling over me from the fighting going on above, I scramble back behind the defensive line of Rolf’s knights and work my way into a clearing. And stand.
The storm clouds there are churning and condensing, casting the entire valley in deeper shadow. Reacting to me. Waiting for me. I pull them closer and, grabbing one quick lightning stream, rip it along the outer edge of the Bron horde, cracking the air and sending the whole courtyard into smoke and confusion.
An echo of my thunder bounces off the valley walls, followed by a breaking, then a roaring, and somewhere along the mountain range, an avalanche of ice splits free. An eruption of metal and exploding gas says it slid into an airship.
“Archers!” an authoritative voice yells. “Take her down!”
Thump, thump, thump. Two of our knights in front of me drop dead before I realize the arrows are even in the air. I hit the ground and watch the rest rain around the stones and bodies.
“Move back!” Rolf calls to his men.
“Nym!”
Eogan’s running at me and pointing. I follow his hand to where the archers are and my next lightning thread takes one out. The other men dodge before turning to send up another volley.
Abruptly I’m thrown against the turret wall, and Eogan is holding me there, covering me as I hear the arrows land and another Faelen knight cry out. When I glance up, Eogan’s already stepping away as he nods to me.
I twitch my hand and the dimming courtyard ignites with a flash and the atmosphere roars.
Except, when it clears, the archers have moved and I’ve missed my mark.
Eogan nearly knocks the wind from me as he crushes me to the wall again. The arrows launch a third time but I’m suddenly having a hard time focusing on them. I’m too busy asking myself what kind of sick person notices a man’s breath on her neck or his mouth grazing her forehead when she’s scared speechless and men are dying all around and he’s a liar who killed her parents.
A sick person like me apparently.
The rain of arrows overreaches and thuds against the cliff, all except for one, which skewers a Faelen knight through the throat. I utter a cry but Eogan’s hand is on my pulse, evoking an immediate sense of ease as his less-attractive twin appears, walking toward us from amid the Bron knights.
King Odion raises his sword and the fighting around him halts.
Eogan disengages from me, murmuring, “Finish them.” And moves toward his brother.
I crumple my fist then flick my wrist, and the archers on the low wall erupt in gargled yells as a broad hail of ice knocks them off their perches—bringing a distracted expression to Odion’s face and, I know, a grimness to mine.
When the two men reach each other, Eogan yanks off his cloak, and a collective gasp rises from the paused soldiers.