Destined

that hilt, you’ll be fine.”

David nodded, and Laurel recognised his stony expression. It was the look he’d had when he pulled her from the Chetco River; when he carried her across the ocean to the lighthouse to rescue Chelsea; when he insisted on returning to guard Yuki last night.

This was the David who could conquer anything.

He plunged the tip of the sword into the earth and wiped his hands on his jeans. Chelsea bounced anxiously from foot to foot beside Laurel until Laurel wanted to grab her arm to make her stand still. After a deep breath, David cracked his knuckles — how often had Laurel watched him do that? — and reached for Excalibur again.

“Screw it,” Chelsea muttered under her breath. “I am not going to die today without doing this. Wait!” she called out before David could touch the sword.

He scarcely had time to turn around before Chelsea grabbed his face and pulled him down, pressing her lips firmly to his. Laurel saw the moment more like a snapshot than an actual event. Chelsea. Kissing David. Not a moment of romance and seduction — rather of desperation and bravado. Still, Chelsea was kissing Laurel’s boyfriend.

He’s not my boyfriend, Laurel told herself. She looked down and forced back her weird jealousy. When she looked up again, the moment had passed.

Chelsea spun away from David, avoiding everyone’s eyes — especially Laurel’s — her face burning red.

David gaped open-mouthed for a moment before he composed himself and grabbed Excalibur, shouldering it, and turned to trail after Tamani.

He, too, avoided Laurel’s eyes.

The dust was already clearing when they arrived at the breach, and all the trolls in sight were heavily armed. Laurel had expected Klea’s soldiers to be carrying guns, but guns was far too simple a word for these weapons. They were semiautomatics, assault rifles, machine guns, the kind Laurel had only seen in movies. Sentries had pinned some of the trolls down in the gap as they tried to escape — arrow-riddled bodies outside the wall lay crumpled in testament to the archers” vigilance — but the remaining trolls were waiting for the faeries to give up their cover, to step away from the safety of the stone walls and bring the fight to them.

David scarcely hesitated before doing exactly what the trolls obviously wanted; he raised Excalibur and strode right through the hole in the wall. The first gun-toting troll spotted him and opened fire as Tamani pulled Chelsea and Laurel down behind a smooth-barked aspen, but not before Laurel saw David reflexively duck his head and raise an arm to shield himself from the assault. A second troll’s gun joined the first, staccato bursts like a string of firecrackers assaulting Laurel’s ears even louder than the shriek that escaped her throat.

She forced herself to peek around the tree at David, who was, she saw with relief, still standing. He studied his limbs and touched his face before holding Excalibur out in front of him and taking it in from point to hilt. Then he reached down and picked something up off the ground.

It took Laurel a moment to realise that the vaguely oblong metal bead in David’s hand was a bullet. He stood there, deaf to the fray, staring at that misshapen bit of metal, awe blossoming over his face.

“Yes, the sword works!” Tamani shouted over the gunfire, flinching back as a bullet notched the tree near his face. “Now can you please kill some trolls?”

Shaking his head as if to clear his thoughts, David turned and charged his assailants. Several of them grinned menacingly; David looked like a child with a stick getting ready to try to beat up an oncoming freight train.

But when he clumsily swung his enchanted blade it cleaved the closest troll in two.

Laurel wasn’t sure exactly what she had been expecting, but she most certainly had not been expecting the troll to fall to the ground in two cleanly severed pieces.

It didn’t seem to be quite what David expected either. He stopped and stared at the bleeding corpse at his feet. The other trolls howled and attacked, their fists, knives, and clubs failing to so much as jostle David. With a jerky motion that looked more reflexive than purposeful, David brought the sword up again, and another troll fell to the ground in bloodied pieces.

“Snicker-snack,” Chelsea whispered, awestruck.

With the corpses of two trolls at his feet, David was again stunned into inaction. Laurel could see his chest heaving as he stared at the carnage.

“David!” Tamani’s voice was sharp, but Laurel thought she detected concern, as well. The remaining trolls had recovered from their shock and raised their weapons again.

Snapping to attention, David’s eyebrows furrowed. He lunged forward, slicing one troll’s enormous gun in two, separating another from its weapon by taking off its hands. His swings grew ferocious, indiscriminately cleaving metal and flesh alike with all the effort it might take to carve gelatin with a steak knife.

As David made a gap in the onslaught, Tamani stepped out of the protective cover of the trees. “Get some sentries into this breach!” he shouted. “Anyone without a weapon, I want you stacking rocks!”

The sentries were successfully cutting down many of the trolls that came pouring through the gateway, but many wasn’t enough; the sentries were losing ground. Fighting had broken out in a dozen places throughout the Garden, and the archers on the walls were rushing to and fro in an effort to keep the trolls contained without wounding the sentries on the ground.

“There’s too many,” David called, shaking his head. “I won’t be able to get to all of them before they break down more of the wall.”

“Then let’s at least stem the tide,” Tamani said. “If you can keep any more from making it through the gateway, maybe—”

But his words were cut off as a group of six or seven trolls emerged from the trees, making a run for the breach. Before anyone on the wall could react, however, thick roots erupted from the ground, spraying black earth into the air. They waved menacingly, and for a moment Laurel was afraid Yuki had arrived to finish them all off, but then the roots swept backwards, throwing the trolls against the trees, where their howls of anger turned to cries of pain.

“I agree,” Jamison said, approaching from the direction of the Garden entrance. Somewhere along the way he’d rejoined his Am Fear-faire, who were ready to fight beside him. “If David can defend the gate itself, I believe the sentries can clear the Garden.”

Laurel didn’t understand how Jamison could retain such an optimistic calm in the midst of such chaos, but the sentries close enough to hear Jamison’s pronouncement were visibly encouraged by his words and Laurel realised it was deliberate.

“Most of these sentries have never seen a troll, much less killed one,” Jamison whispered to Tamani and David, confirming Laurel’s conclusion. “Tamani, your experience will be invaluable here. If you’ll allow me to look after your charge, I promise I’ll return her to you safely. I’d appreciate you joining David at the gates.”

Tamani nodded, though his jaw was clenched; Laurel knew he didn’t like leaving her, but he wasn’t about to argue with Jamison. David also said nothing — though he did spare a glance back at both Laurel and Chelsea before following Tamani into the trees.

“Stay close,” Jamison said without looking at them, his attention wholly focused on the battle.

With a nod, two of the Am Fear-faire shifted to include Laurel and Chelsea in their circle of protection.

Jamison set off down the interior perimeter of the Gate Garden as though he were on an evening stroll. When they encountered two black-clad trolls tearing chunks out of the stone wall, Jamison bent, stretching his arms forward. Mimicking his pose, two enormous oak trees also leaned forward, their mighty branches creaking and groaning as they wrapped around the trolls and then straightened, flinging the beasts up to such a height that Laurel knew they would never survive the fall.

Before Laurel could dwell too long on what it would feel like to be thrown to her death by an oak tree, they met a small group of sentries fighting desperately against several trolls that had armed themselves with massive tree branches, which they were wielding like giant clubs. Laurel guessed they were about to have their wooden weapons turned against them; but instead, when one of the trolls turned to charge Jamison, it sank into the ground, clawing madly at the dirt that closed over its head.

One by one, the rest of the trolls disappeared as if they’d stepped into quicksand. When the last one turned to flee, Laurel caught sight of the roots Jamison was calling up from the ground to drag the trolls under, burying them alive in Avalon’s fertile soil.

Laurel tried to keep an eye on the guys as Jamison circled the Garden, assisting the sentries. David was