The armor gives him the advantage. It may slow him down eventually, but my blows will only glance off the shining metal.
But if they want me alive, then they can’t hurt me too badly. It’s armor of its own.
I attack with a daring he’s clearly not expecting. Beating him back, I push him almost into the ring of flames, before he looks up with a murderous glare.
A foot hammers toward me, driving into my chest. The breath slams out of me. I hit the ground hard and roll back over my shoulder.
A net shoots through the air, fanning out over me. No time to think. I simply burn it with a thought and little cinders fall to the cobbles.
Ash floats through the air like snowflakes, tangling in my hair.
“You’re better than I expected,” Halvor tells me, straightening as he prowls in a half circle around me.
And he’s done exactly what he needed to do.
Distract me, so that his friends can surround me.
They pace outside my ring of flames, blocking off all my exits.
I can’t beat them.
My mother’s Deathguard are stolen from their mothers at birth, and a knife is put in their hands before they can even walk.
The sword is a living extension of my hand, but it’s not going to help me out of here. And I can’t look for Thiago. He’s busy.
There’s one thing left to try.
“Not good enough,” I somehow rasp.
Halvor laughs. “No. You were never good enough.”
Words I’ve heard a thousand times before, but this time they ignite something within me that’s no longer desperate and lonely and fearful.
They will not take me alive.
I will not return to my mother.
Unless it’s with a knife in hand.
Sweeping my hand wide, I send flames licking toward the warrior on my right. He leaps out the way, but a cinder catches his cloak and I slam my fist shut, igniting it with a thought.
A shape drives toward me—an armored fist hammering toward my face. It’s like being hit with a sledgehammer. I spin off guard and as my vision blurs, a gauntleted hand locks around my throat, hauling me back into an armored chest.
Halvor.
“You should have had the decency to die at the Queensmoot,” he hisses in my ear, one hand clamping on the top of my head, his other arm cutting across my windpipe until my eyes bulge. “You’re a problem to be dealt with and I’d slit your throat here and now if you weren’t the weapon that can cripple that filthy prick.”
Erlking’s cock…. I can hardly breathe.
Grabbing his armored wrist, I grit my teeth and force myself to draw my energy inward. “Burn you—” wretch.
Heat ignites through my skin.
My hair whips around us and Halvor gives a shout as I erupt into flame.
His armor is cooking him from the inside out, broiling him within. I catch a glimpse of his reddened face as he falls away, before I turn and run, leaving dripping pools of fire behind me.
Everything hurts.
Everything.
My skin is blistered and peeling, and the ends of my hair have sizzled. The flames were crafted from my magic, which means I should be mostly impervious to them, but clearly my control slipped for one crucial second.
My lungs rasp for breath, and my throat is bruised from his crushing grip.
I stagger through the old quarter in a mindless dash, and even though I’ve barely had the chance to learn this part of the city, some part of my memory must be trickling through, because my body knows the way better than I do.
“She’s down here!” A voice cries out.
Fire rages unchecked through this part of the city. Not thanks to me. Someone else perhaps. Or maybe the Deathguard on my ass aren’t the only ones who were sent.
BOOM.
Another explosion.
The sky is falling. Little white flakes drift through the air now. Burning. The world is burning. Gravel rains down. I throw my hands over my head as I dart beneath an arch, and it’s so fucking hard to breathe right now, bruised throat notwithstanding.
“Thiago?”
Where in the Underworld is he?
My heart skips a beat. This was clearly an assault designed by my mother. Even though he’s one of the most powerful males in the alliances, she’d have accounted for him.
And he should have stopped those explosions by now.
Maia’s mercy. I need to get out of here. I need to get moving.
Shoving off the wall, I take two steps just as something moves in the square ahead of me. I skid into a narrow space behind a barrel, heart hammering as I crouch there.
It’s just a wisp of a red cloak, but I know the hunters are closing in.
A shadow ripples over me, and I glance up as Halvor leaps from rooftop to rooftop above me. He pauses on the lip of the gutter, his hair a ragged, smoking mess and the left side of his face blistered.
If he looks down, he’ll see me.
I press my spine into the stone, trying to make myself as small as I can.
“Come out, come out, little rabbit,” he calls softly, his gaze scanning the courtyard. Every inch of him trembles with suppressed violence, and violent clouds of smoke whirl around him.
Fuck. What am I going to do?
It’s a sound on the edge of consciousness at first. I’m so attuned to the crunch of armored feet on gravel debris that I barely hear it at first.
A rushing, gushing sound.
Halvor stills, as if he senses it at the exact same moment I do. He turns and his eyes go wide.
“Run!” he screams to his men, before he vanishes.
What the—?
And then I realize there are no more detonations. Only an eerie silence filled with the rush of water. A lot of water.
I take his advice.
Sprinting into the courtyard, I snatch a glance to my left.
Water gushes and roars as it races through the streets. The dam. The dam’s
