Page 84 of The Shadow Heir

He took the horn directly in the back.

It hooked him and Tomas was lifted into the air. Samuel’s body lopped off to the side, where he used his uninjured arm to scoot his body toward the cliff edge, where Ivy lay.

I watched in horror as the bull hurled Tomas farther than I’d known was possible. There was so much blood.

Tomas’s white outfit darkened, and he didn’t get up. I took one step, then pressed both hands to my mouth as silent screams poured out. As long as the bull was on the loose, I couldn’t move. Eudoria stood several paces away, slightly bent but unmoving.

A bull wasn’t going to charge something that it didn’t consider a threat, and my friends, no more than small white heaps lying at the cliff’s edge, weren’t registering as a threat to this massive animal. It must be torture for Ivy to remain so close to the edge, but she’d been smart to go there, where the animal’s instincts would tell it not to go.

The bull’s hooves clacked as it spun, searching for the next target. Some of the fae cheered, while others booed. Ivy was right, then. There were fae in this court who didn’t want us to die tonight. Despite their protests, they weren’t intervening, which meant they weren’t as brave as I’d hoped. Cas and Alba were still nowhere in sight. My chest curled forward as sadness and fear warred against my determination to stand completely still.

Something hard hit me on the shoulder, and I spun away in pain. An apple rolled to the stones beside me and in the stands, Erik crossed his arms in a satisfied way.

The bull noticed my movement.

I didn’t have time to think. The animal charged toward me so fast that I could take one, maybe two more steps before he was going to maul me. He was so much bigger now that he was running right at me.

Almost on instinct, I stepped back, lifting my arms up and pressing my chest and stomach backward, the way I’d seen matadors arch their bodies. The bull charged through the spacethat my chest had vacated. The edges of his horns tore through the ruffles in my still moving dress. For a second, I couldn’t breathe, startled that I had survived the first pass. People in the stands clapped. Others shouted their disapproval.

I had one aim, and that was to get myself and Eudoria to the cliff edge. I too, could wait out the night beside Ivy, but the windblown ruffles of my white dress, looked too much like the flags the matadors used to draw the bull’s attention.

“Get to the edge,” I called to Eudoria as I raced toward her. Though we were only a dozen paces apart, there was too much distance between us. The bull would gore me long before I reached her.

Sparks flew as the animal’s hooves hit the rocks. The ring in his nose glistened in the moonlight as he charged toward me once again. In the two seconds I had to contemplate how I would avoid him this time, I recalled the way the bullfighters spun away from the bull at the last possible second. But I hadn’t trained for this. The complex movement involved arching sideways at the same time you spun. I was a dancer, but I’d never danced with a bull before. Still, I had no choice. He was coming toward me, and I was either going to move or die.

I tried the move again. This time I shoved my hips to the side and tried to spin into the movement, but the bull’s horn clipped my stomach and ripped through me, yanking me into a wild spin. I smacked the stone so hard that everything around me went black.

Extreme pain and intense cold were my first sensations when my eyes pried open. My face was pressed against smooth rock, and a frozen wind blasted against my back. I was near the cliff’s edge. The stands were still full of fae—screaming, hollering, stomping, laughing. As thunderous hooves clacked against stone, I rotatedmy face, unable to move my body. Warmth pooled under my stomach, where the pain was sharpest.

Hands started petting the side of my neck and face. “Zara. Zara.” It was Ivy’s voice. I lifted my head and looked at her. She was still lying on the ground, her arms extended toward me. She must have dragged my body over here to get it out of the bull’s trajectory.

My hand moved to my stomach, and I winced. Blood coated my fingers.

“It’ll be all right,” Ivy was saying. “There’s a lot of blood, but it’s not as bad as it looks. It’s not even deep.” Whether or not the cut was deep, it still burned like a branding iron was lying against my skin.

Our white outfits must have caught the bull’s attention. He was angry now, and there were no targets left. Eudoria had flattened herself to the stone right where she’d stood—a smart move, considering she couldn’t walk quickly, much less spin away from a charging bull. The bull spotted Ivy and me, and he charged, despite our closeness to the cliff’s edge. Perhaps he’d been enchanted to come for us or was so mad he no longer cared.

“At the last minute, we roll out of the way,” I shouted to Ivy over the hooves. “Ready?” Ivy nodded and tucked her arms against her sides.

It was a stupid idea, dangerous and desperate. But we didn’t have time to try anything else.

As the bull charged, another sound rose over the clack of his hooves. Drumbeats in the night sky.

Ivy screamed, and I started to roll early, fear and survival instincts banishing reason and logic. I grunted in pain as the wound on my stomach stretched with my movement. The hoofbeats suddenly stopped, and a strong blast of cold air pushed all my hair from my face. I gaped at the sight.

An enormous dragon—the same pale dragon who’d torched me—gripped the bull in her talons and pumped her wings hard to gain height with her heavy load. Every sound on the platform and in the stands was silenced as the dragon flew off into the night.

Ivy pulled me away from the cliff edge and helped me stand. I was lightheaded, and my limbs were going numb. But as we turned to face the fae, I realized that while we might have survived the trial, they were not happy. Several fae leaped from the stands and raced toward us, eyes full of rage.

Others hurried back to the pathways leading into the mountain, while a small number of fae drew swords and attempted to hold back their fellow courtiers from attacking us. Tomas lay unmoving on the cold terrace.

Heaving from the gash in my stomach and the fear clawing at my mind, I clutched Ivy’s arm as we hurried to the path that would take us back inside. “Tell me more about this First and Last. Does your god listen to prayers?”

I listened intently as Ivy recited what was clearly a memorized mantra of sorts that described her god. My knees buckled beneath me at her beautiful words, despite the impossible hope in them. As the fae rushed toward us, I fisted my hands and prepared to defend myself and my friend to the end, however quickly that end might come.

A dark shape shot down from the clouds above, wings spread wide.

Cas landed in a crouch on the terrace before us, cracking the stone beneath him. His wings dissipated in the night as he shifted from shadow to flesh. When he stood, authority radiated off of Cas like I’d not seen before. His eyes burned blue and the air around him shimmered with writhing shadows. The skin on his arms was black, and the darkness crept up his neck.

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