Page 122 of Bloodguard

Knight starts off slowly, trying to ease us into a canter. The guards hurt him when he fought back. No one would know it now. The way he chuffs demands war upon our enemies. We trot around the house. There’s no more house to save. But there might be family, servants, and workers who survived. Who need me. I struggle to control Knight. He’s desperate to attack despite the injuries he’s sustained. A war horse, indeed.

I’m not as ready until Neela cries out in defiance. I urge Knight onto the sprawling front lawn. The guards kicking Neela are larger and stronger than she is. She’s curled inward, using her body to shield a cluster of smaller estrellas.

I leap on top of one of them. One of the guards, an elf, catches me and tosses me away as if I’m nothing.

But I am something.

His dingy smile vanishes as he smacks at the back of his neck. He falls on his ass, struggling to remove my dagger from the base of his skull.

If he were human, he’d already be dead. And because the other guard is human, all it takes is one clean slice to the throat. They thought me weak and soft as a princess, and maybe I am, but not today.

As fast as I can, I hurry to where Knight sways in place. His head is down. He’s nudging Bethina, my tiniest estrella, encouraging her to run. It’s too late. Like the others, she’s already dead.

My pace slows. At least a dozen guards are running toward us—some whose faces I recognize and have known since I was a child.

I learned to fight, to protect, to lead. That doesn’t make me invincible. Nor does it grant me everything I need to bring down a gang of trained killers.

One lunges and knocks me off balance. My head strikes the ground first. There are voices. “Kill her or get out of my way.”

Aisling.

There’s a crackling sound that builds, and then I’m struck with jolts of magic, screaming as every nerve in my body convulses in pain.

“He needs her,” a troll rumbles.

“And I need her dead!” Aisling shrieks in return.

“No, no!” someone else yells.

A shouting match ensues, and the atmosphere is drenched with Aisling’s magic. I can’t prepare for this death blow, and I don’t. But it never hits me. Instead, she whips her power to the side at the last moment and destroys what remains of the library in one strike.

Aisling continues to demand my death. “Look at her! She isn’t worthy. But I am.”

“No!” the troll rumbles.

Aisling won’t stop. “I’ll give you gold. Is that what you want? All you must do is blame a dead guard.”

“No,” an old elven guard retorts. Isa is her name. “We’ll say it was you. The princess shall live.”

Princess. I laugh, sort of. It comes out as a pitiful, pained series of squeaks.

What kind of princess lies among the dead, too beaten to rise?

“Do it,” Aisling orders, a sick sort of glee in her voice, “or I’ll kill all of you instead.”

Hands clutch my throat and squeeze.

I should fight back. Except I can’t move.

It’s too late to save most of me, anyway.

I want to hold little Bethina in the Afterlife and run through the lush green forests. I smile again, picturing the estrellas chasing one another through gardens packed with blooms. I want to sit on that bench. The one I had here, watching the sun set over and over as I wait for Papa, Father, and Giselle to join me.

More than anything, I want to be with Leith.

Leith…

My vision clears.

---