Page 84 of Steel Heart Iron Claws

The bear lurches, off-balanced. The rider tumbles off his back.

“Monoceros!” a soldier shouts.

It’s followed by more shouting in a language I don’t speak, but their meaning is clear: Tòrr’s disguise no longer fools anyone.

Roaring, the goldenclaw circles back around at Tòrr and delivers a powerful kick that sends him scuttling backward, hooves skidding over wet earth in a struggle for balance.

The goldenclaw prepares itself for another kick.

I slide off Myst’s back, landing in the mud, and wave my hands over my head.

“Leave the horses alone, you gilded bastard!” I shout. “It’s me you want!”

The bear lumbers around to face me. At the same time, his rider rushes me on foot with a drawn sword. I dodge the sword’s downward strike, then snatch up a fallen arrow from the ground and throw it point-first at the bear.

It strikes squarely on the bear’s nose—the only place its armor-like fur doesn’t protect it.

The bear cries out, knocking away the arrow with its paw. As silver blood flows from the wound, the bear raises itself to its hind legs, towering over me.

More soldiers attack from the west, but I throw myself into a roll in the opposite direction and manage to grab a fallen soldier’s sword as I come back up.

I swing it around, settling into a defensive stance.

Behind me, Tòrr scrambles to his feet. He moves close so that my back is against his rear end, covering one another.

The goldenclaw towers high above us, claws bared, poised to crash down.

I lift the sword in a defensive strike.

There’s a terrible moment of seeing the bear hanging above me, knowing it’ll be his claws through my chest, or my sword through his, when?—

Everything…stops.

The bear hovers above me mid-fall.

The mist in the clearing freezes.

A tuft of goldenclaw fur hangs immobile on the wind.

The soldiers go completely still, too, with swords lifted to slash down on Tòrr. Tòrr is also frozen, his back foot lifted, ready to kick one of them into the next life.

I strain to move—even to breathe—but it’s like I’ve turned to stone.

Movement from the corner of my eye directs me to the only peoplenotfrozen.

Two female soldiers in indigo cloaks step around the soldiers’ motionless bodies. Their cloaks are emblazed with a star-shaped pin fastened above their godkissed birthmarks.

The first one, thickset with a long blonde braid, sweeps her hands through the mist, dispersing it in a single fluid motion until only a faint wisp lingers.

The other, a captain, raises her hands as if holding back an invisible tide. She lowers her fingers one by one, counting down from ten. She’s a petite, light brown woman, and her uniform swallows her frame, but her size doesn’t hinder her from wrenching the heavy sword out of my left hand.

I try to shout an objection but can’t.

Moving swiftly, the other godkissed soldier unfastens the goldenclaw’s heavy metal collar and bolts it around Tòrr’s neck instead.

While she’s trapping Tòrr, the captain strains to haul me out of the goldenclaw’s trajectory. She stops to catch her breath, lips still silently counting down from ten.

She angles her sword against my neck. Her eyebrow arches in a challenge as she warns, “Don’t move.”

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