Page 105 of Blood Feast

Another bolt of lightning reached for them. Cassia pressed herself against her horse until they felt like one creature. By the time the spell blasted a small crater in the riverbank, Freckles had already leapt a pace away.

Another horse screamed. One of the knights went down, trapped under his bleeding mount. Pure suffering crushed Cassia for an instant. The battle wavered before her eyes, her vision going dark.

She couldn’t see the knight’s face. Could he be…

A sharp pain in her leg brought her back to herself. Freckles bared her teeth at Cassia.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

As if understanding her pure Will, Freckles raced toward the fallen horseman. A soldier in sky blue yanked his sword out of the knight’s body, then turned to swing at Cassia.

Panic seized her mind, even as her arm came up on instinct. She made a mad flail with her dagger and dodged. Pain sliced along her hip.

Only Hesperine agility had saved her from a sword in her gut. The slash of pain faded by the time she straightened on Freckles’ back.

Her horse surged under her, lashing out with her front legs. The hoofprints of an Orthros Warmblood marred the king’s emblem on the man’s surcoat. Ribs cracked. The warrior staggered back into Knight’s range, and his sword arm was the next to break in the grip of the hound’s jaws.

Cassia’s Blood Union with the knight faded as his blood slowed. Helpless empathy drove her out of the saddle and down on her knees beside his body.

She had to know. She touched his mud-spattered helmet and turned his face toward her.

Not Ben. Someone else’s friend or sweetheart or brother. But not Ben.

Cassia, get back on your horse!

At Lio’s warning, she realized three of Lucis’s soldiers were closing in on her. She sat alone in the gap the knight’s death had left in the defenses. Behind her, a villager’s infant wailed.

Enraged for people whose names she didn’t even know, she surged to her feet with a cry of anguish. She pushed power into her dagger.

Three vines broke out of the soil of the riverbank. Black roses ensnared the trio of warriors and dragged them to the ground. Their screams joined the battle’s cacophony.

The man right at her feet choked, yanking at the rose vine around his throat until the thorns shredded his hands. Cassia’s stomach heaved. She swayed where she stood, looking down at him.

He was younger than her. Was he like Lucis’s personal guards, known for their cruelty? Or had he been a frightened subject impressed into the king’s service?

She tore her gaze away from him and found herself face to face with Benedict.

A SPREADING FIRE

Ben stood frozen, hissword upraised. Her roses had made his kill for him. He stared at her with wide eyes. She could guess how she looked to him, spattered with blood. Dagger in hand. Fangs bared. The antithesis of the devout maiden of Kyria he had once believed her to be.

“Cassia?” There was a note of plea in his voice.

His emotions pummeled her. Shock. Horror. Grief.

She didn’t want to feel his censure. She didn’t want to feel how much he cared.

In his moment of distraction, another soldier in blue attacked from his blind side. Cassia raised Rosethorn, summoning another twirl of vines around the swordsman. She tossed him at Benedict’s feet and turned away.

Mak and Lyros sat on their horses over the body of the mage. A swath of fallen soldiers surrounded Lio and Moonflower. The battle was over, the surviving knights trying to gather and calm the villagers.

Cassia went to Lio’s side. Knight shadowed her, murmuring a final growl.

Lio slid down next to her and examined the slice in her robes.Are you all right?

It was a mundane sword. I’ve already healed.

He wrapped his arms around her.Two battles in two nights. This is too much.

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