Page 14 of Unseen Lord

I am at full strength. A perk of my Renewal. But I am weaponless, so that will need to be rectified.

The village is being overrun by the attackers. I wish I could save everyone, but first thing's first.

There's a man lying dead on the dirt road, a Fae. By his side is a sword. It's nothing fancy, but it'll do.

I silently thank him, grab his weapon and storm the hut.

"Stop! I am a Watcher of the Hunter's Council and I command you to cease what you are doing and surrender immediately!"

This time I don't even need to see the looks on their faces. The eyes say it all.

The poor family, though, they look ready to pass out.

The three thugs are surrounding my body and one of them is…

"Ew, gross. Seriously? To a corpse. Have some self-respect man. Or at least some respect for the dead. That's just disgusting."

Before he can say anything, before any of them can say anything, I initiate what I call the Flying Twirl Death, patent pending.

It looks something like this. Imagine yours truly, sword (or preferably daggers, but today it's sword) in hand, turning into one of the pinwheel spinny things, you know the ones you got at fairs as a kid? Only instead of paper or tinfoil or whatever, it's made of blades. Sharp ones.

I mean, right now it's only one blade, sure, but I am spinning so fast that it looks like half a dozen.

And I cut through those bastards before they even have a chance to raise their own weapons.

And by cut through, I mean that literally. Two are completely headless and one would, I guess technically be called 'nearly headless' by certain people.

You get the idea.

Once that's done, I untie the family and check over the girl. "Are you okay? Did the bad men hurt you?"

She shakes her head. "No. But… but… " she sniffles and cries. "They killed you. You're dead. Right there."

She points to my body.

"I know honey, but I have a magical power that makes me very hard to kill. I'm back. And you're going to be okay."

The mom comes to me, her eyes red and swollen. "You saved our lives."

"For now, but you've got to find someplace to hide. More might be coming."

She nods and the dad takes his wife and child in him arms as they leaves the bloody mess that was their living room. I follow them out and search the village, looking for Kayla. I find her fighting a man in black who separated from his crew. It looks like most of the fighting is still on shore. Hopefully the Rider's sea creature thwarted their full force. Behind her are more villagers that she was clearly trying to lead to safety.

The family sticks close to me as we make a dash towards Kayla, who has already killed the bandit by the time we arrive.

When she sees me, she pauses, noticing that my shackles are gone. "How… ?" she starts to ask, but then shakes her head. "Never mind. Doesn't matter."

"These people need a safe place," I say, gesturing for the family to come up. "They're okay, but have been through some trauma."

"We'd be dead or worse if not for you," the man says with gratitude, even as they all shake from the fear and trauma of what they witnessed and what almost happened.

Kayla raises an eyebrow. "It appears we are in your debt."

"Time enough for that," I say. "Arias is facing off with the Tempest. I need to get back to the shore. You got this?"

She nods. "Yes. Go. And if you have the opportunity, tell my son I was wrong about it. That he can trust you."

We share a look and I nod, then turn and run back to the ocean.

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