Page 102 of Untethering Dark

Relaxing in her grip, Johanna reached to touch one of her antlers with a trembling hand. More tears fell, neither of their faces dry. Johanna nodded and tenderly cupped her cheek.

“For you.” Astrid released her, slipping the ax she brought into the ranger’s hand.

Hefting the weapon, Johanna turned to her colleagues, a finger pressed to her lips. They tried to school their faces, deliberately not looking in their direction, but notes of relief shone as Johanna sawed the ropes binding the forest ranger next to her.

A mob of thirty acolytes formed a semicircle around Gudariks, cheering on his torturer’s efforts. They thought they were invincible, unstoppable.

How nicely they’d rounded themselves up for her. A flock of sheep ready for slaughter.

Icicles stretched from Astrid’s palms, a whirlwind encircling her body. Her self-made weapons were jagged and crude. The magic didn’t need to be pretty to do its job. She hurled one, then another, watching with satisfied glee as they punched through someone’s torso, eliciting a bloodcurdling scream.

Suri’s drone dropped down, releasing pepper spray into the crowd.

Chaos reigned supreme as the crowd devolved into a mass of screaming and flailing limbs, many desperately scrubbing and clawing at their eyes. “What is this sky poison?” one screeched. Another insisted they never should’ve left the Otherworld.

Astrid’s conjured wind whipped around her friends and herself, keeping them safe from any blowback.

The drone circled round for another pass, weaving this way and that, targeting those who eluded the first spray. It sent the crowd scattering.

An angry voice shouted, “Get back here! We’re not finished.”

A fiery ball launched itself from the bonfire and knocked Suri’s drone from the sky, sending it careening to the ground with an ugly crunch. One of its four propellers snapped off and bounced, leaving the rest a flaming ruin.

No more drones then, but Suri had given Astrid a tremendous advantage, and she wouldn’t squander it.

She shot more icicle javelins into the reeling crowd, not giving a rat’s ass about honor, carving herself a path forward. There was nothing she wouldn’t do to get to Gudariks and put an end to his suffering.

Not all had been hit by the pepper spray. Two brandished daggers and stalked her way, and several more yet prowled toward Johanna and the remaining forest rangers, distracted by freeing the last of their own.

Suri burst from their hiding place, screeching, “Get away from my wife!” They raised their hand, holding aloft a small black cylindrical container and sprayed the nearest acolyte in the face. The man backed away with a furious scream, dropping his knife to rub his eyes, making the burn worse. Johanna whirled around and kicked out his legs, following him down with the swing of her ax.

A forest ranger grabbed the discarded weapon and slashed at an acolyte. Another pulled a flaming tree branch from the fire and swung, blood and embers flying upon impact.

Astrid dodged the two who came at her, spinning away from their knives and, in one fell swoop, slashed the backs of their knees with her claws. Both howled in pain. Their throats went next.

A third came charging toward her, a war cry on her lips. Astrid sought the moisture in her body, willing it to freeze and expand. The acolyte burst into a frozen pulp midstride, spattering her face and dress with ice-cold blood.

“You killed my wife!” someone shouted in her ear, a rough hand seizing her shoulder in a bruising grip.

Wordlessly, she reached for his hand and sent glacial currents into his body, freezing him rock-solid from the inside out. One great swing from her new antlers, and he shattered to pieces.

She slew her way to Gudariks’s side. Biting, clawing, freezing.

The man who dared flay her love stood guard, brandishing his carving knife, still glistening red with blood. He took several swipes at her in quick succession, the first grazing her arm, the rest narrowly missing as she twisted and turned out of harm’s way. But this was not a dance she wanted to continue.

Snarling, she caught his wrist, crushing bone and freezing the knife right out of his hand. Yelping, the man jerked back, but she held fast.

If there were time, she’d flay him—an eye for an eye and all that—but she’d settle for his heart. She punched into his rib cage, fingers finding the wet, beating muscle and ripping it out. Shock froze his features, wide-eyed and mouth gaping. Astrid bit into the organ like an apple—not half-bad—and spat the piece in his face. When she let go of his wrist, he slumped to the ground in a heap.

Licking the blood from her lips, she turned to Gudariks.

A ghost, she had to be. His Astrid, a blood-soaked goddess of vengeance, alive right here, right now, rescuing him, rescuing all of them. It was too good to be true. No, this had to be a pain-induced delusion. She’d been shot. Her life’s blood still stained his hands.

But the claws, the rack of antlers that sprouted from her scalp, adorning it like a crown, were so like his. And that dazzling smile, full of bloodied, razor-sharp teeth. She was so beautiful and glorious his chest hurt with yearning.

Please let this be real.

The disappointment would destroy him if it weren’t.

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