Page 219 of Fated or Knot

I tweezed the knife between my fingers and aimed, firing it with a forceful vortex spell. I hadn’t practiced this skill much and I halfway expected the weapon to go wildly off course as it flew in a straight line from where I’d aimed it. But by some force of fate, it embedded itself in the thick bark scales that covered Ellisar’s chest with a dullthunk.

The roots halted midair as the barkfolk pulled the knife out. He turned it over with a hum. The blade had bent, ruined from its forceful introduction to his wooden armor. “Did you think tostop me with this little bee sting?” he chortled, discarding it with a careless toss.

He twisted his hand in a circle, taking control of the tree roots again. Sharp metal bit into my skin. I despaired that I hadn’t changed a thing, nor had I even caused enough of a pause for the rest of my mates to arrive and save us. Though I swore I heard the thud of hoof beats in the dirt. A wishful echo, perhaps.

Laurel groaned and her form started to change. She’d been lying unnoticed, but as she grew a mermaid tail under her skirt, the iridescence from its silvery teal scales caught my eye. She opened her mouth and sucked in a huge breath.

Rennyn had taught Laurelsomethingabout her siren’s song, but Fal hadn’t known what it was. We all learned it firsthand as her siren’s song emerged in a forceful shockwave.

Stop!

Cymora and the barkfolk, whom she had accidentally rendered immune to her song, all froze. The tree roots collapsed to the ground. A trickle of blood flowed down my neck from the tiny cut my stepmother had inflicted.

A redcap’s crackling roar split the air.Tormund!

He wasn’t the one who snatched the knife from Cymora’s hand and pulled her away from me. I turned just in time to see Fal plunge the blade through her eye, killing her instantly. Her body slumped to the ground without fanfare. Magic wrapped around both of them, ancient and humming andterrible.

I gaped. The weight of a grievance—as I instinctively felt down to my cowering soul—settled on Fal’s shoulders for just a moment, before it spun away and into the darkness behind him.

A few moments later, Laurel started screaming rather than singing, scrabbling at her matted hair. Her memories must’ve been returning all at once, and without Kauz on standby to help her, they had to be assaulting her mind. The barkfolk woke fromthe spell of her song just to shout in alarm and, in Floris’s case, abject terror.

“T-Thank you,” I managed to say to Fal, wide-eyed and terrified from the sudden chaos. It was one thing to wish for my stepmother’s death, but another to see her slumped corpse at my mate’s feet.

I turned away from the sight. “Get to safety,” Fal murmured. He rested his hand on my shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze, before he rushed to help his brothers with the barkfolk. Kauz had gotten up at some point and dragged himself into the forest’s darkness. There was no sign of him except where his crash landing had left a trail of uprooted grass and dirt. Dalstin’s essence lamp still floated nearby, illuminating the scene before me.

Floris’s screams were already dying and his body slumping to the ground. A dark smear coated one of Marius’s axes, barely a blur as he lunged at the other two barkfolk with a bloodthirsty roar. They both flinched and turned to run, straight into the raging Tormund, who emerged from the trees behind them. He breathed a gout of fire from between his sharp teeth, bathing a wailing Dalstin in flames. He ignited head to toe like dry tinder.

Oh, stars.My heart threatened to burst from the terror at all this violence playing out in front of me. I agreed with my inner omega, crouching down to cower with a whimper.

Ellisar lunged for the nearest tree and melted into it. “I can smell you. Coward!” Marius shouted. The barkfolk leapt from tree to tree trying to escape, with my alpha mates in hot pursuit.

That was about enough for me. My breathing was shallowing out as I considered the fire spreading from Dalstin’s corpse to the undergrowth and trees nearby, then Laurel laying a few yards from me. She’d saved Kauz and me by shifting and screaming her song, and I couldn’t just leave her here. If the fire grew much more, she’d be straight in the path of it.

I knelt by her and checked her pulse. She was alive, just unconscious, as I’d expected. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to shift her mermaid tail back into legs.

I tried to lift and drag her with a hold under her armpits, but didn’t get far with that. “Why are you still so starsdamned heavy?” I griped. Unfortunately, with my mates chasing down Ellisar, I was on my own with saving her in return for what she’d done for us.

“Princess! Let me help!”

I startled in surprise from hearing the squeaking voice, though I shouldn’t have. It was from our chauffeur, the house moth who was cowering from his spot in front of the carriage. He’d calmed the yoked horses for now. That was impressive, actually, as the little beta was one of Fal’s longtime mothkin servants, and not here because he knew anything of animal husbandry.

Speaking of horses, I’d heard the three alphas arrive with hoof beats. “Yes, I need your help. Give me a second,” I called, looking around for any sign of those three horses.

To my relief, I spotted Rory nearby by the outline of her light-colored coat. She and the other two horses were keeping a wary eye on the spreading fire. She allowed me to approach her, wicking hot air over my hand when I held it out to her. “I need your help too, girl,” I murmured, taking hold of her reins.

I positioned her close to Laurel’s head and had the house moth, whose name was Villi, stand by her tail. If this didn’t work, we’d just haul her the old fashioned way, but I wanted to try using my vortex spell to buoy her onto the horse’s back for a brief ride. I cast a vortex underneath her and she began to rise and float in the air. With more essence poured into the spell, she lifted further, until I started to guide her head over Rory’s saddle.

Vortex was a stationary spell, and her unconscious form started to slump and slide once her head and shoulders were past the spinning air current. Rory nickered as, together, Villi and I got the mermaid into an awkward slump sideways across her back. Her silvery teal caudal fin swayed close to the ground as I encouraged Rory to walk forward, toward the carriage, and supported Laurel under her shoulders and neck.

I glanced inside and—eugh. There was a massive, bloody spot. Glass littered the floor, and the whole thing still stunk of the potion one of the bark brothers had tossed inside. I had Villi support Laurel in my place and climbed inside. I carefully avoided the glass since I’d lost a slipper, and the other probably wasn’t thick enough to protect my soles anyway.

With another vortex, I blew the clutter of glass out, along with the worst of the lingering odor. I was feeling lightheaded from all this magic use, but I was hopefully done expending essence tonight. Villi and I slid Laurel down from Rory’s saddle and into the carriage by taking her weight on either side of her. Her long fin stuck out the door until I bent it at the knee joint, and carefully closed the door without pinching the end.

“Okay Villi, we need to turn this thing around,” I said. I was sweating quite a bit, and it wasn’t just from my incoming heat anymore. The fire Tormund had started was only mounting, spreading and threatening us with sweltering air.

He wrung his hands, his antennae flattening to either side of his head in embarrassment. “I don’t know how to do that,” he admitted. “I’m only here because I hoped I could tell co-head moths Jani and Lon about how brave I was. But I didn’t really do anything.”

I patted his shoulder and the soft fur sticking out from his collar. “Don’t worry. I do. And also, I’ll tell them when I get the chance.” He gasped and perked up, doing everything I said with new enthusiasm.

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