Page 36 of Crown of Wrath

I wrap my fingers around the shaft and breathe deeply in the cool autumn air. “Are you ready for this?” Cole asks. “You struggled in the Keep of Steel.”

I grin at him. “I was breaking and didn’t have shadows. Don’t worry about me now. Are you good to fight?”

The corner of his lip curls up, and I can’t help but think of just how handsome he is. “Unless the entire House of Steel is waiting for us, I’m not worried at all.”

I grin back at him, and we approach. Unlike the soldiers guarding Casimir, the High Fae on this road outside of the village of Harrow seem undisciplined and lazy. Thirty soldiers in gleaming plate armor would destroy a village the size of Harrow in minutes if they were trying, so why would they worry or be disciplined?

Then we see someone who makes both of us pause. Rhion standing in plate armor. His armor is like Darian and Lee’s, made to shift and move with any of his body modifications. I swallow hard. I may have more magical power than anyone else in Nyth, but Cole and Rhion have a thousand years of experience. Fighting Rhion isn’t my idea of a guaranteed win.

Cole’s voice whispers through our bond, “I’ll worry about Rhion. You deal with the soldiers.”

“Are you sure you’ll win that fight?” I silently ask.

He grins. “I only need to keep from losing until you’ve finished up the rest of them. Then it’ll be the two of us against him.”

I nod and focus on my plan. The House of Steel is evenly matched against Earth, but it’s weak to shadow walking, and anyone with exposed skin is vulnerable to revulsion shadows. There’s a reason that they convinced the House of Flames to fight that battle for them.

But, to start the fight, I reach into the ground and drawn the stone from below upward just as I did in Stormhaven, except that instead of pulling liquid stone over walls, I pull it up over the steel of the soldiers’ boots. It’s exhausting to cover steel with magic-imbued stone, but because of the Painted Crown, I can do it. Slowly.

Immediately, shouts rise from the camp, and I’m shadow walking. My body falls through the earth, only to reappear two steps behind a soldier who had her helmet off. My spear flashes in the afternoon sunlight as it strikes, piercing her skull in a single, Earth-enhanced strike. The soldier falls over, and unlike when I was hunting, I don’t have to worry about my spear being ripped from my hands. My House of Earth strength is far more than anything that these soldiers can overcome.

I feel the sword coming from behind me before I see it. Awareness of everyone around me is one of the greatest strengths that comes from my House of Earth bloodline. It can’t protect me from the strike, but I have other skills and powers to do that.

The steel sword hits the midnight dress that covers my body, and instead of crashing against me like when I’d worn the stone armor, the sword is sent to the void. It takes a tremendousamount of power to use revulsion shadows on steel, but with the Painted Crown and weeks of rest, I can do it easily enough.

The soldier stares at the half a sword he pulls back, but I’m already swinging. My spear moves so fast that a human wouldn’t be able to keep track of it as it makes the full arc around me. It connects with the soldier’s armor at the connection between the gorget and the helm, a narrow weak point that my spear tip slides right through. The power and accuracy of my slice is too much, and the soldier falls over, his throat spraying blood.

His hands move to his armor, trying to remove his helmet so that he can stop the bleeding, but my spear comes back down, stabbing this time. As his helmet shifts an inch upward, the opening is clearer than ever, and my stab goes clean through his spine. His breath comes out in a hiss as he lays motionless. I whirl around, and three more soldiers are racing toward me.

I shadow walk again, reappearing behind them. My spear moves like lightning, piercing their lungs through the holes for their wings. Each stab is so fast that none of them notice until they can’t breathe.

I’m reminded of the time that Cole sparred with Lee in Aerwyn as I look down at the three soldiers. Each one of them could be her, their faces covered by their helmets, as they gasp for breath.

There’s no one here to save them, just like Cole said. He was right to push all of us the way he did. For the briefest of moments, I’m terrified at the idea of losing one of my friends. There are so few people in my life now, and if I lost any of them… I don’t know if I’d be able to recover.

An explosion pulls me away from my thoughts, and I turn to see flames exploding around Rhion as he stands behind a stone shield that’s as big as he is, an extension of his body. He growls as the stone turns black, but he pushes toward Cole, who is covered in flames.

I want to go to him, to come at Rhion from behind, but my job is to kill the soldiers as fast as possible. I set my sights on the ones nearest their fight to make sure that they don’t interfere in the battle between the princes. By shadow walking, I get there before they’ve broken through the stone that covers their plate boots.

Wielding spears themselves, they try to twist to protect themselves, but my revulsion shadows whip through the air, severing the wood and making their spears useless. My spear lashes out, piercing weak spots in their armor with the precision and strength that only someone from the House of Earth would have.

Four more House of Steel soldiers lay dead at my feet, and I take a second to catch my breath. Ten soldiers are dead in under two minutes. Only twenty more.

They’re not just High Fae soldiers, though. They’re from the House of Steel, and they’ve had a moment to recognize what’s happening. I’ve used up my element of surprise, and now it’s time to really fight.

Five of them become enormous, much like Darian had done in the past. Their armor shifts to allow them some steel protection. I remember Darian doing the same thing, and Cole focused on the gaps in between the armor, especially the leg plates. The difference is that I don’t have to get that close. I have shadows.

Four of them grow eagle wings and drop their swords and spears, preferring the same massive crossbows that the soldiers in the Keep of Steel had used. With steel bolts. I grit my teeth at the thought of those damned things.

The other soldiers charge me. Eleven House of Steel soldiers covered in armor rushing at me should make me terrified. Instead, it makes me smile. A real test. I remember that day in Aerwyn when Cole had fought Darian and Lee in front of me, and I’d been so impressed by how he’d moved. Now it’s my turn.Six months of training and fighting constantly, and I finally have a fight that will both test me, and one that I can actually win.

Another explosion rocks the world behind me, but I ignore it. I have enough to worry about. Cole can hold his own against Rhion for another few minutes. The drumbeat in my core echoes the rhythm of peace that flows through me. Two separate emotions working at the same time in very different ways.

I reach into the ground and pull stone upward, creating a wall that the eleven soldiers who hadn’t transformed won’t be able to get through. Shadows climb it, reaching skyward toward the soldiers in the air. It’s merely a way to hide me. Bolts are released, but I’m already moving, and they clatter against the soil and stones behind me.

I shadow walk and maintain the ceiling of darkness where I’d been only moments ago. I need those soldiers to think I’m still behind the wall rather than behindthem. Keeping that darkness above the wall stable by connecting to it through the void is harder than I’d imagined, but I don’t need it to last for long.

The soldiers who’d become enormous are beating at the wall I’d erected, and cracks spread across it.

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