Page 58 of Ash and Feather

I stepped through the fire and knelt in front of her. She didn’t seem startled or surprised by my sudden appearance; she’d likely felt me approaching.

“What happened?” I demanded. “Are you hurt?”I answered my own question as soon as I asked it, reaching for her hand only to draw back when I noticed it was covered in blood. There was dried blood on her other hand, as well, but it didn’t smell like hers.

She stood without answering me. Her movements were mechanical—slow but determined. She looked ready to collapse against me as I moved closer, but fought the urge with a shake of her head, then started to walk away only to pause and look over her shoulder.

Her gaze narrowed on a distant spot of forest. Her lips parted as if she’d spotted something horrifying, but when I looked, all I saw were thin, rickety tree trunks clacking and swaying in the breeze.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Valas said. “What the hell went on back there?”

It seemed to take a moment for the question to register. She looked to him, briefly, and in a low, brittle voice she said, “My nightmares were right. My sister, the blood, the destruction, all of it. I…” She trailed off, fists clenching, her expression caught somewhere between utter grief and painful fury.

I moved to her side once more, taking a closer look at her hand, gently feeling my way along the wound underneath all of the blood. Most of that blood was fresh—still flowing freely enough to rapidly coat my fingers. The airs of this place seemed to be affecting her divine ability to heal.

“Your sister did this to you?”

She shook her head vehemently. She started to explain what had truly happened, but Valas cut her off.

“Perhaps now is not the time for this conversation,” he said, gaze jumping to the same spot Karys had been staring at a moment ago. “Sounds like we have company.”

I looked to that spot again just as an elven soldier broke through the trees, immediately followed by two more.

One of them tossed a shining ball toward our feet. As it hit the ground, it shattered, filling the air with a bitter-scented powder.

Breathing in the bitterness made my throat instantly, unbearably dry. The trees spun around us. My eyes watered. I wiped away tears, and through my blurred vision I saw eight more soldiers emerging.

“We aren’t far from the barrier we passed through,” Valas said under his breath. “We’ll be able to make a clean getaway easily enough on the other side of it. Running would be wiser.”

“It would,” I agreed.

But I was staring at the blood on my hands as I said it, and thinking of the blood that had covered Karys when I’d carried her away from that mortal river and into the Tower of Ascension…

I unsheathed my sword.

Valas sighed but followed my lead. “Let’s make this quick,” he muttered, waving away a lingering cloud of the bitter powder. “Every breath I take is making me feel more sluggish and stupid.”

I didn’t have time to reply—the enemy was already advancing.

The same one who’d thrown the bitter-scented bomb lunged toward me first, a curved blade drawn and prepared to swing.

I shoved Karys behind me and met him with my own blade in a single-handed parry that sent him flying backwards.

He looked momentarily startled—as though he’d expected his bomb to have rendered me entirely useless.

He’d miscalculated.

Badly.

I gripped my sword more tightly in my bloodstained hand, moving without mercy to finish him off before he could regain his balance. My blade plunged so deeply into his chest that it was difficult to draw it back out again.

A second soldier rushed me from behind. I dislodged my weapon at the last moment, and in the same smooth,uninterrupted motion I twisted around and swung, slicing into his neck.

A single gasp turned into a choke, then into silence. Blood spurted, showering me before I could avoid it. The soldier dropped as though made of stone, his body sounding a heavytwhumpas it hit the ground.

I spun around, looking for my next target.

My pulse quickened as I saw how many more had joined the original eleven.

Valas backed toward me, surveying the increasing number as well. Karys had moved to the edge of the battle—far enough outside the concentration of bomb powder that she’d been able to summon more fire to shield herself with. It was a weak spell, but it seemed to be keeping our enemies away from her for the moment.

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