Page 104 of Kingdoms of Night

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IDALNO

Idalno fell back half a step, startled at the ferocity with which Feron launched himself at the spriggan. For knocking on death’s door, he had an endurance she hadn’t expected.

He rent his claws through the spriggan’s muscular arms and over its legs. Wood snapped and cracked.

The spriggan staggered away, then shook its great head. Bits of bark and twigs rained down. Then he swatted at Feron and bellowed.

Feron snarled back, swaying on his feet. His emerald eyes glowed a golden amber, flickering.

The two wolves raced in to help. They snarled and snapped, biting at the spriggan. But their teeth accomplished little against its wooden hide.

He staggered in to fight again, jaws snapping. Another blow from the spriggan sent him tumbling. He yelped with pain, but crawled back onto his paws, panting heavy, exhausted breaths.

One blow from that spriggan, and she’d be done for.

But it didn’t matter. She might not have the endurance or healing of a werewolf, but she had...plants.

The poisoned feather thorn, if she even had it, probably wouldn’t work on a bloodless being. So yes. Vines it was.

“Honina, tinlore wobwi twi sulspi kuwal!” She summoned up thorn vines.

Pinning it was the best she could hope for. The vines fought her, though, growing weak compared to the chamomile. She urged the energy in deeper. Green tendrils with narrow thorns protruding from all sides inched across the ground.

The wolves leaped over it easily.

The spriggan struck Feron , then jumped back as her thorn vines reached for it. The energy sputtered through her core into her arms and her palms. She twisted forward, arching her back. Its jagged force lanced into the earth, but the thorn vines didn’t grow evenly. One side contorted and spiraled up. Another clump snaked sluggishly across the sparse grass.

If she could easily strangle people with chamomile or peppermint, it would help so much.

She gritted her teeth. “Come on!”

It was like the earth argued with her now. It resisted. Then it surged and jolted forward, shooting out in an arc. Some of it shot out of the ground and struck the sickly grass. New shoots sprang up, healthy and fragrant, in its stead, the long green strands growing waist high in less than a minute.

The spriggan tilted its head at an exaggerated angle, then tapped one of the blades of grass with a thick finger.

Well. She shook out her arm. That was a waste of energy.

Her fingertips burned and tingled, but she drove it back.

Ash-blond fur flashed past her. Feron tackled the spriggan and bit into its shoulder, latching on and yanking even though it tried to shake him off.

He was already flagging, but that werewolf strength gave him the best advantage. So—she would protect him, let him do what he did best, and then figure out what to do.

Hawthorn ran past her, a chunk of wood in his mouth. Dropping it, he circled and then raced back to lunge at the spriggan.

An odd scent—musky, rotting—struck her nostrils. She turned toward the piece of fallen wood. He’d ripped it off the spriggan. That was wood rot.

Oh. Yes, please. She snatched it up and laughed. “Oh, you are a beautiful bit of rot, aren’t you?”

Rot wasn’t so easy to transform and spread as poison or venom, but it wasn’t so hard as unwilling vines either.

She placed it on the ground and cracked her hands. “Spriggan, you leave now, or we’ll break you down into a thousand rotted pieces.”

The spriggan bellowed again. “Intruders must die.”

Fair enough. It had been warned.

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