Page 94 of Elven Prince

They’d found her.

A single metallic ping echoed from the closest rail of the bridge several stories up, echoing over them all. Rebecca pinpointed the movement of another spear butt cracking down onto the iron railing. One movement, one commander.

With one voice that echoed down toward her again.

“Reveal yourself!”

The command meant several different things within several different layers, all of them delicately woven through the complex subtleties of everything this situation implied. The commands. The armed battalion of elite elven soldiers. The full reveal of their numbers against Shade’s.

Rebecca understood them all and knew exactly what was not only expected of her but required.

And she fucking hated it.

Because she had no other choice.

Still staring up at the commander on the bridge, she reached for the gold illusion cuff around her wrist. That was only the first step, but for now, it seemed to be all the commander wanted.

Maxwell stepped up beside her and snatched her wrist before she could undo the cuff’s simple clasp.

“Don’t,” he growled.

She turned toward him to see the same Maxwell snarl on his illusion’s face. The same shifter peering back at her as he held her wrist to stop her from undoing all their hard work for tonight.

A night that had become something entirely different in a collection of fleeting moments.

“If I don’t do this,” she told him, “we won’t make it through the hour. Everything will be okay. I promise.”

He searched her face, desperation, uncertainty, and admiration swimming together in the silver glow breaking through the gray-haired face that wasn’t his. With a sigh, he finally relented and released her.

Despite his frustration swimming through her with compelling intensity, she realized he must have sensed the truth in her as well. That shedidhave to do this.

That she knew far more than he did or could ever possibly know about what they faced in this moment.

She returned her attention to the bridge and slowly popped open the gold cuffs clasps around her wrist. A flare of silver light surrounded her, and when it faded, she was herself again.

Rebecca Knox, Roth-Da’al of shade.

Rebecca Bloodshadow, the Bloodshadow Heir.

An elf. A fugitive. A weapon. A leader.

All of them and none of them, and it hardly mattered anymore. She’d played her pieces as far as she could.

With a toss of her hand, the illusion cuff dropped into the road with a puff of dirt. Then she spread her arms, her true form revealed to those who could recognize it, and lifted her chin toward the commander looming too far above her to see his face. “Here I am.”

“On behalf of the Bloodshadow Court and the Agn’a Tha’ros Clans,” he boomed, “this battalion has been assigned to retrieve the Bloodshadow Heir. Will you surrender?”

Another heavy thunk rose from the dirt behind her, followed by another brilliant flash of silver light before Maxwell stepped forward to stand directly beside her, snarling at the soldiers on the bridge in their gleaming armor. “Just fucking try it!”

Shit.

Rebecca reached for the shifter to steady him, to call him back, but the damage had already been done.

The commander cracked his weapon against the iron rail again and thundered, “Then be taken by force!”

The spear he’d thrown at Rebecca erupted in a blinding flash black unlight, disturbing in its impossibility. The weapon disappeared from the dirt road and reappeared a second later in the helmed lieutenant’s hand.

Rebecca exhaled slowly, wondering if it would be her last.

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