Page 197 of Keeper of the Word
The witch almost had them within her reach.
“Light of Sir—” she called before someone’s “Nay!” startled her.
Tara dashed from the shadows, already chanting her call to the stars.
A blinding sheet of light hurtled down from the night sky and forced itself between them and Jordain. Men’s cries echoed across the field.
Elanna held her ears.
Jordain was pitched back several yards. She slumped into a motionless mass.
As swiftly as it had descended, the Light of Siria disappeared, and Tara, too, lay on the ground unmoving.
“Tara!” the sisters screamed, moving to her side.
“Is she breathing?” Casta asked. “She’s so pale.”
“And cold!” Kyrie cried.
Hux and the Order knights regained themselves and crouched over Tara. Hux exchanged a glance with Elanna.
“Get her onto Jac’s horse, Kyrie,” Elanna ordered, referring to one of the Order knights. “You must get Tara away from here! Return her back to the camp. Away from this fray!”
“We cannot leave you!” Kyrie said. “We still have the gate!”
“I will lock the gate. You two take her away from here. Away from this darkness. The Curse is all around us. ’Twill kill her!”
Casta and Kyrie rushed to their mounts as Hux took the lifeless Tara and placed her in front of Jac. They maneuvered the horses in the direction of the camp. They were soon swallowed in the mayhem of the battle.
Hux glanced between the soldiers with the battering ram, who had resumed their task, Elanna, and down the field where earlier he’d called to Tolvar. “Do we meet again?”
“What?”
“I know there are elements you cannot tell me about my future. But tell me that you and I meet again. ’Tis all I need know.”
His dark eyes drank her in.
“We meet again.”
Hux rushed to press his lips to hers. Elanna kissed him with every ounce of passion she had.
He parted them, exhaled, winked, and mounted his blacksteed. “That is gladdened news. With that, I must go. My reluctant, prickly friend needs my aid.”
Elanna’s eyes followed him into the horde of fighting men with hope held on her breath. When she turned to speak to the two Order knights who’d stayed with her—a heated discussion playing out between them about options they might try—that hope disappeared.
She gripped the key.
“M’lady, mayhap we should take you, too, to safety,” one yelled over the blare of commotion.
“We cannot yet leave!” Elanna shouted back.
But ’twas impossible. She was one person. A StarSeer, aye, but she would ne’er be able to wedge between a battering ram and the gate.
A new clangor began, and abruptly, dozens of men bolted toward them. But they weren’t rushing at them. They were rushingawayfrom something.
In the dark of night, Elanna squinted to make out what had suddenly caused such a retreat.
Hundreds of horses appeared. They charged toward them, led by—was that Daved?
