Page 159 of A Promise of Peridot
Arwen rushed me. “Hold still. I’m going to pull it out—”
“Whatever you say, bird,” I grunted. “But hurry.”
Arwen wrapped her hands around the sword, and I squinted against the bright light.
Bright light?
I started at the sight before me—Arwen by my side, Killoran’s sword wrapped in both her hands, both her and the bladeglowingbrighter than any fire, any star ever could. Its hilt adorned with all nine stones, like a bejeweled kaleidoscope, iridescent and luminous, brilliant and blinding like the sun itself.
The blade. It had been Killoran’s weapon.
But the men were upon us, bludgeons and clubs drawn, faces wet with fury and lust for our deaths.
I couldn’t even stand—
With one move, Arwen yanked the sword from my torso.
I clenched my teeth against the discomfort, unable to tear my eyes away as Arwen swung a clean half circle. The force of wielding the weapon nearly shot her into the air, and explosive light blasted from the steel, bisecting every vicious thug in the room. Killoran’s wives screeched their terror, ducking, as their gags of disgust twined with the sound of crunching bone and burning flesh.
Arwen barely took in the gore and shed limbs around her. The six or seven men severed in half as if they were simple loaves of bread. The blade that shone like it contained every star in the sky.
I stood gradually, arms still locked behind my back, dull pain splintering through my abdomen as she placed one hand against my split flesh. “Stay still.”
“There’s no time. The rest of Killoran’s men—”
“We’ll go when you’re healed.”
“I’m fine, I’ve been stabbed a few dozen times. Barely hurts.”
I gave her a relaxed grin as a bead of sweat slipped down my brow. She huffed and I felt the lighte seep from her fingers into my wound.
She only needed a minute before we headed for the curtain, but something stopped her cold. Arwen pivoted and ran back through the blood-drenched war room. Diving over body parts and pools of gore and viscera, Arwen reached Killoran’s empty throne, where the three topless women were cowering in a huddle.
“Run,” she warned, slicing the Blade of the Sun through their chains—fluid arcs of Arwen’s light sending sparks and wisps of metal into the air. “And to the east, away from the widow.”
The women moved swiftly, muttering their thanks.
“The Blade of the Sun,” Arwen murmured. “Inside my heart.Stones, I hate prophecies.”
I raised a brow in question as we followed the women toward the exit.
“You, Kane,” she said, turning back to me. “You are my heart. I found the blade inside you. Literally.”
I might have rolled my eyes if I felt I could afford to exert a single extra ounce of energy. I sagged toward the nearest wall to avoid planting face-first into some crook’s entrails.
“How do we get the lilium off you?” She looked to the chains still pinning my arms behind my back.
I gestured toward the blade in her hand. “What’s your aim like?”
Arwen’s face blanched and I almost found it in me to laugh.
“There has to be another way.”
“None that I can think of.” My voice was hoarse and I could still taste slick, human blood on my tongue. “Now, bird.” I knelt before her on the suspended wood and turned my wrists to face her blade.
“I have no idea how to control this. What if it slices through your arms like it did those men?”
Voices were beginning to echo through the pathways and winding rope bridges. Calls for our heads.
