Page 61 of Immortal Sins
Swords rise in the air.
I’m not in the Dark Falls’ duel ring, and even if I was, I can’t summon ten orbs and fight all these men. I just don’t have enough juice. After four or five, based on my training sessions, they’ll be too small to inflict real damage. My only hope is to scare the rest of them shitless.
Using both my hands, I smear the magic and create a half-crescent arch to hold the backline at bay.
I’ve practiced this trick with fire, but never with infernal magic.
One soldier detaches from the herd. “We can’t allow a human to masquerade as a Fae princess. You signed your own death warrant, mortal.”
“You signed yours, I’m afraid,” I bluff.
Purple lines twist the skin of my arms, and a powerful, all-consuming current expands the air. The soldiers freeze, their eyes wide with fear, and I know I’ve graduated fromannoying little girl,toviable threat.
The arch prevents them from approaching, but my jaw trembles at the strain. Hot shivers shake my entire body, and a groan tears out of my lungs. I’ve never pushed myself this hard. Never. I mostly acted on instinct when I fought the peeling hag.
At Dark Falls, Duel was child’s play. We had a referee, and rules, and I can’t believe I ever fooled myself into thinking it would resemble a true, life-or-death situation.
The knight jumps to the ground. “Keep formation. She’s mine to kill,” he hisses, his face wrinkled with fury and pain.
He staggers forward.
He’s young, young enough to be my age. His wound already started to heal itself, and he unsheathes his sword with his left hand. “You better hope the healers manage to reattach my hand.”
I step back, the half-circle of infernal magic at my back creeping along with me. “Or what? You’ll kill me twice?”
“I will do worse than that, mortal.”
A shadow quakes the ground between us.
Black feathery wings blink in and out of view at Cole’s back as he lands between me and the knight.
Words like “the prince” and “he’s here” echo in the clearing, and many swords falter.
The leader snarls. “I have my orders,your highness.”
“Then you’ll die with them.” Cole snaps his fingers. I know what comes next, and I take advantage of the chaos created by his mirror images to draw every ounce of magic I have left and hold my arch steady.
“Kill the girl!” the leader shouts.
A metal arrowhead sinks deep inside my belly, as unexpected and vicious as the sniper that shot it. My incredulous gaze latches onto its shaft, sticking out of my left side, an inch below my last rib. Red dots pepper the helical feather fletching.
The deep wound oozes with slick, wet blood. My hands fly to the tear, and I lose grip of my powers.
With a sharp whip of thunder, the arch of infernal magic explodes into a flurry of tiny shards that bury themselves into the soldiers’ throat, necks, and heads.
I feel every single one of them rip through skin.
The soft flesh.
The agony.
Bodies plop to the ground. A crimson wave streams down my leg and taints the fallen leaves. The infernal shards dissolve into the ether as I fall flat on my hands. The veins on my arms twitch angrily. My neck burns as the next arrow misses its mark and only nicks the skin.
Two survivors scamper off, but twin black-and-blue orbs crash against their retreating backs, and they bite the ground, too. The white horse sniffs the lifeless body of his rider.
An arrow sticks out of Cole’s right shoulder, and he tears it out of his flesh with a grunt. My eyes search the trees for the sniper, but the branches are still and silent, the third arrow nowhere to be found. Cole spreads his wings wide and wraps me up from all sides, forming a cocoon of feathers.
“Don’t pull on the arrow, or I’ll bleed out before you can heal me.” The throb in my gut worsens, and I press my lips together.
