Page 54 of The Dark Mage
When she squirmed, he flicked the blade upward, cutting a thin, stinging line along her collarbone.
“Hold still and keep quiet,” he sneered.“We might not kill you when we’redone.”
Tears and raindrops blurred her vision as the second soldier shoved her face-first into the muddy road.Her hands slipped in the muck as she tried to push herself up.
“Hold her arms!”he barked.
Two men grabbed her, yanking her arms out and pressing her face into the road.Mud filled her mouth and nose until she turned her head to the side, coughing on sand andsilt.
Pressure in her chest.
The rasp of a blade slicing fabric.
A burst of cold air on her exposed thighs.
Her mind went quiet as she retreated deep into herself, a fragile barrier against the growing horror.
Fael.Fael!
Her mind screamed his name, but her body stayed silent.Rain traced her cheeks, soaked her back, and ran in cold lines over her bareskin.
She braced for the worst, fighting the urge to scream, beg for mercy—or death.
And then the world fell silent.
The men holding her arms froze, their grip slackening.She couldn’t twist to see what had drawn their attention without pressing her face into the puddle.
An explosion of heat and flame shattered the silence.
Hot blood splashed against her legs, thick and scalding where it mixed with the rain andmud.
The soldiers released her to draw their swords.
Ren’wyn gagged, trying to drag herself away on trembling arms.She managed to roll onto her side and cover her legs with her arms, her head spinning.
Fael stood at the roadside, framed by the shrubs and glowing with magic.Fire licked up his arms and legs, his broadsword angled across his body.A bow was slung over hisback.
The corpse of the soldier who had slit her skirt lay at her feet, an arrow buried deep in his throat.His blood and the mud from his falling body coated herlegs.
But Fael captured Ren’wyn’s attention: glorious, powerful, beautiful.His eyes shone red with innerfire.
Ren’wyn gasped as he cleaved through four soldiers in a move she recognized from the Passage.He swept the sword up, kicked an incoming soldier’s chest, and landed a killing blow before the man hit the ground.Twisting, he struck the head from the soldier on his right, then swiped down, opening the one on his left from shoulder tohip.
Fire crawled down the broadsword as Fael bared his teeth at the rest of the soldiers—promising death, his powerful body sprayed with blood.
He didn’t slip.He didn’t falter.
Fael leapt forward and drew his short sword from his hip, sweeping it across the necks of the two closest soldiers after knocking their swords aside with his broadsword.Blood sprayed, bodies fell—and he grinned withfury.
Ten corpses littered the ground as the last six soldiers backedaway.
Fael’s eyes guaranteed execution to anyone who dared come within reach.
He sheathed his broadsword on his back—his arms and abs tightening with the motion.Flames rolled over his torso, lighting the short sword in his hand.Steam rose as the rain struck his skin and floated away in lazy spirals.
Fael moved again—swift as lightning, sure as stone.
He stabbed one soldier in the gut, danced out of range of the second, and pulled the sword from the first’s belly to take the third’s head cleanoff.
