Page 6 of The Spark that Ignites
A leather gloved hand tapped the guard’s shoulder and as Fallon turned, a fist collided with his face. His teeth audibly rattled in his skull, and he fell unconscious before he slumped to the ground, blood leaking from his freshly broken nose.
Emmery’s eyes rounded in horror.
“Such dishonourable behaviour from King Silas’s guard,” the man tutted. He propped Fallon’s towering frame against the walllike it weighed no more than a sack of grain. The moon's glow reflected off the man’s leather armour with the worn stitching, his hood still drawn. The wraith-man from the tavern grimaced at the guard’s uniform. “And poor fashion choice.”
Emmery scrambled on her hands and knees, her skin scraping the rough stone as she searched for her dagger in the dark. She strung together a slew of curses as she came up empty.
“Wow,” the man said, followed by a sharp whistle. “I’ve never heard such profanity.”
“I wouldn’t be cursing like that if there wasn’t an unconscious guard beside me!” The words tumbled out of her mouth, and she cleared her throat, softening her voice. She didn't know who she was dealing with despite the fact he had saved her. “While I appreciate your assistance, uhm”—she studied his ghost-like menacing form—“kindsir, I had the situation handled.”
Emmery frantically searched for her dagger. Where in the world was it? Really, she would settle for anything as a weapon. A large rock, a branch, a handful of dust—
“You had it handled? Right, my mistake. It should have been obvious by the way he had you helplessly pinned against the wall that you had him right where you wanted him.”
Emmery glared up at the man, his face still hidden under his hood. The realization sank in that the longer he stood there, the less likely he planned to turn her in. But maybe he wasn’t looking for a bounty and sought someotherreward for saving her. Her skin crawled at the thought.
As Fallon groaned, blood trickled from his face and pooled on the collar of his uniform. From the way the guard’s nose hung crookedly it was certainly broken, and maybe his jaw too. Worse was the incriminating handprint burned into his cheek.
Emmery’s stomach sank. “You hit himreallyhard.”
“I wasn’t going to ask more than once,” the man said and lifted his shoulder in a half-hearted shrug while he scuffed hisboot through a smear of blood on the stone. “The guy deserved far worse. I gave him a chance, and he refused. It should’ve been a blade rather than my fist.”
And he could easily do the same to her. Emmery needed to form a plan, but she couldn’t think through the pain. Each swallow burned, her head ached, and her hot cheek stung. That slap had really sent her mind reeling, not to mention her scars throbbed again.
Once she found her dagger everything would be all right, but as she brushed her hand over the dark ground once more, she found nothing.
Like magic, the dagger appeared in his outstretched hand. “Looking for this? You know, these do work better when they’reinyour hand, rather than thrown across the alley.” He flipped it, extended the hilt to her, and chuckled. Emmery clenched her jaw at the humour in his voice.
None of this was funny. None of it.
Still on her hands and knees, Emmery reached for the dagger but thought better and recoiled. How fast could he turn it on her?
He tilted his head at her retracting hand.
What did he expect? That she would trust some stranger in a dark alley. Then again, she’d trusted that note. Maybe her judgement was truly rubbish, and she deserved to be stabbed by her own dagger.
“Though the fire was a nice touch,” he said, crouching to her level. His eyes captured her. Circling his blown-out pupils were corneas like strikingly white moonlight. Incandescent. They glowed in his shadowed face, and he winked from under his hood. “Impressive,little demon.”
Emmery’s stomach clenched. If he’d seen her magic and overheard Fallon’s accusation, he could turn her in or use this as leverage.
“Look, I don’t know who you—” she started, but Fallon stirred, mumbled to himself, and his hand rose to his bashed nose. Relief flooded her as she realized, he was alive, followed by fear for the same reason.
The guard leapt and grabbed the man’s tunic, tearing his collar as they struggled. The wraith-man swept Emmery’s dagger across the guard’s throat with ease, like he’d done it countless times. Blood sprayed and she shrank away, squeezing her eyes shut as it splattered her cheek, warm and wet.
Fallon's throat yawned open, and he gurgled, his uniform soaking with crimson. For a few excruciating seconds he bled, clawing at his neck, and then didn’t stir again.
The man shoved the guard’s corpse aside with a disgusted sneer.
“Bloody Hollow,” he groaned, fingering his torn collar before swiping the fresh blood smeared across his chin. “That was my favourite tunic.”
A weighted silence stifled the alley along with a metallic tang.
Emmery’s last nerve snapped as she blinked rapidly. He—he’dkilledthe guard, and he was worried about hisshirt? He was out of his damn mind if he thought he could murder one of King Silas’s guards and escape unscathed. He’d protected her and yet plunged them both into unfathomable danger.
How was she going to get out of this? If she ran, would he grab her before she reached the main street? Would anyone hear her scream?
Would anyone even care?
