Page 189 of Blade of the Nightking

“Can you run?”

I nodded.

His hand closed around my arm and he pulled me upright.

The forest lurched violently sideways, a wave of dizziness crashing over me and I staggered. At once, he slid one arm beneath my knees, carefully avoiding his broken hand, and swept me against his chest.

And that was when the buzzing began.

At first it was little more than a distant hum beneath everything else—the pounding of my pulse, the ringing in my skull, the Spinner's furious cries as it clawed at the iron wound.

Then the sound grew louder. And louder.

Diaphanous wings flitted through the air, drawn by the blood flowing down the Spinner's side. They darted forward and back, circling just beyond its reach.

Its many eyes widened with sudden terror. “No…”

The droning grew louder. Not from one direction, but from every direction. As though the forest itself had come alive.

Rìan didn’t hesitate. He turned and plunged into the undergrowth, carrying me with him without sparing a glance for what was happening behind us.

I looked anyway.

Blood midges poured through the trees, darkening the air itself. One moment the Spinner stood alone, swatting at the creatures that descended upon his shoulder. The next it vanished beneath a living storm of humming wings and gnashing teeth, every inch of its thrashing body engulfed in a writhing mass of pale green bodies. Its screams became ear-shattering.

Even as Rìan ran, carrying me away from the temple, I couldn’t look away.

I watched as the Spinner's struggles began to slow. Beneath it all came the soft squelching sounds—wet, rapid crunching, thousands upon thousands of tiny jaws feeding on still-living flesh. The screaming stopped abruptly, until there was only Rìan's pounding footsteps and the distant drone of the feeding blood midges.

The muscles of his shoulder flexed beneath my cheek as my head slumped into the crook of his neck. The scent of wind and leather invaded my senses like a soothing balm. Beneath the warmth of his skin, I felt his magic moving through him—endless and untamed, wilder than the Wildlands, a heartbeat answering my own.

My magic reached for it without thought, twining around it gratefully before the world faded to nothing.

CHAPTER 39

The smell of cooking meat dragged me awake.

My eyes opened heavily, the pounding in my head intensifying beneath the light filtering through the trees and the low clouds gathering beyond them. For a moment I simply lay there, wrapped in the pleasant scent of woodsmoke drifting through the air.

Then I turned my head.

A pang went through me at the sight of Neeken, hands bloody as he skinned a rabbit while another lay atop a small cooking fire.

I sat up too quickly and immediately regretted it.

"Easy." The command was smooth, deep.

My hand flew to my head as the world slowly steadied.

It wasn't Neeken sitting there.

It was Rìan.

I blinked, and the illusion vanished immediately. The comparison seemed absurd now. What little I'd seen of Neeken had been all easy grins and boyish charm. Rìan possessed neither.

He radiated intensity. I saw it in the set of his shoulders, the perpetual furrow between his brows, the grim concentration etched into every line of his face. A storm held unnaturally still, its power restrained beneath the surface. It lent something stark and arresting to his features.

He finally looked up and caught me staring. For a long moment our eyes locked across the fire.