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Battle raged inside the castle, like two tides crashing on a beach. The Sirandels, the Amhara, the Kovalinn, the undead steadily gaining ground. All warred back and forth, with Sorasa and Garion smashed in the middle, stuck between hammer and anvil. Her survival instincts took over, her body moving without thought. She could only step, dodge, parry, stab. Again and again and again. A corpse grabbed at her ankles, an Amhara whip curled around her arm.Strike, slice.It all blurred, sweeping her away in the current.
She lost Garion in the fray but glimpsed Dyrian’s bear, an Amhara’s head in its jaws. It shook the assassin’s body back and forth like a toy.
On the floor, Eyda wept over the broken figure of her son. The young lord lay still, white-faced in death. A small sword lay broken beside them. He died fighting, at the very least.
Sorasa’s stomach churned as she realized Dyrian met a better fate than the other Elder children.
The young immortals clambered through the fray, lurching and sluggish as they surmounted the stairs. All were dead-eyed, jaws slack. The dead walking.
The vaults had not saved them. Instead, they were their doom.
Her mind spun with the implication. New dead walked, raised from corpses.
Raised by—
“Taristan is here,” she breathed to no one, head pounding.
Then a boot caught her jaw and she sailed sideways. Instinctively, her body went limp as she flew through the air. Tension would only hurt her more, a lesson she learned a hundred times. She landed and rolled, body curling against the wretched chain mail.
But Mercury was there, faster than she thought a mortal could move. He took her by the throat, one hand closing, the other holding one of his precious daggers to her ribs.
“I meant what I said, Sarn,” Mercury snarled, his breath washing over her face. “You were my greatest failure. But the flaw was in your making, in me. Take heart in that.”
Then he drove the dagger home.
Or at least he tried to.
The chain mail held, saving her lung, though her side throbbed as if struck by a hammer.
“Armor?” Mercury laughed, his breath on her face. He held on, squeezing her throat. “You have changed.”
Sorasa clawed at his face, drawing ragged, bloody lines. He didn’t seem to notice. This time, he raised the dagger, putting it to her face. The blade felt cold against her cheek, the tip a hair’s breadth from her eye.
Then a blur struck the lord of the Amhara, a larger body slamming into him, knocking the old man to the ground. A demon stood over him, his armor streaked in blood, his helmet torn away. He loomed, monstrous, chest rising and falling with ragged gasps of breath. But for the golden hairand green steel, Sorasa would have suspected Dyrian’s bear.
Dom certainly fought like one.
On the ground, Mercury flipped to his feet but Dom caught him, gripping him by the neck and the leg. He lifted Mercury clean over his head, as if he were no more than a bundle of twigs, and tossed him bodily across the hall. The assassin landed with a sickening crack, his body smacking against the marble.
Sorasa wanted to fall, exhausted. She wanted to embrace Dom, grateful.
Instead, she spun to face the next enemy.
“Thank you,” Sorasa bit out over her shoulder, letting her sword dance. She would not bother asking what happened on the battlefield, or why he’d returned.
“You are welcome,” Dom answered, putting his back to her.
For a moment, she leaned against his steel, feeling Domacridhan behind her. His presence bought her seconds only, but enough time to gather her wits.
She assessed the hall, reading the blood on the floor, the tide of bodies whirling back and forth. The undead were still coming, foaming up from the vaults in endless rows, flooding through the castle. The Elders did their best to mop them up. Some fell apart on the steps, reduced to rolling heads and clawing torsos. But most surged forward, scattering and snarling in all directions.
Six Amhara remained, but they ran to Mercury’s body, leaving Garion panting in their wake. One of them scooped their lord up, slinging him over his shoulder.
Sorasa wanted to chase after them, to slit Mercury’s throat and watch the light leave his eyes for good. Her fingers twitched, still tight on herdagger, her heartbeat ragged in her chest. Memories welled, each more painful than the last. Being abandoned in the desert as a small child. Her body broken by training. Her first kill and how terrible it made her feel. Mercury’s smile and favor, bestowed like a gift, but so easily taken away. And then her face pressed to the cold stone of the citadel, her body bare, a horrible tattoo inked across her ribs. Mercury did not smile then, as he took away everything she ever tried to build.
Mercury’s voice loomed out of the back of her mind.My greatest failure.
But Sorasa could not move.
