“Quiet.”
I roll my eyes and let out a grunt of frustration. I’ve been through this before with him, and it’s not a road I’m interested in going back down.
The fevered clopping of horse hooves racing closer creates a steady backdrop to the squelch of creaking wheels on wet earth. Shadow whinnies and rears up, and Kane’s hold on me loosens just enough. This is my chance. I jerk away from him and the camouflage of the tree, then dart toward the path.
Kane scrambles, reaching out in an attempt to pull me back, but I’m already in the open, struck by a new plan, my heart pounding with nervous anticipation.
“It’s a carriage,” I say as it rolls into view, curved and round as Cinderella’s fairy-tale coach and as ornately decorated. The body of the carriage glimmers a dusty silver that sparkles in the sunlight like freshly poured seltzer. The coins I took from Kane and slipped into my pocket thud against my hip as excitement lifts me onto my tiptoes. This carriage could be my own old-timey Uber ride back to the palace.
Before I can even gesture for the carriage driver to stop, two shadows blur past my periphery. I whirl around, cornered—the speeding carriage in front, the dense forest to my right, the muddy ditch at my left, and now these two ominous figures on horseback blocking my escape down the path.
The carriage driver shouts a flurry of commands I can barely make out over the horses’ frantic hoofbeatsas he attempts to rein them in. But it’s too late. Terror flashes in their wide eyes, and they rear up in panic. The carriage lurches, its wheels skidding and sliding in the mud, throwing the driver from his bench. He lands hard, bouncing against the road. He’s only down for a second before he scrambles to his feet. Mud cakes his back and side as he desperately gropes for the reins, trying to calm the frenzied horses as the carriage careens off the path and crashes into the ditch.
Kane is a blur of power and speed as he sprints to my side, hooks his arm around my waist, and pulls me back into the safety of the forest. “Stay behind me.”
Through the trees, I watch as one of the men dismounts. His sandy-yellow beard matches the dark rings of sweat staining his shirt around his neck and beneath his arms. He draws a sword from the sheath on his back while his partner readies his crossbow and aims it at the two passengers spilling out of the overturned carriage and onto the road in a tangle of limbs and finery.
Kane charges out of the trees, his sword drawn in a swift motion that points to years of practice in countless battles. The bearded man rushes toward him, meeting him head-on. Their swords clash. Metal rings against metal, echoing through the forest with each furious exchange.
I move to the edge of the trees, closer to the fray, as the passengers right themselves. “Run!” I shout, beckoning them toward the safety of the tree line.
The woman clings to her partner’s arm. Her dress, a vibrant tapestry of deep blues embroidered with wavelike designs, billows around her as she rushes to gather the thick skirts. Silver bangles encircle her wrists, and alayer of necklaces cascades in a glittering waterfall down her chest. With each hurried step, her jewels jingle like sleigh bells.
Next to her, her partner grips her arm as tightly as she clings to his. He’s tall and sturdy with a chest like a barrel that jiggles beneath his tailored cobalt-blue coat. Its buttons gleam silver under the sun, and a crisp white shirt peeks out from beneath, a match to the pearlescent eye patch covering his right eye.
An arrow cuts through the air with a sharp hum. It misses its target, whizzing just behind the couple, the sharp steel biting into a tree trunk. The woman screams. She trips forward, her arms windmilling as she crashes in a heap of silk and velvet at her partner’s feet.
Startled by her scream, a highwayman’s horse bolts, and the carriage driver digs his heels into the mud to keep his horses from doing the same.
“Hurry!” I yell, my gaze darting from the couple to the man still on his horse, reloading his crossbow, and finally to Kane. He moves with a lethal grace, each strike deliberate and devastatingly effective against the aggressive, reckless swings of the highwayman’s blade.
Another arrow slices the air. This time, it hits its mark. The man with the eye patch lets out a pained cry as a violent gush of blood spurts from his chest. He sinks to his knees, and his partner wails. He reaches out. His bloodstained fingers find her, and he drags his palm down her arm, leaving behind a shining smear of scarlet against her doe-brown skin as he falls face-first into the mud.
She’s frozen, a soundless scream pulling at her face, stretching her flesh taut over sharp cheekbones.
“Get up!” The command tears from my throat, raw and desperate. I clench my fists, my nails carving crescents into my palms. Every fiber of my being screams to dash forward, to drag her to the safety of the trees, but I’m rooted to the spot, frozen in fear.
My gaze snaps to Kane as he dodges another of his opponent’s wild swings. He retaliates with a swift upward jab of his sword, striking him in the gut. Kane thrusts the blade deeper, and the bearded man lets out a final wet groan before going slack.
I take a breath to call for his help when a third arrow is loosed. It zips by, loud as a thousand angry hornets and just as deadly. The sharp point finds a home in the woman’s neck, burrowing straight through and emerging in a spray of blood out the other side. With a sickeningthwack, she joins her partner in the mud.
I clamp my hand over my mouth and swallow my scream. There’s no time for terror. Not yet. I’m not safe.
Seizing his chance, the carriage driver makes a desperate dash toward me. He slips and slides in the mud. This time, I don’t stand by and watch the worst happen. I dart from the cover of the trees and grab him when he stumbles. He grasps my arm, using my body as a rope to scramble to his feet. Together, we rush back into the forest.
Kane’s determined stride eats up the earth, his heavy footsteps splattering mud as he targets the mounted archer. With a warrior’s cry, he lunges at the man on horseback. Kane grabs the archer’s leg and rips him from the saddle. His horse rears up, and its hooves beat the air as it whinnies and bolts off down the path. The archer smacks into the ground, a discarded puppet cut from itsstrings. Kane wastes no time. With one decisive motion, he plunges his sword into the man’s chest, ending the threat once and for all.
The aftermath is a surreal quiet. The forest seems to hold its breath as blood drips from the deadly point of Kane’s sword. Each splatter is a crimson reminder that this world is not my own.
Kane’s broad shoulders lift and fall with measured breaths as he turns to the trees. Finding me within the cover of the pines, his eyes lock onto mine, his gaze black and endless and lost as stars behind the clouds.
“Are you hurt?” he asks, his voice the eye of the storm.
I flick my gaze from his, unable to hold the intensity of his concern, of what he’s just done. I take a few steps out of the tree line. “Nothing a few years of therapy won’t fix,” I deflect, my attempt at humor sounding brittle and forced even to my own ears.
Kane sheaths his sword, and his attention shifts to the carriage resting on its side in the ditch. One wheel creaks in a lazy spin. Its gilded spokes and iron rims are coated in a spray of mud.
My eyes can’t help but drift to the lifeless bodies of the couple in the road. Before Towerfall, before Kane, the only dead bodies I’d seen were on TV. Sorrow hardens in the back of my throat.
