Movement heaves my gaze to where a thicker band of soldiers is approaching through the warping wall of mist. I whip my head around, seeing they’re coming fromallangles, like a tightening noose.
I’ve never felt such cold, bladed fear.
“GO!” I roar with my entire chest.
Raeve snarls, drops to snatch my sword from the mud, then cracks her neck from side to side. The last thing I see before another wave of mist sweeps in, smothering my view of her.
Of the soldiers.
Ofeverythingexcept the odd parchment lark darting close, fluttering in confused circles.
Then comes thethunkof daggers andhackof blades. The heavy, sloppythumpsof bodies dropping, and Raeve’s voice on the wind, speaking Clode’s language with such poise it’s like she’s weaving a billowy tapestry—each word a gusty stitch.
Irage, slicing the net with violent strokes. But it’s like being caught in a web. The more I hack, the more I get twisted up, the more I need to cut away.
The more my heart feels like it’s about to burst past my ribs.
Another break in the Mist reveals Raeve in the eye of a red storm of soldiers. Teeth bared, she swings through the chaos like she’s made of wind, her hair a black slash in her wake.
All around, folk fall to the briefest touch of her blades, blood spurting from severed arteries while I continue mutilating the net. Others choke on minced lungs bulging past their lips, hands clawed at their throats, weapons forgotten as they collapse in the mud.
The way she moves … It’s a deadly dance of precision that sends a chill crawling up my spine.
A body doesn’t move like that unless it’s lived and breathed too many battles.
Too much death.
Another sheet of mist sweeps in and blocks my view, and I rage like a dying ember—slashing at my tangled confines.
More clanging. Gurgled screams that taper. The air pressure begins to loosen so much I worry sound is slipping through—
Raeve’s voice lilts through the chaos, tugging the drawstring tight again.
The mists whip away.
It feels as though I’ve turned this dagger on myself and shoved it between my ribs at the sight of Raeve almost directly beneath me, on her knees, arched backward. Eyes bulging as she paws at her chest. Like something’s ripping her up from the inside out.
A soldier ambles to his feet behind her. He binds a deep gash in hisneck with his bloody hand, stumbling forward, fist clenched around the hilt of a small dagger.
I roar Raeve’s name so loud I taste blood.
With another violent slash of my blade, the net releases me. I drop like a rock, landing on the advancing soldier.
His body crumbles beneath my heft.
So much volcanic rage pounds through my veins that my vision blurs, my movements a feral thrash that barely feels real until I find my hands on either side of the soldier’s helmeted head.
The red metal implodes in my grasp, collapsing with such force his eyes burst from their sockets, chased by a gush of gore.
I loosen my grip, letting him fall to the mud.
Rise onto my knees.
Heaving breath, I lift my head and look straight into wide, glacier eyes. Find Raeve no longer knotted in pain, but loose and gaping at me. Defenses down for a split moment before she slams those walls back in place, scrambling to regain her composure.
But I’ve alreadyseen.
There’s the distanttwang-twang-twangof pins being shot—
