She dances toward the soldier, flicks around with a lash of her gusty hair, and slaps him so hard he pelts off the path like a tossed stone. His dense scream is short-lived as he plummets through the mist, and my hands are already moving, sinking a blade into the eye of a nearby soldier before he even has a chance to process what he just witnessed.
Blood sprays, dousing the colk—nonchalant as she chews cud.
Kaan manages to get Noeve sheltered behind the cart, just powering back into the throng when hissing words streak at me—
I whip around, seeing the green-eyed soldier has a weald open, flames heaving from the tip.
They ribbon toward me like a lashed rope.
Kaan leaps from a spear of stone punching up from the ground, seething through a sentence that veers the flaming threat before it has a chance to snap at me, instead wrapping around the male who charmed it into existence.
Heignites.Becomes a towering inferno of bloodcurdling screams.
I avert my gaze as the rope of flames tightens so much he rips in two. Like Ignos just took both halves in his flaming fists andtore.
More blood sprays.
The smell of burnt flesh fills my nostrils, but I stuff my feardown.Hone it into a weapon of freshly forged rage, then jerk another dagger free, opening my mental sound snare far enough to welcome Bulder’s song.
“RUTHIN UT AHN, ATAH!”
The words leave a grated trail, like I just vomited shafts of stone. Probably because I forgot to tighten my neck muscles first.
Four wonky spears shoot from the ground, up through the guards stationed on the gate’s far side, plowing through bodies to the tune of gurgling screams and choked, wet breaths. In the same instance, Kaan launches forward and hacks into the neck of a male surging toward me, sword raised. One hefty swipe that looks so effortless, yet it’s enough to leave the male’s head wobbling.
Toppling.
It barely hits the ground before Kaan boots it with such gusto it rolls all the way to the edge and plummets into oblivion. The soldier’s body falls to the ground between us, armor clattering.
I turn, scanning the mess of skewered and hacked-up bodies dashed across the path, bleeding out into the muddy snow—some still twitching through their final motions.
We got them all.
Heaving breath through my grated throat, I see Kaan’s hood is shoved back, his face sprayed in blood that’s dripping from his beard. He looks straight into my eyes, and the fierce intensity of his molten stare almost knocks the wind from my lungs.
I stuff my blades away. “This was much more enjoyable than being stabbed to death in a feather sack.”
He grunts, moves toward another lifeless corpse, and smashes his sword through his neck, splashing himself in more blood. “You shaped spears,” he says, jerking his chin at my handiwork on the other side of the gate.
I scowl at them while Kaan continues his ceremonial decapitations, no two spears the same size or thickness. One was way off course, impaling a soldier straight through the base of his skull.
Guess my coordination still needs work.
I point. “I was aiming to shaft him up the ass until it burst out his brain. I’ll try harder next time.” I turn away before Kaan has a chance to respond, scanning the heavily runed, veryclosedgate. “I hope Ahvi can break us through that.”
His muffled voice comes from the cart. “No problem!”
Wonderful.
Noeve’s clambering back up, having already grabbed her stolen bloodstone and pieced the seat back together, lined with the only cushion that didn’t end up covered in muck. Kaan and I manage a single step forward before she whirls around, spearing us through with a storm-cloud stare.“No.”
We stop.
A skein of waterthunksonto the ground, chased by another, before two brown cloths dash through the air and flutter to our feet.
“Rinse first.”
I’m about to argue when Kaan shakes his head in warning, drops to a knee, and gathers the supplies. “She’s more likely to boot you off the Path than she is to let you on like that.”
