Typical, Seraphina thought. This looked like a band of rebels that had heard about the warrior nuns raiding the roads to collect relics and had decided to rob them. The gate had been opened from the inside, and Idris had said the attackers had climbed the walls. They’d tried to be silent and failed. The sisters had heard them, and now they were fighting in front of the church. The vault was beneath, in the crypt.
Seraphina picked up the spear and handed it to Idris. He shook his head, horrified.
“I have a knife if I must protect myself,” he said. “But this… Absolutely not.”
She raised her eyes toward the sky. The moon was nearly full, and its silver light reflected in the show, making this night brighter than most.
“No.”
His decision was final, so Seraphina threw the spear in the woods, far from the man and woman who were struggling to get free. She did the same with the axe.
They walked into the courtyard, Rune first, Seraphina behind him, and Idris sticking to the shadows. She should’ve sent him away, but he seemed intent on being there.
The fight was on the church steps, where the sisters valiantly defended the doors. Caught sleeping, they’d risen from their beds and grabbed the closest weapons, not even bothering todress properly or put on shoes. There were maybe twenty rebels. In normal circumstances, the nuns would’ve beaten their asses and kicked them out by now, but while they fought with daggers, short swords, and sticks, the attackers used relics.
Seraphina saw how a young man, skinny and rather sickly, gripped a nun’s arm and crushed it with ease. He took another’s sword and snapped it in two, as if it were a twig, not welded metal.
A woman with light hair was stabbed in the gut. She should’ve fallen, except the dagger didn’t penetrate her skin.
From the corner of her eye, she saw someone move fast, so fast that she couldn’t tell whether they were male or female. They wreaked havoc in a cluster of nuns fighting at the bottom of the stairs. They were simply too quick for the sisters to react.
“What do you want me to do?” asked Rune.
In the dark, his eyes glowed like that of a beast’s. Seraphina hesitated. She knew that if she unleashed him on the rebels, Rune could tear them all apart in minutes. The sisters who’d saved her life and nursed her back to health were on the ground, bleeding, crying in pain, many of them with fatal wounds and crushed limbs.
“I’ll stop them without killing them,” he said, reading her thoughts.
Seraphina nodded. She didn’t want him to become a mass murderer, like Nine. Had she had her tongue, she would’ve stopped this with a few well-placed commands. No bloodshed. She would’ve simply told them to leave.
Rune walked toward the church, arms spread wide as he let out a roar. It had the desired effect, as the rebels turned on him. Seraphina saw recognition and fear on their faces. They knew what he was. A man’s voice rose in their midst.
“Take him down!”
He must’ve been their leader, because the men and women let out battle cries and attacked Rune from all directions. Nuns forgotten, he was their only target. Rune flung them off like flies. They stabbed him, cut him – he didn’t flinch. An axe lodged into his shoulder, and he simply pulled it out and threw it so hard that it landed outside the convent walls.
Seraphina spotted Briar helping a woman to her feet. She ran to them, gripped Briar by the arm, and was almost stabbed in the stomach. Seraphina avoided Briar’s knife at the last moment. Her friend’s brown eyes widened.
“Sera…”
Seraphina smiled and pulled Briar in a tight hug. Briar was confused at first. The last time they’d seen each other, they’d fought by a lake and Seraphina had injured her badly and thrown away her daggers. By the way Seraphina held her, she understood it was all forgiven.
“I’ve missed you,” Briar whispered in her friend’s blond hair.
Seraphina nodded.
Briar drew back and placed her hands on her face, her eyes falling to her lips.
“They shouldn’t have done that,” she said. “Idris told me about the thrall relic. You can easily stop this, can’t you? We need to find Mother Superior.”
Briar took her hand, then motioned at the sister she’d been helping.
“Can you walk, Mom?”
Seraphina looked at the woman with new eyes. She’d never seen her before, and now it made sense. This was Sister Margaret, Briar’s mother. They had the same eyes, the same elegantly arched eyebrows, and the same nose, with a slight bump on the bridge.
They didn’t manage more than a few steps. First, it was the howling. It echoed through the trees, carried by the wind. Thenthere was the barking. A pack of wolves burst through the gate, crossed the courtyard and jumped right onto Rune’s back.
Seraphina let go of Briar’s hand and ran toward Rune. He was overwhelmed, on his knees, trying to shake the beasts off. She screamed at the top of her lungs, but the wolves ignored her. The rebels who were still standing stepped aside and watched. It was a coordinated attack. Someone was controlling the wolves. But who?
