I’m already moving. But I’m not fast enough.
While she dodges the blade that comes at her throat, one catches her right under her ribs. As she stumbles, the third man slides his blade clean across her throat.
Ezkai Cassandra, the one instructor back at the Ezkai Academy who was kind to me, my loyal Ezkai soldier who trusted me to be the leader she was willing to serve, drops without a sound, the rain washing red across the cobblestones.
I stop breathing for a second.
Keep moving, something in me says.You have to keep moving.
So I do. I’m halfway across the yard, fighting against two Caligos loyalists, when it hits me.
A searing, tearing pain rips through my stomach so violently I stagger sideways and crash into another soldier.
My hands fly to my abdomen.
I look down expecting to find a blade, blood, something.
Nothing.
My hands are clean.
My stomach is whole.
But the pain is still there, radiating, real as anything I’ve ever felt. I dodge a punch, and then a blade coming at my throat.
Realization crashes over me like ice water.
Jax.
I spin, scanning the yard desperately. Bodies everywhere, rain and torchlight and chaos.
No, no, no.
My eyes tear across every face, every figure?—
There.
He’s on his knees by the far wall, one hand braced against the stone, the other pressed to his stomach.
A turned Ezkai stands over him, pulling a blade free.
The world narrows to a single point.
I cross the yard faster than I know I’m capable of. The turned Ezkai looks up just in time to see me coming and not in time to do anything about it.
I drive my dagger into his chest and leave it there, dropping to my knees in front of Jax.
“I’ve got you,” I say. My voice doesn’t sound like mine. “I’ve got you.”
His face is grey, hands soaked in dark. When he looks at me, his eyes are focused but only just.
Despite it, he still manages a weak half smile. “I know, darling.”
A thin line of blood trickles down the corner of his mouth.
“Retreat!” I bellow.
I get my shoulder under Jax’s arm and haul him upright. He bites down on a sound that I feel in my own ribs.
