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There were two of them.
My brain went blank.
“I thought you said you could handle things back there,” Efridis said.
“I can.” It was strange to see such an expression of contempt on Louis-Cesare’s features.
And even more to feel his boot slam down on my neck.
“Then what is she doing here?” Efridis regarded me mildly. There was no contempt on her features. There was no anything. Somehow, that was more chilling than Alfhild’s open hate.
Efridis did not hate.
Efridis was indifferent.
Like her voice when she said, “Kill her,” and then turned away again.
“No!” Caedmon yelled, but nobody listened.
And then Louis-Cesare’s sword was coming down, hard enough to bisect stone—and flesh and bone and everything else. . . .
Only, it didn’t. It bit into the rock close enough to my back to slice through my little black dress, but didn’t touch actual flesh. For a moment, I just lay there, in a crumpled heap, barely conscious because of blood loss, and not even daring to breathe.
But there was no second stroke. Louis-Cesare walked off, his eyes on the vista outside and the giants headed our way. I stared after him, through half-closed eyes, and tried to think past the agony in my leg and my steadily slowing heart rate.
Louis-Cesare might have distracted Alfhild long enough to spare me, but I was going to bleed out in a minute anyway.
Maybe less than a minute, because the pain was already diminishing, and a pleasing feeling of warmth was spreading through me. I’d heard that people felt that way when freezing to death, mistakenly believing they were getting warmer, when the opposite was true. And although I knew the stone was bitterly cold against my wet clothes, it didn’t feel that way. Not that I was complaining.
Death was nicer than I’d thought.
And then somebody had to ruin it.
“Dory!”
It was barely a whisper, more a susurration of breath than anything else, but it annoyed me. Like a buzzing insect that wouldn’t go away. I wanted to swat at it, but for some reason I felt like I shouldn’t move. Why shouldn’t I move?
I couldn’t remember.
And then that warm feeling was back, only with a vengeance. It wasn’t warm this time; it was hot—to the point that I almost yelped in pain as what felt like a miniature lightning bolt went through me. And jolted me out of the fugue I’d slipped into.
I blinked around in confusion.
And saw Caedmon staring at me.
Okay, that explained why I hadn’t bled out, I thought. And then I realized that he was whispering something. I tried to pay attention—I tried hard—and it gradually got easier.
“—by the wall. Preferably more than one.”
I squinted at him. And finally realized that he was waiting for an answer. “What?”
He looked frustrated. “I know you’re in pain, and I am sorry for it—truly, I am—but I need you to concentrate. Please.”
“Okay.”
“There are crates of weapons—do you see? Along the far wall?”
I gazed around. I saw the crates—our missing weapons, I guessed. But they were dwarfed by piles and piles of bones. There were thousands of them, maybe tens of thousands. I stared at them blankly, wondering how I’d missed that. And why I felt so sick.
