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Hawthorn had never seen a full ogre before. They tended to live in the mountains around Winter. He’d seen them in illustrations, met the occasional half-ogre at court. They tended to be broad characters with heads a little smaller than most, but otherwise appeared to be much like other fae citizens.
But this creature was far from fae, far from human. It was almost twice his height, broader than a bear, a huge, grey, lumpy creature, like stone rendered flesh.
Juliana’s blade barely scratched it.
And it wasn’t alone.
Black shadowy creatures had descended upon the party—long, ragged limbs, wings like torn capes with shapeless faces and white, empty eyes.
Sluaghs.
Twisted unseelie creatures composed of the souls of the dead.
And there were dozens of them.
Miriam of Barth ran forward, swinging her claymore, decapitating one and streaming towards the ogre. She slashed its hamstrings, bringing it crashing down, driving her sword through the base of its neck.
“Protect the prince!” she cried.
Hawthorn stood screwed to the spot, aware of sound, of noise, of a sickening, debilitating thumping in his chest, but his muscles wouldn’t move. Hecouldn’tmove, not even when he heard his mother screaming, saw her running towards him and throwing up a wall of vines, covering him from the sluaghs.
Queen no longer, but a warrior.
And he was a statue.
Juliana dragged him round the corner of the smashed carriage, pressing him into a crevice as a sluagh flew over his mother’s barrier. Her blade glistened with black blood as it twisted through the air, slicing through shadow.
And Hawthorn stood there once more.
“Juliana!”
Markham’s voice now, shouting at his daughter as he fought his way towards her.
Something sharp and cold fastened around Hawthorn’s shoulder. A sluagh was perched above him. He let out a cry. Juliana twisted round, cutting off the hand at the wrist, dissolving the limb into flesh and shadow until the remains fell with a wet, shuddering thud. Another pounced behind her, slicing across her arm.
Unthinking, Hawthorn bolted forward, summoning fire in his fist and hurling it clumsily in the rough direction. It seared against its wing.
Juliana spared a second to blink at him before running it through.
“Juliana!” her father called again. “Run! Protect the prince!”
Juliana nodded, grabbing Hawthorn’s arm, and shoved him forward into the forest. He wasted only a second to look back, seeing his mother perched on an overturned carriage, bending the roots to her whims as the onslaught continued.
She was no longer a queen, regal and refined. She was power and chaos, nature in the shape of a woman. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look quite so terrifying.
And yet he didn’t want to run. He knew he couldn’t fight, but he didn’t want to leave.
But he knew better than to try and stay to help. His fire had barely grazed the sluagh. Swallowing his resolve or summoning his courage, he shoved aside all feeling, and bolted with Juliana away from it all, heart pounding, lungs burning, the ripping and screaming still clawing at his ears.
The forest dissolved into shapeless colour, dark and disordered, a frenzied mess of leaves and brambles. He was conscious of nothing, the sounds of battle sliding away, replaced by the demented thud of his own heartbeat pumping through his ears. Everything and nothing hurt.
They might have run for hours, slipping down banks, sliding in the mud, spoiling his silken clothes. He had no notion of time.
Finally, Juliana stilled, slowing to a stop in a ditch and resting against a fallen log. She took a few moments to steady her breathing. “Are you hurt?” she asked.
He shook his head, quite forgetting to ask about her. His words had turned to slush.
He could still hear the battle raging behind them. Was that good? It meant that everyone was still alive.
