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I whirled toward his voice.
Blood splattered his face and drenched his shirt. He was breathing hard, though he didn’t look hurt. He wielded his black dagger in his left hand and a scimitar in his right. A dozen assassins pursued him doggedly.
Wendel baited an assassin, letting his enemy come close enough to swing, then parried the scimitar and lunged down the length of the blade. He drove his dagger into the assassin’s neck, splitting chainmail.
The assassin fell. Blood spurted from his severed artery.
“Wendel!” I walked through fire for him. “Come with me!”
“No.” Smoke roughened his voice. “I have to kill them all.”
“You can’t?—”
“It’s the only way to stop them.” He bared his teeth. “I won’t let them hunt you down.”
I knew what he meant. They had seen me with him.
Wendel slashed at an assassin, but his scimitar glanced off the assassin’s chainmail. He couldn’t hold them off forever.
I sprinted to grab a fallen scimitar from the ground. My hand touched the hilt.
Steel caressed the back of my neck.
An assassin was behind me. Ready to behead me.
“Wendel,” I rasped.
The flames in the ballroom soared into an inferno. Heat stole my breath away.
A dead assassin crumpled against a burning table. Wendel lunged and touched the man’s face, then vaulted onto the table. The undead assassin staggered upright, his hand clamped around a scimitar. He didn’t even have time to attack before a living assassin cut off his head.
“Wendel!” I couldn’t speak above a croak.
The scimitar stung my skin. Blood mingled with the sweat trickling down my neck.
Wendel rose from the table with menace. He kicked an enormous centerpiece of fruit onto the ground. Apples and pears rained down and rolled underfoot. The assassins stumbled back. Wendel lunged, his blades flashing. Blood splattered across the ruined feast.
The scimitar bit deeper into my neck. The assassin who had captured me shouted, “We will kill her!”
Wendel froze. His eyes found mine.
An assassin leapt onto the table behind him.
I sucked in air to scream a warning, but it was too late. The assassin bludgeoned Wendel’s skull with the blunt end of his sword. Wendel toppled from the table. Kneeling, dazed, he shook his head hard. He staggered to his feet, still armed with a dagger and a scimitar.
“Wendel!” I cried. “You can’t win. Not like this.”
“No.” He snarled the word.
The assassin behind me grabbed a fistful of my hair. He yanked back my head and bared my neck. On the ceiling, flames spread above like the glorious destruction of the heavens. A chandelier plummeted only yards away and shattered into thousands of broken crystals. Time fragmented into shards of clarity.
This was how I would die.
Like this, in a gown, in a ballroom. How humiliating.
I didn’t want to die on my knees. I didn’t want to die without a fight.
The assassin lifted the scimitar above my neck.
