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A goblin.
Fear threatened to paralyze him, but Killian shot forward. His mind whirled with the implications. First, magic was real, the ancients were real, and now goblins. Everything he’d discounted as children’s tales had stood before him in mockery of his ignorance. Killian would be ignorant no longer.
The goblin rushed down the stairs, jumping onto Killian’s shoulder, trying to unbalance him as it lunged with its sword. Killian spun and kicked the monster down the steps, landing on a few cursed animals who had struggled back to their feet and were returning to the fight. Meshougi had picked up a bone of her own and bopped the goblin on its head.
The prophecies, the histories—they were all true.
As Killian looked down at the unconscious goblin, he reached down and exchanged his bone for the creature’s sword. He considered the animals around him and moved to end them. A wrinkled hand stayed his arm. “Only the goblins you must kill. Perhaps we can save some of the others from Zalina’s curses before this is over.”
Relief flooded through him, and he nodded.
A growl triggered another onslaught of creatures from above.
Ripping down another tapestry, he threw the attached rod like a spear and covered several with the flapping fabric. Using their distraction, he surged forward and knocked back several other creatures. Meshougi followed behind him, bopping a few more monsters on the head. She was singing. He swore it sounded like L’Turetian.
The fighting seemed endless, and Killian’s arms fatigued. But he had just spent months—even if those months were a dream—doing painful, useless, endless tasks. Before, he was certain he would have quit as the fight seemed hopeless. But thanks to Zalina, he was now mentally trained for this. The thought buoyed him, and he laughed at the irony.
Killian was relentless.
The coyote he was fighting stumbled at his cackle and tripped up the stairs. Killian hit him with the back of the sword on his temple, sending him to sleep.
At the top of the steps, a fox stood. He was similar to the one in his dreams who brought him to push the wheel. A gem glowed in his chest plate, and he wielded a battle ax, which he heaved toward Killian. The prince ducked in the nick of time and lunged his shoulder forward into the creature’s stomach. They both landed heavily on the stone. The monster kicked at him. Killian rolled and grabbed a small table, heaving it toward the fox. It exploded into shards of splinters that littered the floor. Eyes glinting red, and moving faster than Killian could react, the fox grasped Killian’s collar and hauled him to the edge of the parapet. Killian’s back slammed into the stone, before the fox’s inhuman strength heaved him over the edge.
His legs wheeled in open air as he clung to the fuzzy arms of the fox. The fox’s claws ripped through his clothing. They were atop the castle battlement, on the steep cliffside of a rocky mountain face. Snow covered every surface, and an arctic wind ripped through his clothes. The cliff was dizzying in its height, and fear seized him even as he maintained his grip on the creature. This was the end. The fox held him over the precipice, and all the encouragement Meshougi had offered would be for naught. There was no coming back from this fall.
Get back up.
The monster’s eyes flared red again, pulsing brightly as the red gem on his chest gleamed. In a moment of impulse, Killian released a hand. He grabbed the dagger from the sheath at the creature’s side, flipping it out of the fox’s hold. He barely caught it as it whirled in the air, the blade nicking his palm. But he twisted and thrust it into the gem in the fox’s chest plate.
The monster screamed and stumbled backward, dropping Killian as he tripped on his own feet. As Killian fell, he stabbed the dagger between the stones. The weight of his body slammed against the outer wall of the castle, but the dagger held. He pulled himself up, his head barely able to rise over the battlement edge. The fox lay on his back writhing as red smoke poured out from the gem. Shadowy goblin-like forms with gaping eyes and silently screaming colossal mouths appeared like ghosts, then disappeared into dust.
Killian slipped down the wall as his knife shifted. Sweat slicked his palm, and his grip faltered. His toes couldn’t find purchase on the stone.
Get up.
It was too hard. His muscles quaked and shuddered.
Get up.
His fingers loosened, and he hung on by his fingertips. His life depending on a single pad and a tiny dagger.
Get up!
He roared as he whipped his hand up and grasped the edge of the stone tightly. Slowly, painfully, he pulled his body upward. His fingers bent, their tips slipping into the cracks between stones. Killian groaned as he pulled his body higher and harder. He let go of the knife in a moment of desperation and leapt upward, scrambling until—finally—he caught a handhold. Using the strength he didn’t know he still had, he heaved himself on top of the parapet and rolled over it, landing hard on the stone floor.
He'd done it.
Sweaty, he panted and grinned as he lay on his back staring at the cloudy sky. The familiar putrid smell accosted him first, and then a wrinkly face popped into view directly above him and upside down.
Meshougi smiled at him and patted his cheeks. “Well done.”
His chest flooded with warmth at her words, as a clatter of footsteps and shouting drew his attention. He rose to his feet, ready for the next onslaught, but the commotion was growing louder on the other side of the battlement. Before him, the large fox spasmed and awoke. Its eyes had turned to gray.
Meshougi bent at the waist, her fingertips peaked and pressed against her forehead. She bowed just like Raela had to Jax. She murmured, “Ancient fox, welcome back.”
The fox strained to rise from the ground and blinked. His gaze took in the group before him.How long have I been cursed?he asked before stretching first backward then forward on the stones.Too long. Too long.He growled. I will destroy her and save the rest of my kin.
The fox bowed his head, then turned to face the other woodland animals. Killian noticed bracers, necklaces, bracelets, and belts on every one of them, each with a glowing stone. Each stone bore the same manipulative, possessive curse.
