Page 44 of Staff of Nightfall

Adelaide consideredturning toward Belanger castle several times, but each time she talked herself out of it. Thinking of Nolan leveraging her parents’ lives against her made her shudder. She recalled his attack in the drawing room—his strength and speed, the lust and determination in his eyes—and fought a wave of nausea. Regulus would get them out.

After a couple hours, she stopped to sleep at the base of a birch grove. Every little sound put her on edge. The hard dirt felt more uncomfortable without Regulus’ arms around her. She tossed in the prickly grass and woke from a troubled sleep at dawn, horrified at her decision.

What was I thinking?Without her there to stop him, Nolan would kill Regulus. Adelaide had been so worried about her parents, so relieved and ready to thinkRegulus is a warrior, he knows what he’s doing, he’ll save them.

But Nolan was immortal.She shouldn’t have let Regulus try to take on Nolan.I should go back and stop him.And what? Leave her parents in Nolan’s clutches? She couldn’t do that, either. Regulus didn’t need to take back the whole castle. Just get her family out. But how would he even find her family? And if Nolan caught him...I have to stop him.

Adelaide mounted Zephyr and headed toward Father’s estate.He seemed so confident,part of her brain murmured.He knows what he’s doing.But she remembered Nolan snapping Regulus’ arm and hurried Zephyr on. With every mile she rode closer to home, doubt crept in. Father would want her to warn the king. She had promised Regulus she wouldn’t go near Belanger castle.

She dismounted in a thicket of trees near the road and paced back and forth.Save Regulus, risk the king and abandon my parents. Warn the king, risk Regulus.She screamed and threw a knife at a nearby pine. It felt good, so she threw the rest.

Etiros, what do I do?She pried her knives from the tree, mounted, then dismounted again. Her eyelids drooped as she rested her forehead on Zephyr’s saddle.Regulus. My parents. The king.

If she warned the king and Nolan killed Regulus, she would never forgive herself. If she returned to intercept Regulus, Nolan might catch her. Worse, if Father’s messengers hadn’t gotten through, the king would not be warned, and all would be lost.

What would Father and Mother do?Father would warn the king. Mother would save Father. She slumped against Zephyr’s side. If she didn’t warn the king, Kirven would make Nolan a duke and things would only be worse. The only way to stop Nolan was to stop Kirven. Her mistake in leaving Regulus couldn’t be undone now.

Despite her writhing stomach, she turned Zephyr toward the palace, praying Etiros would protect Regulus and her parents.

As Adelaide tracked the sun and followed the roads toward the southwest coast of Monparth, she sent Father a mental thank-you for teaching her how to navigate and to Mother for teaching her geography. She kept her hood pulled low over her face, her hair braided and tucked out of sight, and her cloak drawn about her to hide her figure despite the warm sun. Whenever anyone approached, she left the road. That cost her time, but being accosted on the road would slow her progress more.

The supplies in Regulus’ bag lasted the first day. She awoke much later than needed the second day, then had to scavenge fruit and raw vegetables from a nearby field. Every minute she wasted, she failed the king and Father.

On the third morning, she reached the royal township of Selcairn. Adelaide paused at the crest of a hill, looking over the largest town she had ever seen. Jumbles of buildings, mostly built of wood, sprawled out on both sides of a shining blue river. The narrow steeple of the township’s chapel jutted above nearby slate roofs. A thin haze of smoke obscuring half the town indicated where the greatest concentration of shops must be. At least in such a bustling place, she might blend in. Maybe she could trade one of her knives for some food.

She continued down the hill, past peasants on foot, a small black carriage with a harried-looking driver and curtains pulled over the windows, and a group of brown-clad monks singing in a low drone. A young boy tossing a red wooden ball dropped his toy and chased it in front of Zephyr. Zephyr reared, and the boy screamed and scrambled backward as Adelaide struggled to rein in Zephyr. She dismounted and patted Zephyr’s neck, calming him before tossing the boy his ball.

“Don’t run in front of horses,” Adelaide chided, her heart racing. “You could have been killed.”

The boy ran off to a nearby woman, crying for his mama. Several people stared. A few pointed and whispered. Adelaide realized her hood had fallen off, and in the excitement, she had pushed her cloak back over her shoulders. She stood in the middle of the road, the knives on the baldric across her chest and the daggers at her hips on full display. She pulled her cloak around her and threw her hood up, but it was too late to stop the stares.

Someone wearing a hooded black cloak and riding a tan palfrey had stopped on Zephyr’s other side when she turned to remount. She focused on her saddle, ignoring the spectator as she threw her leg over Zephyr’s back.

“Where is a lovely lady like yourself going alone and bristling with blades?” a man’s voice asked from under the hood. Something familiar about his voice made her pause, and she looked over.

The man looked up, his horse a little shorter than Zephyr and the man himself shorter than average. His hood shadowed the top of his face. A pale, round nose protruded over a long brown beard streaked with gray. Crimson accents stood out like blood against his layered black robes. One pale, knobby hand gripped the palfrey’s reins. Her eyes locked onto the top of a gold staff, mostly hidden under his cloak. A dark opal with hints of blue and specks of red rested at the base of a hollow oval of gold spirals. Her gaze snapped back to his shadowed face as her hands went cold. A smile tugged at the corner of Kirven’s mouth. Adelaide kicked Zephyr and the gelding shot forward.

“How rude!” Kirven shouted.

Something hit her side and launched her from the saddle. She groaned as she hit the ground. People on the road screamed and scattered. Adelaide lifted herself on her elbow and shook her head, trying to clear her double-vision as Zephyr bolted. Kirven’s palfrey trotted up next to her.

“Where were you going, she-mage?” Kirven snickered. “Or, I suppose, just girl now.”

Adelaide thrust her hands up and a blast of pale blue light sent Kirven flying off his horse. The palfrey galloped away as she scrambled to her feet and Kirven tumbled across the road. She threw off her cumbersome cloak and directed a blast of fire at him. He blocked it with a shield of lime green light before it hit him. The flames licked past him on either side of his shield as he lay on his back in the dry ditch on the roadside. She conjured a spear and threw it, then another blast of fire.Keep him down!

But Kirven stood, using the staff to help him up. He made his magical shield bigger and kept it steady against her barrage of hard light blasts, magical knives and spears, and fireballs. On the other side of his shield, the opal pulsed with a dark green glow. Kirven slammed the bottom of the staff into the ground. The road buckled and a ripple moved toward her across the ground that knocked her off her feet. The back of her head slammed against the packed dirt. Her pulse thudded in her ears and black dots danced in her vision.

“Interesting.” Kirven’s footsteps moved toward her. She blindly threw a barrage of light shards as she sat up, but his shield absorbed the shards with a soft hiss. The shield dropped in the same moment as he pointed the Staff at her, and a green blast of light exploded from the tip. Adelaide raised her own shield, but the force of the blast rattled her bones. She threw a fireball around her shield. Kirven raised a new shield in a blink.

Glowing green ropes snaked out from his free hand and curled toward her on both sides of her barrier. She expanded the shield, turning it into a dome completely covering her. The ropes stabbed at the barrier as she panted to catch her breath. Kirven let his shield fall and switched to firing a continuous stream of flames at her barrier. She knelt, chest heaving, while heat built within her little dome. Sweat soaked her neck and trickled down her forehead and into her eyes.

The barrier was getting more exhausting to maintain by the second. Worse, her dome was running out of air. Adelaide pushed to her feet, forcing the barrier into a wall. With a heave, she threw the barrier toward Kirven. He planted the staff in the ground and managed to stay on his feet. He scowled, his hood thrown back. She wanted a moment to gulp in the cooler air, but instead she heard Father’s voice.“You have an advantage, you press it. A fight is never fair.”

She charged, conjuring a sword of light and flame. Kirven recoiled. He aimed the staff at her as she swung toward him with the sword. The blast from the staff, inches away from her chest, felt like a battering ram to the sternum. She sprawled on the ground, lungs burning, unable to breathe. Nothing but a pinprick of blue sky showed in the blinding whiteness. After a small eternity, she gasped in a giant breath and rolled onto her side, coughing and panting. Her throat was raw. The whiteness faded, but black hovered at the edges of her vision.

Something grabbed Adelaide’s ankle, and she kicked it away. Green, glowing ropes raced over her arms and legs and around her neck. She tried to attack Kirven, but the ropes pulling at her wrists made it difficult. She saw the blast of magic just before it slammed into the side of her head. Her neck snapped to the side, and she knew no more.

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