Page 68 of The Stolen Kingdom

She spotted Eyphah pulling a woman into a wagon. Behind her, a Skylian soldier raised her sword over her head, and just as she was about to strike Eyphah from the back, Marislifted her trident, pulled back, and threw the weapon as hard as she could. The soldier turned her head toward Maris, widening her eyes just as the trident struck her on the chest.

Eyphah turned just in time to see the soldier fall dead on the ground.

“Eyphah! We must get out of here now!” Maris yelled just as another soldier moved to attack her. Weaponless, she slammed her elbow into the man’s nose, giving her enough time to run to Eyphah.

“Maris!” Eyphah pulled the trident from the corpse and handed the weapon back. She then turned to the man riding the horse attached to the wagon and snarled, “Go, go, go! Meet us as Titania! Hurry!”

The rider nodded and left with a wagon full of children and elderly. “They came out of nowhere. You were right! It was just a matter of hours!” Eyphah said, unsheathing her sword.

“That’s not important right now. Where is Melvian? I told her to meet me here.”

Eyphah shook her head. “I haven't seen her.”

Maris swallowed hard and grabbed hold of Eyphah’s arm. “Listen to me, please. I need your help more than anything right now. We need to get them out. You are the only one I trust with this. Get them out. Get them to safety and meet me at Titania.”

“You are not staying here, Maris.”

“Eyphah!”

“You can get killed!” Eyphah’s voice quivered.

Maris saw the terror on the other woman’s face. Her hand trailed up to her neck, holding the back of Eyphah’s head and pressing their foreheads together. “I had a great teacher. I will do just fine. Please. Get them to safety.”

Eyphah grabbed Maris’s forearm with a shuddering sob and gave it a strong squeeze. “Fine! Wewillsee each other again at Titania.”

“It’s a promise,” Maris whispered before releasing her.

Eyphah bowed low, jumped on a horse, and left to continue the evacuation. Maris’s only goal now was to make sure that Melvian was safe. Her bellow was drowned between the galloping horses and clashing metal. Soldiers fought to the death around her.

“Melvian!” she called out to her friend, searching around the settlement, trying to distinguish her from all the blue and black hair, but it was all a blur.

As she pushed Skylian soldiers away from her, hitting them with the shaft of the trident, stabbing them, and cracking their skulls with the back of her weapon, Marisfound Melvian outside the settlement, near the communal garden. Her friend grabbed Coral, pulling her into the wagon with the child in the young woman’s arm.

A soldier struck the back of Maris’s leg and made her lose her footing. She fell on her left knee, her eyes glued to her friend as a group of three soldiers neared her, their swords out, hungry for blood.

Maris was too far. A coldness in her soul chilled her friend’s name as she opened her mouth to scream for her again as a soldier moved his arm back to thrust his sword into her swollen stomach.

“Melvian!”

The thunderous roar didn’t come from Maris but from a Sealian man, who jumped off his horse and tackled Melvian’s attacker to the ground. The handsome man moved his sword above his head and plunged it deep into the Skylian soldier’s chest, twisting the blade, killing him. The seashell tattoo on his skin rippled over the taut muscles of his arms as he pulled the sword out of the corpse’s chest.

“Isen!” Maris called him, but he quickly moved to dispose of the other soldiers close enough to harm his mate.

Maris smiled in relief, but a knee erased her grin from her mouth. The direct strike took her by surprise. The sharp pain in her jaw drowned her senses in a piercing, high-pitched whine. Maris clumsily reached for her trident, only to have it kicked away from her reach. The world spun as another strike connected to her cheek, sending her flying onto her back.

Her eyes fluttered open, and Maris’s view of the blue sky was interrupted by another Skylian. His smile sent a shiver down her spine as blood came out of her mouth to trickle down her cheek. Maris touched her busted lip and then looked back at the soldier.

“I will remember this moment. I’ll tell them all that I was the one that got to kill the leader of the Sealian rebels.”

Maris swallowed a mouthful of blood, her body not cooperating with the dizziness. She needed to stand up. She needed to stop this man. She was about to get killed.

As the Skylian lifted his sword over his head, Maris heard a howl, and the man’s chest was skewered with a sword.

Not any sword.

Maris recognized the curve of the blade.

It was the Heaven Sword.

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