Page 2 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
She frowns.
They aren’t miners.
They’re soldiers. Soldiers dressed in red with blue sashes, a lot of them pale skinned with hair the colour of cobwebs.
Not Haverlandian soldiers, in their crisp uniforms of green and gold.
These are soldiers from Ashvold, the kingdom on the other side of the mountain.
An invasion? But how would they ever break through the rock, especially with—
Her heart stops.
At the head of the formation, welcoming the soldiers in, stands her husband.
Her heart stops. He has done something—something awful. The mines were empty. There was no wealth to be found, no reason for an army to be here unlesshe let them in.
This was his plan all along, she realises. This was why he was mining, why he moved them here, why—
Why he married her in the first place.
There’s no time to think about that. There’s no time to think aboutanything.She turns sharply to Cassie. “Run,” she says. “Find someone—anyone. Sound the alarm. Take a horse into town—warn them what’s coming.”
Cassie stares at her, stunned, but then nods and bolts back toward the estate. Other servants are already emerging from the halls and outbuildings, drawn by the noise, by the unnatural tremor in the earth. Murmurs rise in confusion, and then fear.
Below, Drakefell looks up.
Their eyes meet, and he smiles.
A scream tears through the air.
Selene flinches, the sound slicing straight through her bones. Another follows—high, desperate. A steward staggers backward, a soldier’s blade buried deep in his chest. Bloodspills over his shirt, dark as ink. Another man swings a rusted pitchfork, only to be run through. A housemaid, barely more than a girl, is yanked to the ground by her hair.
Steel flashes. A musket cracks. The scent of gunpowder burns the air. The clash of metal on metal is drowned beneath the sickening, wet crunch of bodies hitting the ground.
Selene’s breath turns to ice in her lungs. Her limbs feel locked in place, her stomach twisting with something cold and primal. This is not a raid.
This is a massacre.
A man collapses a few feet away, his fingers outstretched, reaching for something—someone. Blood pools beneath him, steaming against the cold earth. His mouth moves in a silent plea before his eyes glaze over.
Drakefell steps over him without pause.
Run.
The word crashes through her, shattering the horror that holds her in place. She turns, skirts tangling around her legs, and runs.
The woods loom ahead. Her breath comes in ragged gasps as she pushes through the undergrowth, branches tearing at her sleeves. Behind her, chaos erupts. She does not look back.
Bang.
A searing pain explodes through her side. She stumbles, her steps faltering. A soldier grabs at her, but before he can drag her down, another figure collides with him, knocking him to the ground. A servant—one of hers. She doesn’t see who. She only sees the opportunity.
She runs.
The pain burns, sharp and relentless, but she does not stop. She cannot.
It is only when she is deep in the trees, when her vision wavers and her legs give way, that she realises the truth.
