Page 26 of Fractured
“Promise me,” he said, and when I tried to push him again, he grabbed my face in his hand and stopped me. “Promise me that you’ll run.”
“I promise I’ll run with you when we make sure nobody’s left behind.” It was the only promise I could give him because it was the only promise I could make sure to keep.
Cursing under his breath, Rune closed his eyes for a moment and let go. “Stay close to me,” he finally said, and pulled a large silver sword out of his shadow pocket. “At all times.”
“I will,” I promised him, and by the time the next scream pierced through the cave, we both jumped into the wall of darkness side by side.
Not entirely sure what I was expecting to find, but the cave looked much different now. Fires burned everywhere, real ones, and no fae lights were floating about except for the one over my head that had taken on the shape of my bird. The dogs were barking, all four of them, and Merenith and Hessa and all the others were by the cave’s entrance fighting fae wearing golden armor with swords and knives and magic, while the ground shook and groaned like the mountain wasthreateningto collapse on our heads.
“We’ve been compromised!” Merenith called when she saw us running, as if we couldn’t see it for ourselves.
But the soldiers couldn’t break through more than two at a time because the entrance was too narrow, and so far, it seemed the others were able to keep them off with magic and weapons. Six Seelie soldiers were on the ground already, not moving, possibly not breathing—but more would be out there. Many more.
Only when I saw them sprawled all over the rocks didreality truly hit me—Lyall had really found us. He knew we were in here, and now we were trapped.
But…
“The exit,” Merenith said. “We block this path and we take the exit.”
I had no fucking clue wherethe exitshe spoke of was, but Rune seemed to understand what she meant because he stopped running when we were still ten feet away from the crowd, and he grabbed my arm to stop me, too.
Merenith stepped back and Acul the Ice fae took her place in front of the entrance. Merenith’s eyes were wide open and she only looked at Rune when she threw away the daggers she’d had in her hands, the blades as big as my forearms.
“Together,” she said, breathing heavily, blood on her left arm and cheek, her blonde hair undone and all over the place.
She looked like a completely different person with that wild look in her eyes.
“Together,” Rune said with a nod, then turned to me. “We will block this entrance just long enough to get out the other way.”
“What other way?” I asked, fingers numb with all thatcoldthat was constantly moving down my arm and to my hands.
“Move it, bastard!” Hessa shouted from ahead as she spun around with her sword raised and cut off the head of the guard who’d been in front of her.
Cut itright off,and the head flew and hit the wall, then rolled and rolled on the floor…
Bile in my throat.
“There’s another exit that leads out into a forest near the shore. We can hide in it until they leave,” said Rune,pulling me behind him. “Merenith knows the way. We just have to follow. Stand back for now, Wildcat.”
He sounded so calm now, not at all panicked, and I envied him for it. “I can help,” I said, while Hessa screamed, “Any time now!”
“Not now,” Rune said, and that look in his eyes was so final. “Stand back.”
I did.
God help me, I moved back and watched as he and Merenith raised their hands toward the entrance where more and more soldiers were coming, and more magic was being thrown like fucking bombs against the men and women trying to keep them back.
“On my mark!” Merenith shouted, just as blinding white light brightened up her hands and grew at the same speed that Rune’s ball of shadows did.
I stood back and I was sick to my stomach seeing the bodies and the blood, and hearing the sound of metal clashing against metal, the body pieces falling and rolling on the cave floor.
Then, everything was gone.
“NOW!” Merenith screamed at the top of her lungs, and both her light and the darkness coming from Rune’s hands shot forward right where the soldiers were coming through.
The others, all that was left of what they’d called theBroken Crown,jumped to the sides and against the floor to get away a second before the Seelie and Midnight magic crashed against the hole in the wall and against the four soldiers who’d just made it inside with lights of their own in their hands, ready to attack.
They never got the chance.
