Page 29 of A Dagger of Ice and Intrigue
I dropped low, vanishing behind the tree again, gathering more arrows in my wake and flicking the poison off them with jagged, sharp flicks of my already aching wrist, my heart a distant war drum in my chest.
The bowstring slid onto the twisted wood, ivy and myrtle still clinging to it, with enough of my curses to make Silas blush. I distantly hoped the louse had survived. Not for him. But for Clara’s peace.
Because that’s what a First Daughter did. We prayed for louses in the name of the people we loved.
I tied the stolen arrows which had tried so hard to kill me.
Now I’d become The Huntress who used them for vengeance.
Just as I finished tying the arrows with torn strands to my waist, their tips dangling dangerously near my now exposed leg, a familiar cry echoed from the maze.
Rage, hot and pure, coursed through me
I gripped my makeshift bow and delved inside the maze.
I was coming.
And may the gods have mercy on whoever attacked us–because I wouldn’t.
Chapter
Seven
ALLIE
The screams grew louder, twisting in my ears and curling in my stomach.
My breaths stuttered as I ducked behind an overturned statue of the moon goddess Lunara, the symbol of hope, her face now cracked against a rock. Dozens of arrows clinked against her sculpted breastplate as I bundled my arms and legs tightly, gritting my teeth.
Delving into the maze would not be easy.
But I needed to try.
As the arrows continued to rain, their poison scorching the grass all around me in an acrid sizzle.
No living thing could survive that.
Whoever was attacking didn’t just want us scared–they wanted us dead.
Hunting us down, one by one.
I peered through Lunara’s chipped marble crossbow as the arrow clinks turned maddening–as if they’d sensed me moving through the chaos.
The cold haze I’d forced myself into cracked as I saw Dax in the distance. I’d instructed him to keep to the shadows he’d mastered and help save the survivors out of harm’s way.
But Dax was busy fighting for his own life underneath one of the Sentinel wall bridges, somersaulting out of the way as a fiery Blood Brotherhood member flung her small blades at him. He’d torn off a curved piece from the wrought iron fence and twirled it around like his beloved sickle daggers, flicking her blades in the grass and shrubs.
But he was holding back from attacking her. During a massacre?
This was not the time to stall.
One of her blades whistled past Dax’s neck.
Close.
Too close for my mercy.
I didn’t think.
