Page 85 of Crown of Darkness
Curse it. I need to be heard.
There’s a spell my mother uses when she’s speaking before the court. Few know what she’s doing, but she can modify her tone so it either cuts like a sibilant whisper, or is loud enough to send her border lords to their knees.
It’s not something I’ve practiced.
My childhood taught me to amplify voices so I could hear what was being said several rooms over, but not how to amplify my own voice.
Maybe I can twist that spell somehow?
I scramble up on top of a shoe shop and quieten all my senses. Instead of reaching out, I reach within and feel my magic brewing.
“Evacuate to the castle!”
The words tear from my throat and vibrate through the air. Bells shatter. Birds squawk. Baylor winces, clapping his hands over his ears. The spell shreds my throat and nearly sends me to my knees, but I know everyone in the Old Quarter heard me. Possibly everyone in the city. Coughing blood, I try to croak something else, but my voice is gone.
Curse it. That will have to do.
Fae flee in all directions, but I see heads turning, looking for the castle.
“Go!” I mouth silently.
Above me, a shuddering groan of rock indicates another fracture of the dam walls. A black shape forms, elegant wings flaring wide. Fae stop and point and my heart is in my throat as I watch Thiago strain to contain another explosion.
Fire blooms, but he vanishes it in a whirl of darkened shadow.
It’s like what he did with the library. The explosion is somehow contained, its damage swallowed by those clouds of darkness.
“The prince!” someone points.
“He has wings,” another cries.
Thorns erupt through the cobblestones of the street like some sort of monstrous bramble-creature that’s clawing its way up from the underground.
One of them lashes out and snatches up a butcher. He vanishes with a scream, swallowed whole by the chasm. And suddenly fae are moving again, fleeing in terror.
What sort of attack is this?
Baylor meets the next blow, but a thorn lashes out and wraps around his waist. It hauls him inside the crevice.
“Baylor!” I whisper hoarsely, leaping into the street with my daggers in hand. The brambles whip and writhe, snatching an older female off her feet and dragging her toward the gaping chasm.
Lunging forward I drive both daggers through the thicker, fleshier part of the bramble and a hissing screech echoes.
“Take—”my hands. My voice dies in a croak, but the female clutches at me and I haul her to her feet. A shove in the back sends her limping into the flurry.
And then a fae warrior is thrown up through the crevice, as though the bramble-creature tossed him.
He lands lightly on his feet in the middle of the street, and before his red cape has even finished swirling, his sword clears its sheath and slices a man’s head from his shoulders.
Gold-plated armor. Red cloak. The crown of thorns emblem on the pommel of his sword.
An Asturian warrior.
Mother.
And not just one of her guards, but one of her elite, hand-picked Deathguard, judging by the blank gold mask that covers his features.
A two-pronged attack—one group no doubt sent after the walls of the dam, and the second sent into the city to create as much havoc as possible.
