Page 2 of A Dream Shrouded in Fury
The others fell into step with me, moving quickly and quietly—but not quickly and quietly enough.
A sharp cry halted the carriage, and the eight soldiers, four on each side, fell into formation.Their armour caught the thin moonbeams that snuck out from behind the clouds, and I followed the shine of their bared swords as they prepared to strike.
The Coynfare archers released their arrows, and the blackened shafts pierced the night.Only one struck true, but it was victory enough for us.Twenty-four against seven were odds we relished.I drew my daggers and closed in on the nearest soldier.He spotted me and raised his sword before I got close, but I ducked beneath his arm and slid my dagger between the slats behind his knee.He went down, and by the time he changed tactics, I was gone and he had an arrow in his throat.
Sweat and mist dripped over my face as I wove through the guards, and I savoured the discomfort.I was alive, which was more than I could say for Princess Brynna once we finished here.
Every once in a while, a chill ran down my back as one of the other rebels threw the shroud of their light magic over me, absorbing me into their shadows, but eventually the chaos was too frantic for anyone to keep track of anyone else.
A sword swung towards my neck, and I dropped to the ground to avoid the blow.As I did, a boot came up and landed in my ribs.The crack of bone echoed in my ears and the air burst from my lungs with a shot of pain.I rolled away from the guard and pushed myself to my feet.
“Out of the way, ledsha,” Corban barked before he shoved me to the side and swung his sword into the guard’s neck.
I looked around, and my first smile of the night formed beneath my mask.More than half the guards had fallen for nearly as many as ours, and Zath had almost reached the carriage door.We were doing it.Against all the odds, the Coynfare rebels were about to end the line of the Soldaran monarchy and ruin the life of the fae who’d ruined mine.
Shouts floated over the ebbing cacophony of battle, and I lurched around in horror as another unit of city guards—at least a dozen—tore up the road.We weren’t prepared for them.They were rested and ready for this fight, and our numbers were nowhere near enough to stand against them.
I raised my daggers and found my footing, wheezing through the agony in my side.The carriage rolled forward, taking the princess away.Zath’s grip around the door handle was tight, but a royal guard leapt on top of the carriage and swung her blade downwards, severing Zath’s hand at the wrist.He fell back, just missing being run over by the wheel, and a city guard drove his sword through the rebel leader’s heart.
Corban roared and chased after the carriage, but in his haste to get to the princess, he missed a royal guard coming up on his left.I yelled for him to watch out, but the warning had barely fallen from my lips when the guard’s sword spitted him through the chest.
A noise to my left made me turn away from the gore, and I caught the shine of moonlight-kissed steel before it slid through my gut.The grind of metal against bone when he pulled the blade free sent colours shooting through my view.I collapsed to my knees in the mud, then onto my back.Blood rose up my throat, choking me with its heavy, metallic flavour.
The royal guard stood over me and spat.“Good riddance, cockroach,” he said in rough Soldaran.“We start with you, but when we return home, we’ll stamp out every last one of you bugs.”
He slammed the heel of his foot into my side, and my vision went black.Death had finally come for me, and my rage at having failed to destroy Leonine was matched only by my relief that everything was over.The emptiness—the chill—that had lived inside me could fade, and maybe in the afterlife I would hear the music that had once brought my soul to life, the melodies that had abandoned me years ago.
Kalla
II
I stared down my stubborn fury leader, working hard to keep my fangs hidden.The last thing Thorn needed was to take my anger as evidence of some childish temper tantrum.
“If someone is fighting in our territory, we should have eyes farther out,” I said.“Finding the fighters is great, but we need to know why they’re here in the first place.”
Thorn’s grey eyes closed for the merest heartbeat, the only sign of her frustration.She leaned back in her purple-upholstered armchair and stretched her arms along the wooden armrests.The crocheted blanket draped over the back was worn and ragged, but she refused to replace it.The chair was the closest thing she’d accept to a throne, sitting on a level with several other wooden chairs arranged beside it.“The farther we are from the mountain, the greater the risk that we’re seen.You know this, Kalla.Besides, you’ve never led a scouting mission.With the danger this high, I wouldn’t send an untrained leader into the unknown.”
I bit back my retort.I was far from untrained.I’d been scouting since I was a child, volunteering for as many missions as I could.I’d peppered my mission leaders with so many questions many of them had requested I not be assigned to them.
Thorn knew that.As the leader of the Gloaming Fury, a vampiric community seventy-five members strong, there was little she didn’t know about the goings-on of her people.She was constantly assessing our strengths and weaknesses, shuffling people around based on where they’d best serve the fury.Everything to keep us safe.With vampires outlawed in Golthwaine and the Gloaming Fury only somewhat protected under the isolated, dragon-claimed Doldemy Peaks, secrecy was everything.
Which was why I knew that having strangers fighting in our territory was no small threat.If there was any possibility they might learn of our existence, we needed to deal with the survivors and clean up the mess.But we also needed to understand the bigger picture, and if it came with a chance of me travelling beyond the limits that had caged me for the past fifty years, I wanted to take it on.
“I know you feel trapped,” Thorn said, her ancient eyes filled with understanding but showing no sign of giving in.“I’ve seen it for years.Your desire to roam and see what else is out there.”The line of her jaw hardened.“The answer is nothing, child.Only death.The humans want to eradicate us from this earth, and the shifters would claim this territory in a heartbeat if they could.And what’s to the east?The fae?Bunch of tricksters who would sooner stamp us out than help us.”The same warnings I’d heard all my life, every time I’d taken any opportunity of stepping outside the boundaries of our small, contained world.“The fury has to come first, Kalla.If we don’t follow that one simple rule, we might as well doom ourselves to oblivion.”
“I know,” I mumbled.And I did.But I wasn’t asking to invite the enemy into our midst.I just wanted… more.
Thorn canted her head to look me over, then nodded across the large stone cavern we called home, towards the crevice that led outside.“You still have that secret hideaway out there?”
I didn’t have it in me to be surprised that she knew about my and Cliff’s cave farther along the mountain range.“Yes.”
“Go.Take a few days to clear your mind and sort out your priorities.When you return, we’ll discuss your scouting schedule.”
She stood and made to walk away, then stopped and set her hand on my shoulder.My muscles tensed beneath her palm.“Despite how you feel, our lives aren’t as small as you think they are.From the moment you were old enough to scout, the only skill you’ve focused on developing is hunting, but there’s more to life than death, child.”
She walked away, leaving me reeling behind her.Something other than hunting?I had lots of interests other than hunting.I had—
At a loss, I scanned my home, certain I would find something.The space the fury had carved for itself under the mountain was large enough that although more than half the community was currently browsing the market set up in the middle of the cavern, I stood alone.Candles dangled from the ceiling to light the room, and swaths of colourful fabric were strung between the stalls, providing brightness and life that countered the stretches of grey rock.
