Grave Dance (Alex Craft, #2)(131)

I dashed forward only to be knocked back by a blast of air. Dirt and leaves swirled around me as the last remaining dragon swooped out of the sky. It landed between me and the broken circle, blocking the way. Falin grabbed my shoulders, pul ing me farther from the beast. It opened its mouth and fire fil ed the air. A wal of heat cut across our path.

Damn it.

“We have to stop the piper.” Because regardless of who was under that cloak, she was not going to dissolve my best friend.

The dragon fanned silvery wings and released another bal of fire. I dove to the right, Death and Falin at my side, and the raver and the gray man dove in the opposite direction. The air heated, my lungs burning with each panicked breath. I glanced at the destroyed circle. Hol y stil danced, and she stil looked whole, but . . . How long will that last?

“Distract it,” I yel ed over the wal of flames now separating Death, Falin, and me from the raver and the gray man.

“Distract it how?” the gray man cal ed back as I fought to

“Distract it how?” the gray man cal ed back as I fought to draw my dagger. “Think it would like a sonnet?”

As if in response, the dragon slashed at the gray man, its wickedly sharp claws slicing through the air. He dove aside, and the construct caught grass.

Now or never. I dashed forward, Falin and Death on my heels.

Falin lifted his dagger as he ran. He changed his grip as if he would hurl the dagger, but as his eyes cut over the dancers, he shook his head. “I can’t get a clear shot.”

I didn’t stop running, but sent my power ahead of me. The dancers were dead. My power recognized that fact. A dead body wasn’t a natural place for a soul. I reached through the spel that kept the bodies dancing as if it weren’t there, and the souls popped free. Five bodies col apsed, the spel releasing them now that they couldn’t fuel the ritual. A clear window to the piper opened.

We’d reached the edge of the broken circle, and Falin threw his dagger without changing stride. The blade gleamed in the moonlight, the fae-wrought steel unmarred in my grave-sight. His aim was good. Perfect. The piper looked up as the blade approached, her cloak flaring with the movement.

Then everything went wrong.

The long-coated reaper appeared. He knocked the piper aside, and the fae blade passed harmlessly through his torso. He turned, a snarl-like smile curling his lips as he focused on us.

The piper hit the ground, and the music stopped. Al around us, dancing bodies froze, dead muscles turning stiff.

They col apsed, hitting the trampled grass with fleshy thumps. Only one dancer remained standing, her red hair wild around her face and her cheeks glistening.

Hol y’s hands flew to her head, her fingers digging along her scalp. “I’m al here, right? I’m not . . . ?”

“You’re good.” I didn’t stop running. The piper was already picking herself off the ground. I shot Hol y a already picking herself off the ground. I shot Hol y a desperate glance. “Get out of earshot of that spel .”

“What about you?”

I didn’t tel her I’d be fine—that might have been a lie. My grip tightened on the dagger and a smal dog yipped. PC

jumped over a leg twisted unnatural y under a fal en dancer, and I almost stopped, my sprint cut short as a wave of relief washed through me. But I didn’t have time to celebrate yet.

“Take PC with you,” I yel ed to Hol y.

“But—”

I wasn’t listening anymore. The reaper opened his coat and pul ed a looped whip from a strap in his belt. The whip rustled as it uncoiled. He flicked his wrist and a loud crack thundered through the clearing. I faltered, my hands covering my ears without conscious thought on my part.

Then a new sound competed with the ringing in my ears.

Pipe music fil ed the night, and my body responded to the sound. No. No. I wouldn’t dance.

I couldn’t help but move, my feet leading me in a turn, a leap. And I wasn’t the only one. Falin, his teeth gritted and his hand clenched around his remaining blade, also danced. She’s playing for fae souls now. Only she wasn’t playing. The pipes played themselves, the magic coalescing in the air streaming through them.

“Rianna, why?” I cried as my legs carried me in the dance.

The piper turned, her cloak moving as she tilted her head. Then she pushed the hood back and I wasn’t staring at Rianna’s sunken green eyes and lank red hair but at the face of a stranger. Relief coursed through me, though it didn’t last.

“You should have helped me. Told me how you touched the dead. Opened realities for me,” she said, frowning at me, and I realized with a sick sense of shock that I recognized her more handsome than pretty features.

“You’re the woman from the Bloom. The one who thanked me for releasing you from the endless dance.”

me for releasing you from the endless dance.”

“Yes.” She smiled, but it was a smile cut with sadness and darkened with hate. “Trapping me in the Eternal Dance was some fool’s idea of an ironic punishment, but you freed me and soon nothing and no one wil keep me from my love.”

Her love. The reaper.

Another crack cut through the air from the reaper’s whip, but I didn’t have enough control over my body to cringe, let alone twist to see what was happening. The piper—Edana, that was what she had cal ed herself—closed her eyes, her head tilting back as magic coursed through her and the pipes. No, not just magic. An unstable gap opened behind her, the edges wavering, flickering through planes of existence.