Master of Iron (Bladesmith #2)(75)

Anyone who threatens me and my family will face my hammers.

I don’t hesitate before I swing, but that doesn’t mean I like it.

I like even less that I’m getting better at it.

“On your right,” Kymora says, and I spin just in time to see a soldier charging at me. I catch him with Echo, send him sprawling to the ground on our side of the wall. His arms and legs land at angles that make them useless.

And then I hear a large crash. The splintering of wood and clanking of metal. The grunting of men and cries of others.

I realize with horror that they made it through the gate.

“Get the prince out of here!” Kymora shouts. “Hurry, before they overwhelm him.”

I spin to find Tazar already hauling Skiro away, Petrik helping.

“It’s not over. We have to—” Skiro starts.

“It’s done,” Petrik says. “We have to get you through the portal now!”

Kymora narrows her eyes at the word portal, but she says nothing about it. She’s distracted by a fresh batch of men climbing over the wall.

I go to help her, but a hand on my arm stops me from moving. I spin with my shield and stop just in time as I register Kellyn.

“You can’t just grab me when we’re in the middle of battle!” I scream at him.

“Sorry, but we have to go.”

“But Kymora.”

“Has done her part. She bought us more time. The prince promised her freedom. It’s time to let her go.”

“No!”

Kellyn drags me down the steps of the wall, stopping at intervals to fend off an advancing soldier.

“Duck!” I shout, and he obeys as I bring up Echo and send a soldier flying backward.

“We can’t just leave her behind!” I say, picking the argument back up, even as we begin running once more.

“What else would you have us do? Bring her? How in the world would we force her to do that? And you can’t break Skiro’s promise to her.”

“I made no such promise.”

“So you’d rather, what? Stay here, attempt to kill her, and then die when Ravis’s men surround you?”

I hate this. Hate that he’s right. Hate that there’s so much happening, so much chaos. This is the literal opposite of being alone and safe.

“Surely you want to see Temra make it through the portal?” Kellyn asks at last.

He knows just what to say to get me to move faster.

We plunge into the palace, Skiro and Petrik so far ahead of us they’re already out of sight. Kellyn and I dispatch more soldiers along the way, making for the stairs.

And then Kellyn looks over his shoulder. I see his eyes bulge before he pulls me into some darkened nook between a bookcase and the space under another set of stairs.

My heartbeat pounds in my ears, and sweat drips from every pore. Still, Kellyn covers my body with his, shoving us into the corner of the space, blocking anything running by from seeing me. There’s nothing heated in the gesture. This is survival. I cover my mouth with my hands to dampen my labored breathing. I’m nearly overwhelmed with the dried blood taste on my skin.

Frenzied footsteps sound everywhere in the palace, but I immediately register the loudest sets, which come to a halt when they reach a loud crescendo that can only mean they’re right next to our hiding place.

“You’re telling me you bargained your freedom for killing dozens of my soldiers?”

My body tenses at Ravis’s voice.

“You should have waited for me before attacking. I would have spared the loss of so many of your men.” I’m even more shocked to realize it’s Kymora responding.

“You caused the losses!”

“And had I been on the right side of the wall, the loss would have been entirely on Skiro’s side.”

“I didn’t have the time to wait around for you. You were gone for weeks! I thought you were dead.”

Kymora scoffs. “I’m not killed so easily.”

“Just captured and dragged about Ghadra by a bunch of adolescents.”

“I heard the same adolescents got the better of you. Wiped out you and your entire regiment of soldiers with a single sword.”

“It’s that damned smithy. When I get my hands on her—”

“You will do nothing. We need her.”

“Like hells we do. We have the superior numbers. I’m done trying to get anything out of that lady smithy.”

“She only needs to be handled carefully and given the right motivation. She won’t get the best of us again.”

“Because she’ll be dead.”

“Ravis, use sense. Even once you have the throne, you need the resources to hold on to it.”

“That’s what you’re for. I reinstate you as general over my armies. I rule as king. That was the arrangement. Not my fault you butchered the plan by detouring and wasting time with that magical smithy. If you’d only joined your men up with mine sooner, the world would already be ours.”

“Instead, you took Elany and my men for your own,” Kymora says, her voice dropping dangerously.

“They needed money to feed their families. I offered them jobs,” he says in defense of himself. “What’s done is done, but I’ll not let you bungle this up again. The smithy dies. Her friends die. And my brother will spend the rest of his days in prison.”