This Vicious Grace (The Last Finestra #1)(108)

The wind buffeted her from every side. Warm surges from the shore met cold gusts from the sea, churned by wings into torrents. Each breath she took was wet and sharp with salt.

A scarabeo shattered above her. She dodged its frozen wingtip, but it sliced the end of her braid. A few inches of hair seemed a fair sacrifice to battle, but now her hair was loose, whipping around her face, obscuring her vision, and she didn’t have a hand free.

Tossing her head like an irritated horse, she struggled to see past the tangled strands.

Aim. Fire. Breathe.

Something brushed her neck, and she jumped, but it was only Kamaria, gathering the damp tresses, pulling loose tendrils off her face to tie back.

“I always carry extra,” Kamaria shouted over the whine of wings and clatter of weapons.

Alessa laughed. “You don’t even have enough hair to tie back.”

Kamaria nudged Nina aside to take her spot at Alessa’s side. “No, but my friends do.”

As the battle raged on, the Fontes began to falter, their power waning and stuttering, but the scarabeo didn’t stop.

Her mouth went dry, her eyes gritty with sea salt. Only a faded gleam behind the leaden cloud cover told her it hadn’t been days, and for all she knew, it wasn’t the sun but the moon.

Someone—she didn’t see who—gave the Fontes canteens, and Nina poured a bit into Alessa’s mouth so she wouldn’t have to let go of Kaleb and Josef.

Not enough, but it would do. There’d be time for water and food when the war was won.

She switched hands again, gathering the power they gave so freely, and hurled it forth to take down yet another wave of demons.

Breathe. Switch. Adjust to the new source of magic. Gather. Throw.

Over and over. Switch. Again.

The mantra inside her head drowned out the sound of battle.

Gather. Throw. Breathe.

With every passing hour, the cold fear in Alessa’s gut grew.

The scarabeo kept coming, wave after wave.

The army was drowning. Her Fontes were fading.

No more jokes or flashes of bravado to raise their spirits. No one had the strength to do anything but survive.

They couldn’t keep this up forever.

Then, through the demon-choked sky, a flash of white broke through in the distance.

“A ship!” Nina cried.

Hope on the horizon.





Fifty-One


A mali estremi, estremi rimedi.

Desperate evils need desperate remedies.



“Thank the gods,” Kaleb wheezed.

“Will they make it in time?” Nina asked.

“That depends”—Kamaria tried to pry Kaleb’s clenched hand free to take his spot, but he was too out of it to let go—“on how much time we give them.”

Josef waved for her to take his spot and bent, hands on his knees, gasping for breath.

A scarabeo buzzed above them, and Kamaria ducked, throwing her hands over her head reflexively.

Kaleb gasped, momentarily left with the full brunt of Alessa’s strength. She pulled away before it took him down.

Gathering what leftover power she still possessed, she threw it at the sky. Dozens of creatures lit up, bolts of lightning fracturing around them. Twitching, they lost altitude.

Kaleb was on his knees, face ashen.

“Hold on,” Alessa said. “Just hold on.”

Dante stepped in front of Kaleb, sword at the ready. A scarabeo swooped past, taunting, just out of reach, and he planted his feet to wait. The next time it dove, Dante’s sword sliced a wing free. The creature spun, and he slashed again, rendering the other wing useless and lopping off a limb for good measure.

Kamaria cried out as a disembodied claw sliced her arm to the bone.

Nina crouched, trying to stanch Kamaria’s wound.

Wings buzzed, too close, then a spray of something wet and sticky struck Alessa’s face.

Dante yelled, stumbled. Blood soaked his shirt, dripping onto the stone. “I’ll be okay,” he said with a wet cough. “Just need a minute.”

A minute they might not get. Alessa turned her fear into rage and fought harder.

The ship had stopped as close to shore as it could get, and one person, then another, dove from the side. Others clambered into a rowboat.

The ocean churned, violently tossing the boat and swimmers. Alessa stopped throwing lightning. Past the bursts of fire and gusting wind, she couldn’t make out who was who, but whoever was rowing was also propelling the craft with gusts of wind, and the others kept the swooping, screaming scarabeo at bay.

Kaleb’s grip was slick; he kept slipping away. But Josef and Nina grasped Alessa like a lifeline.

Alessa gathered their power once more, flinging a blast of cold that tore a massive chunk from the swarm.

Nina cried out in pain, but Alessa couldn’t stop to see what had happened.

She needed to buy them time. Precious minutes for the other Fontes to make it up the peak, for Dante to heal. Time.

She didn’t have any.

The rowboat was drifting back out to sea, and figures ran, high-kneed, through the shallows, bursts of light and swirls of ice blossoming above them. Small and ineffective compared to what she could do with their gifts, but it kept the creatures away.

So close. They were so close.

The first swimmer to reach the shore held up her waterlogged skirts to sprint up the beach. The tall figure behind her looked like Kamaria. It had to be Shomari, the traitorous brother she’d sworn would help them.