A Vow So Bold and Deadly (Cursebreakers, #3)(90)

“Rukt,” I shout to my sleeping soldiers. “Solt! Jake!”

In the distance, a man cries out and falls, an arrow jutting from his neck.

“That was my last one,” Tycho says breathlessly, but he draws his sword.

I grab his arm. “Come on.” Arrows fill the air around us, and one pings off my armor. I’m shouting as I run back to the camp. “Solt! Jake!”

We’re not going to be fast enough. There are too many of them. Rhen’s soldiers seem to be appearing through the trees from everywhere now. Solt is on his feet, shouting orders, but an arrow slices him right across the arm. Another soldier doesn’t even make it off the ground before he takes one in the chest. My heart is pounding hard, but everything seems to be happening in slow motion, with perfect clarity. We’ll be overtaken: slaughtered or taken prisoner.

Overhead, Iisak screeches in the trees, and the air thins, turning ice cold. I hear one of the Emberfall soldiers swear. Arrows point up into the sky. A soldier intercepts me, his sword meeting mine with a clash of steel. Just as quickly, I cut him down. At my side, Tycho does the same.

Iisak slashes through another soldier before he can get close to me. A blast of cold wind flares through the woods. He screeches at me, then darts higher, just missing a throwing blade. “Magic!” he snaps.

Magic. Right.

I don’t know how I can focus on magic when swords are coming at me.

“I’ll cover you,” says Tycho.

My thoughts are flaring too quickly, impossible to settle. I once knocked out everyone in Rhen’s courtyard through magic, but I’ve never been able to repeat it. I’ve been able to shove back soldiers one by one during swordplay, but that’s one, not dozens.

But I remember the night I worked on this with Iisak, putting my power into the ground. I couldn’t cover much distance, but when I thought of Lia Mara, my magic seemed to reach for her automatically. I touch a hand to the ground. Take a breath. At my back, Tycho’s sword meets another, and I want to whip around, to join the fray. I send my magic into the ground, and it snaps back to me, unwilling. This isn’t natural. I growl in frustration. Magic isn’t automatic.

Motion flickers in my peripheral vision, and I lift my sword, but Solt is there, covering my other side.

Iisak’s screech reverberates through the woods. Sunlight paints everything in stark relief, and I smell blood on the air. I take another breath and put my hand to the ground.

Another gold-and-red-armored man appears from behind a tree, his sword aiming straight for Tycho. He only has one arm, and I’m stunned to realize I recognize him. I remember how he fought, how he wouldn’t yield even when he was exhausted and panting in the dust of the arena. Jamison’s eyes flare wide when he recognizes me, but he doesn’t hesitate.

Silver arcs in the cold air. Tycho is going to be a second too slow.

I ease my power into the ground and give it a push. Wind blazes through the trees, ice-cold in its intensity, full of snow flurries that appeared from nowhere.

Jamison is knocked back. All of the soldiers are knocked back. They’re flat on the ground, not moving. At my side, Solt is breathing hard, blood seeping from that wound on his arm. Twenty feet away, most of our soldiers are doing the same, looking stunned that the battle quite literally dropped out from under us.

I’m equally stunned. My own breathing is shaking a bit.

“Kill them all,” Solt calls in Syssalah.

That brings me back to myself. “No,” I snap. “Leave them. Break camp. They won’t stay down long.”

“Leave them? ” he echoes.

“Yes. Leave them.”

Iisak settles in the leaves near us. “Your Highness. They will be able to follow.”

“Then we need to ride fast. Let’s go.” I glance at Tycho, who’s looking stunned for his own reasons. I clap him on the shoulder. “As I said. You did well. Very well.”

“Thank you,” he says, but his voice is hollow. He sheathes his sword.

“This was a trap,” Solt snaps at me, at my back, and I look up to find Harper and Jake in the middle of the other soldiers. Her eyes are wide and frightened and angry.

“Maybe,” she says. “But I didn’t set it.” She strides forward, toward me, stepping around the bodies of Rhen’s soldiers who are lying in the underbrush. “I had nothing to do with this. Rhen had nothing to—” She stops short, looking down, and she frowns. “It’s—it’s Chesleigh.”

Chesleigh. “The spy?” I demand. “The spy who found the dagger of Iishellasan steel?”

Solt is heading toward her, too. “Rhen’s spy was among them? Wake her up. We will question her—”

“You can’t,” says Harper, and her voice is flat. She drops to a crouch. “She took two arrows. I’m pretty sure she’s dead.” She glances up at me. “I can’t believe she survived Lilith to bite it here.”

Solt and I reach her at the same time. Harper is right—two arrows jut from the woman’s chest. She has dark hair braided tightly to her head, and a scar on her cheek that I’ve seen a hundred times in the Crystal Palace.

Solt swears in Syssalah, then draws his sword and plunges it into her chest.

Harper jerks back. “Holy crap. She was already dead.”

“She deserves worse,” he snaps.