Crush the King (Crown of Shards #3)(48)
I tightened my grip on my blade and watched them come, trying to figure out how to kill at least one of them without letting the other attack my blind side. But they were coming at me from two different angles, and I was at risk of either getting incinerated by the magier’s fire or clawed to pieces by the morph’s talons—
An idea popped into my mind. I stared at the fire sparking in the magier’s hand, then at the morph’s talons. Maybe I didn’t have to get close to kill them. Maybe I didn’t have to touch them at all.
It was a risky plan, but I forced myself to stop moving and widen my eyes, as though I were suddenly overwhelmed at the thought of facing two enemies at once.
The magier took the bait. She screamed in satisfaction and hurled her magic at me. After all, a stationary target was so much easier to hit than a moving one. The ogre realized that the fire was on its way, and she skidded to a halt.
The magier had put even more power into this ball of fire, and the flames burned bright and hot as they shot through the air like an arrow zooming toward a target.
But she wasn’t the only one here with magic.
I reached for my own immunity, pulling my power up, up, up, and then pouring it down, down, down, so that the invisible strength of it coated my hands, along with my tearstone sword. Then, at the very last moment, right before the magier’s fire would have slammed into my chest, I snapped up my sword and used the flat of the blade, along with my immunity, to bat the fire away from me and directly into the ogre morph.
My theory was right—a stationary target was so much easier to hit than a moving one.
The fire punched into the ogre’s chest, and she lit up like an orange fluorestone—this tall pillar of intense light and heat. The ogre might be strong, but she was still susceptible to fire. She screamed and screamed and slapped at her body with her hands, trying to snuff out the flames, but they washed over her with incredible, unstoppable force, and it was already too late.
Her hoarse, pain-filled shrieks abruptly cut off, and she crumpled to the ground. The fire kept burning her body, though, the flames hungry for every morsel of meat and bone they could consume, and the stench of her fried flesh and singed hair hung in the air like a cloud of death.
My stomach roiled, but I focused on the magier, who was already summoning up another ball of fire to throw at me—
Blue lightning streaked through the air, slamming into the magier’s chest and knocking her back against one of the wooden carts—and the fishing spear lying on top of it. The metal spear punched through the magier’s back and all the way out her chest, killing her instantly. The burning ball of magic slipped through her fingers, hit the ground, and exploded against the front of the cart, which was filled with fresh fish. The magier’s fire instantly charred the fillets, and the stench of the fried fish mixed with the ogre’s still-burning flesh.
My stomach roiled again, but I looked over at Sullivan.
“Highness!” he yelled. “Behind you!”
I whirled around. Another woman was charging at me. I blinked in surprise. Where had she come from? She hadn’t been part of the group stalking Serilda. I whipped up my weapon to attack her, but this new assassin must have been a mutt with speed magic because she was much, much quicker than I was.
The woman snarled and sliced her dagger across my left forearm, opening up a deep, jagged gash. I hissed with pain and staggered away. The woman executed the perfect spin move and lunged toward me again, trying to cut me with her dagger a second time.
I snapped up my sword, putting the blade in between us, but the woman was strong as well as fast, and she forced me backward. My boots slid across the slick stones, and she shoved me until the backs of my knees hit the edge of the fountain with its garish gold woman. I tensed my legs and barely managed to stop her from sending me over the rim and down into the fountain’s pool of water.
The woman snarled again, trying to use her superior strength to cut through my defenses, but I braced my heels against the base of the fountain and tightened my grip on my sword, keeping it in between us.
“Fortuna favors her ladies,” the woman hissed in my face. “And you will be ours, Everleigh Blair. One way or another.”
I had no idea what she was babbling about, or who they were, but since her dagger was inches away from my heart, now didn’t seem like the time to mention my confusion.
The woman opened her mouth, probably to hiss more dire warnings, but I snapped up my free fist and drove it into the side of her head. My unexpected punch threw the woman off balance, and she stumbled away from me—and straight into Paloma’s mace.
My friend stepped up and rammed her mace into the assassin’s back. Paloma put her considerable strength behind the blow, and the mace’s spikes sank deep into the woman’s body. She screamed and arched back, throwing up her arms and unintentionally mimicking the pose of the coined-woman statue looming above us. Paloma growled, ripped the mace out of the woman’s back, whirled all the way around, and slammed it into the base of her skull.
The assassin froze like she was a puppet and Paloma was now pulling her strings. She stared at me, even as blood welled up out of her mouth and ran down her face.
Paloma ripped her mace out of the woman’s skull and shoved her away. The assassin hit the cobblestones at my feet, blood already pooling underneath her body.
I lowered my sword and let out a breath, trying to slow my racing heart. Over the past year, I had been attacked by my fair share of assassins, but this one had come closer to killing me than most. And the strange things she’d said . . . I still had no idea what to make of those.