Ever the Brave (A Clash of Kingdoms Novel)(97)

Seeva coughs and coughs until she can sit up. She grabs handfuls of snow, sucking the powder into her mouth.

A strange groan moves through the trees. It’s an unfamiliar sound that makes everyone pause. Seeva holds the snow in her palm, where it melts into a small handful of water.

Torima leaps to her feet and points at the trees nearby. “Run,” she shouts. “Run!”

The women rush toward the center of the field just in time. The first tree tips over, landing with a thud that scatters sticks and dirt and dust. Tree after tree falls. Our group frantically moves away from the falling forest, Cohen carrying Finn, Aodren clutching his shoulder and walking beside them, Katallia helping Seeva, while Lirra and I take up the rear.

Leif, who has snaked around the field to Jamis’s side, finds a bow from one of the fallen archers. He pulls an arrow to the string and waits for an opening.

Omar takes cover behind one of the fallen pines, close to Phelia.

“What can I do?” I ask. “Seeva, can I help you regain your strength?”

The woman allows me to help her. Clasping her hand, I try not to gasp at the warmth of her skin as I seek out her energy and push some of mine into hers. To give us time, Katallia and Lirra send gust after gust of wind in Phelia’s direction. When they take a break, Torima gathers the moisture in the air and pelts Phelia with jagged pieces of hail.

Phelia screams into the wind and hail, but somehow manages to keep hold of the girls’ arms. Obsidian veins pulse against her white-as-snow skin, shifting like a nest of snakes in the storm. The girls around her start to drop, one at a time, to their knees until they’re all wilted beside her legs.

Another groan sounds nearby. I release Seeva’s hand so I can look at the woods and see where the tree is going to fall. The tree falls, but it’s too far away to do damage to our group.

Seeva pushes to her feet, anger brightening her energy as she snaps fire into her palms. Seeva throws her balls of fire in the air, and in a move that makes me think these women have practiced Channeler combat many times before, Katallia adds a gust of wind that sends the fire straight at Phelia.

The distraction is what Leif needs to shoot off an arrow at Phelia.

Phelia’s cloak flaps out, and moments before Seeva’s fire and Leif’s arrow hit, air blows out from Phelia’s circle, redirecting the fireballs at our ragtag bunch and sending the arrow straight at Omar. It happens in an instant. The tip slams right into Omar’s chest.

While Lirra blows the fireballs into two fallen trees, the rest of us stand in a shocked trance.

Only Leif moves. Surprise slackens his mouth and makes his arm hang from the weight of the bow. “Omar?”

Oh mercy.

The captain sputters for breath and tips forward, slamming into the frozen earth. Caught in a nightmarish pendulum between Phelia and my friends, I whip around just as Leif reaches Omar. Dread turns me wooden as I watch my sweet friend fall to his knees and wail. “I didn’t mean to hurt him,” he cries. The sound of his agony breaks me.

“Kill them all,” Jamis yells at Phelia.

Phelia’s veins throb.

The world groans and shakes underfoot. I sprint for her with my weapons drawn.

The guards move to intercept me. Before I can throw my blade, a dagger flies past my shoulder, hitting a guard below the collarbone. He crumbles to the ground.

I jerk to the side.

“I’ll take the guards.” Lirra’s staccato steps catch me unaware. Her shoulders slump and her breathing is labored. She’s exhausted from using so much energy to control the wind. “Get . . . her.” Her sword is extended, though her sporadic movements spur little faith in her ability to fight right now.

She must see my indecision because she swings her blade up, pointing it at my nose. “Stop her . . . I can manage. Get Phelia.”

Without wasting a moment, I rush at Phelia. I’m expecting her to blast me with wind or an earth shake, but she allows me to come close. I swing my sword, wanting to end this with one blow. Faster than humanly possible, she releases the girls, dodges my weapon, and seizes my arms. It all happens so quickly, a heartbeat and I am caught in her grip, unable to move, sword on the ground.

I thrash, desperate to get away. Only, I’m no match for Phelia’s power.

At the smell of smoke, I crane my neck around to find fire eating across the fallen trees, trees that I only now realize have penned in all the people I care about. They’re going to burn to death or suffocate from all the smoke.

I realize how fragile they are. How easily Phelia could end their lives. How weak and foolish I was to think I could beat her. It’s too much to take in.

I close my eyes, wanting the fight, the suffering, the violation of the young girls and my friends . . . all of it, to fade away. I’m stuck in Phelia’s impossibly strong grip. Every time I try to jerk free, she tightens her hold. There’s nothing I can do to help anyone, not even myself.

I hang my head, hopeless. Will they kill all of us?

The tug that I struggled with until this last week tightens a fraction. It’s a nudge between my ribs, coming straight from Aodren. The sensation rattles my senses. I’ve grown so used to Aodren’s connection that I’ve stopped noticing it. But feeling it now, in this dark moment, brings a sudden clarity.

I just have to be close enough to the Spiriter to unravel her energy. Enat told me as much in the woods. When Aodren was under Phelia’s mind control, all I needed to do was find her at the castle, touch her to access her energy and his, then unwind it.