Page 103 of Twisted Bonds
I want to scream at her to run away, to fall back to the castle. But there’s no time. A hand grabs my shoulder, pulling me flat to the stone ground beneath my feet. Amirah lies flat on her belly, eyes wide with fear and pain. “There’s too many. We don’t have enough people to hold the wall. They’ve breached the Western Gate.”
“Where’s Elora?” I shout, my heart surprisingly still. Looking around, I can see what she means. The wall is crumbling in places already, knocked down by blasts of magic and debris flung from trebuchets. But Elora will know what to do. How to keep fighting.
Amirah’s gaze holds mine before she shakes her head. “She went to help reinforce the Western Gate before it fell. I don’t-” Her voice cracks as she trails off, refusing to meet my eye any longer.
My lungs seize up for only a moment, unable to take in air. Panic knocks inside my head, trying to claw its way in, but then a sense of eerie calm envelops me, almost like the impending certainty of death has finally brought me peace.
I can’t believe how steady and commanding my voice is when I announce to those around me, “Grieve for the dead later. Fall back into the city. Get the young and the old into the castle and clear the streets. Form small attack parties hiding throughout the city ready to ambush his forces. Let’s surround him.”
My determination burns bright like a raging fire, refusing to be extinguished by doubt or fear. I will protect those I love no matter the cost. My eyes turn to Lisa once more, and I mouth one word to her. Run.
For a moment, I see the defiance lingering in her gaze, the desire to help me. But she can’t help me now, despite so many times in our friendship where she’d held me up and kept me going through the hard parts. I can finally return the favor and take care of her instead. Finally, she nods and turns to follow a soldier who volunteers to oversee the evacuation of those unfit to fight.
We climb to our feet, and Amirah nods to me in respect. For the first time since meeting her, we are equals. Not a guard and her charge. Not a fae and a lowly human. Two women desperate to protect. She crosses her fist over heart, the official salute of the royal guard. “Until our last breath.”
Without waiting for a response, she turns to bark orders at the soldiers around us. I stare at her back for the space of a moment before going in the opposite direction to do the same, muttering to myself along the way.
“Until our last breath.”
fifty-two
Callum
Twenty-two. That’s the number of soldiers we were able to fit into the portal that finally opened where Tairyn said it would be. Cor’than was not easily convinced the passage was safe, but he sent the rest of his army to walk back to Valenfall with orders only to stop to water the horses.
We pause to catch our breath after running at full speed from where the portal dropped us a few miles away. As we crest the hill and pass through the tree line and set eyes on the city of Valenfall, twenty-two feels impossibly small.
“Gods help us,” Cor’than whispers under his breath beside me. He’s not the only one to gasp or curse at the sight of several breaches in the city’s fortifications. Like a colony of ants tearing into a much larger but vulnerable prey, they swarm the city from all sides. Huge swaths of black move and undulate as the main gate now opens for the bulk of the forces left outside.
I glance at Tairyn, his brow furrowed in deep thought. Bruises and cuts still dot his face, despite Bobble’s hasty healing. He’s already calculating, planning. His fingers tap on his thigh, a sure sign that he’s deep into his scheming mind.
“No god is going to save us now,” he quips behind me, his voice carrying an edge of insidious rage. I stop myself from murmuring my agreement.
“What’s the plan?” Bobble asks, eyes darting between Cor’than and the Shards. “Twenty-two channelers isn’t going to be enough.”
His voice is edged with panic and for the hundredth time, I sense the bond to Mira. Still alive. When we all felt her grow calmer, more focused, earlier we thought maybe we’d made a mistake. But seeing this hopeless scene unfold across the meadow, I can only imagine what she’s doing in there to stay so composed.
Tairyn clears his throat, eyes on the blades of grass beneath his shoes, before meeting my eye. “Twenty-one.” When we question him, he reluctantly says, “I broke my bonded bargain when I let Mira leave. I have no Chroma.”
The news hits me like a pile of stones, leaving me stunned and reeling. He’s supposedly the strongest of us all. A chorus of interjections, arguments, and accusations fly through our tiny group. But he remains silent. His once confident stance now crumples under the weight of the city before us.
“We have the advantage of surprise. And by the looks of those explosions in the city, there’s still a resistance fighting them. We’ll flank them from the rear, a battle of two fronts. It’s our best chance.”
Cor’than nods along with Tairyn’s assessment before adding, “Once we’re in the city, we’ll find our allies that are still fighting and join them. There’s hope yet. Most of those creatures will not be able to touch the source.”
Sunder growls, “Enough talk. Let’s move.”
But before we can descend the hill, a huge column of inky black Chroma bursts from inside the city straight to the heavens above. I shield my eyes as I stumble backwards, like lightning striking at my feet.
The screams in the city are so loud, we can hear them over the rumbling ground. Then the world goes silent.
“It’s happening,” Tairyn says, barely above a whisper. Or maybe he screamed it. I can’t tell. Time stands still.
The midday sky rips like a popped seam. White, fluffy clouds disperse as if running in horror. The sky fractures, a tear in reality itself, and the air reverberates with an ear-splitting crack. A torrent of energy shoots through the tear, hitting the city below with such force it makes my teeth rattle.
This is nothing like the enchanting Chromatic shimmer of a portal opening the pathways between realms. The air feels thick, like the gaping hole is oozing a sense of wrongness into the world.
Heavy rain drops the size of squirrels begin to fall around us, splattering with a noise that is more like a cry for help than a splash. Only after I blink my eyes, catching one of these drops with focus, do I understand what is happening. Before I can even react, an enormous, deformed face appears in the sky over the city. A booming voice surrounds us, as if coming from everywhere and nowhere all at once.