Page 58 of Reborn
“I don’t know,” Gullie said.
“Can you reach Melina?”
“I… Ican’t.”
“Fuck. What does that mean? Is she telling the truth?”
“Don’t listen to her,” said Radulf. “She’s lying. Even from here I can smell it.”
“How can you be so sure?” I asked.
“I just am. You have to trust me.”
A gust of cold air tore through the valley, almost knocking me off my feet. After I straightened out, I turned my head to the side. “Gullie… anything?”
“No,” she groaned. “Why can’t I reach her?!”
“Because they’re with me,” Malys said. “I can give them back to you, though. Safe. Unharmed. I can even promise your friends a charmed life in my new kingdom. All you have to do is come with me, Amara. Let’s finish what you started.”
Even though Gullie was small, she was standing so close to my ear I could hear her frantic little heartbeat racing like it was going places. She was nervous, and worried; scared that her wife was locked in some dungeon, waiting to be rescued. If Malys wasn’t lying, then my grandmothers were there, too, and so was Tallin.
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?” I yelled.
“You don’t,” said Malys, “But my offer is about to expire. If you and your brother don’t come with me, I’ll tell my men to execute one of your friends. It’ll be slow… they’ll suffer.”
I swallowed hard, my heart pounding against the sides of my neck. The air was getting thicker, lightning crackling above us, thunder rolling closely behind. Malys stood across from me, waiting for my answer, but I knew she wouldn’t wait long. If she was lying, then this was a trick to get me to surrender. If she wasn’t, then I had to believe she would hurt my friends, my family, if I refused.
I had no reason to believe she was lying, because so far, she hadn’t—not once. I had been tricked, manipulated, and used, but not lied to, and the look on her face was the look of a person who was serious about her threats. Her mistake, though, had been to come out here alone… and my mistake was taking too long to answer.
“Time’s up,” Malys said.
“No wait, wait!” I yelled, but Malys raised her hand toward the sky and sent a crackling bolt of lightning hurtling toward the clouds. The sky churned and darkened further, the gust of wind encircling suddenly became like a hurricane, roaring as it tried to push us around.
Then lightning struck the ground next to Malys, kicking up another hail of rocks and ice, and where it struck and the dust settled, a figure remained. Where Malys herself was slight and draped in black clothing, this figure was tall—easily twice her size—and white all over. It had long, gangly arms that almost reached the floor, its body was covered in thick fur, and it had these two huge, darkened eyes that looked absolutely monstrous.
“Wenlow…” I breathed. “She has Wenlow with her!”
Just as I managed to say the words, more lightning struck, delivering another one of these wretched creatures to Malys’ side, and depositing two more on our side of the valley. The spray of rock and ice, and the force of the impact, was strong enough to send me flat on my ass. When the dust settled, I found myself staring up at one of these creatures up close, and my entire body froze.
I had never laid eyes on a single Wenlow, let alonefourof them. Any one of them had the power to maim us, but with this many around us, our chances of survival had just dropped through the floor. My brother didn’t seem to care for the odds, because in an instant, he was in his wolf form and hurling himself at one of the beasts.
I tried to scream for him to stop, to retreat, but he didn’t listen. He clamped his powerful jaws around the arm of one of these creatures and dragged it to the ground, despite it being much larger than he was. When the first creature fell, the second one surged into action, racing toward my brother with supernatural speed. Across the way, Malys was already heading toward us, levitating gently through the air with the other two Wenlow in tow.
“Valerian!” I yelled, and Colbolt reared, stamped the ground, and charged. Valerian raked his sword across the back of the Wenlow charging toward my brother, but he only managed to make it angry and goad it into attacking him instead doing any actual damage.
I rose to my feet and scanned the battlefield. We were outnumbered, outmatched, and we had nowhere to go, but I had to dosomething.
“Gullie,” I said, “Go with Valerian—I’m going to try to draw Malys away; it’s me she wants.”
“How are you going to do that?!”
“I don’t know! Just go!”
Gullie buzzed out of my hair and shot over to Valerian, who still had one of these wretched creatures on his tail. I turned around to face Malys, who was already almost over to our side of the valley. “Hey!” I screamed, “Leave them out of this—it’s me you want!”
“Your time is up,” she said. “I believe I promised to kill one of your friends—I intend to do so, slowly.”
“I’m not going to let you do that.”