SWNOVELS Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 31
briefest silence. Moments where the words soaked into the skulls of every soul in the court of Ravenspire until they settled like jagged points and brought the screams. Women and men cried out in terror—either believing Valen to be mad or true—they fought to be free of their seats and run.
All around colors blurred. The earth shattered as Valen used his fury. I’d never seen the full wonder he was and watching the stone of the courtyard crack and mold into new shapes, new walls, new deadly pits, it was no wonder why he was called a Bender.
At my side, the cobbles of a pathway shattered and opened in a wide gash. I used the chaos to crack my elbow against Jarl’s ribs. He grunted and loosened his grip. I rolled away and kicked, trying to knock him into the open ground. Jarl was swift and caught my foot. “He’ll watch you die.”
Teeth clenched, he battled to clamber over the top of me.
“I warned you,” I panted. “I warned that you did not know the fury beyond Ravenspire. He will hate you most.”
I dragged the skirt of my gown up, reached for the knife, and jabbed. The point nicked the side of his face, startling him enough he rolled aside. I ran. Unfinished with Jarl Magnus and if fate brought me to him again, I prayed I had a deadlier weapon in hand.
I wheeled to the royal dais. My heart stilled. Calder had his hands on the person I’d been after. He held Calista by the throat and shouted in her face.
“You lied, little witch!”
“About . . . about what?” Calista argued.
“You said Ravenspire had the oldest fury! I’ll take your eyes!”
“I didn’t lie,” Calista whimpered, then in the next breath she giggled. “I just didn’t tell you they had the next oldest.”
All gods! Calder lifted his blade. He was going to kill the girl. My head spun, I had little time to work out what I would do before I threw the knife. The point didn’t even touch the false king, merely distracted him.
With a curse on my lips for my poor aim, I darted for the dais as Calista slipped out of his grasp.
“Calista!” I shouted.
She spun on her heel, tore back the veil, and flashed a crooked smile. The girl ran for me. I breathed easier when my hand curled around hers.
Another shudder knocked those of us near the dais off our feet.
Roars filled the night. At the portcullis a dark line of invaders overtook the line of ravens. My heart leapt in my chest. Ruskig, Night Folk, Ettans—they’d all come. Blue flames sprouted from the cracks in the ground. Tor.
A hot surge of angry wind spread the flames, catching hems, the linens, the shrubs of the garden in the fury pyre. Walls of dancing blue flames trapped folk or tormented them. As if Tor’s magic had a twisted love of torture, dancing flames chased fleeing Timorans and ravens until it devoured them, or they curled on the ground praying to silent gods.
“Hurry,” I told Calista. “We must get to the gates.”
I scanned the chaos, searching for Valen. Smoke and flame buried most faces. But next, a thundering boom stilled the courtyard. Smoke thinned enough for me to get a view of the gates. In one side of the front, a gaping hole broke the wall. A flood of invaders burst into the courtyard, led by the Night Prince.
I knew Prince Valen was trained to be the defender of Etta. He was his family’s blade. To witness it now, no pretenses, no masks, it was a terribly mesmerizing sight. As the Blood Wraith he had little control when he was cursed. Now, the black axes carved through flesh and bone in a bloody dance. He’d open a gullet, then bend the ground.
With fury unleashed, he’d become an unbreakable force.
“Valen!” I cried his name. “Three hells, I can say it.”
“Sort of no point of a secret when he blurted it out for everyone,” Calista muttered.
I grinned and kept pulling us away from the dais. I shouted his name again. This time he snapped his eyes across the courtyard, finding me in the smoke.
“Elise!” A new determination dug into his features. He struck at ravens to clear a path, leaving some wounded and breathing, as he carved his path to me.
Calista screamed. Behind us a raven lifted a short blade. I shoved the girl, then jumped away from the strike. The raven fumbled against the momentum of his swing. He was thick and broad, but off balance. I took the risk and dug my shoulder into his side, knocking the raven to the ground. At once, I pounced on his back, grappling for his sword. My knee pressed into the back of his neck. I dug his face into the soil. He cursed me and rolled, tossing me aside. When we both oriented and faced each other, neither of us had the sword.
The raven sneered, taking out a dagger from its sheath. I was weaponless. Valen still stabbed and cut his way through guards.
The raven handled his dagger, ready to strike, but he gasped at his next step.
A glint of a sword tip pierced through his chest. He fell forward, dragging Calista down over his back. She held the hilt of his blade wrong, and the way she clung to it, she must’ve used every ounce of strength to drive the blade through. She screamed and swatted, desperate to get off his body.
I scooped her up under her arms, holding her tightly. For a child who had seen too much already, she buried her face into me and sobbed.
“It’s all right,” I said, smoothing her hair. Keeping her close, I tore the sword free from the raven’s back. “We must go, shh, we must keep going.”
She sniffed and nodded, burying the pain beneath her steely countenance again. I pointed us at the gates and smashed into an armored body. On instinct, I tried to raise the sword in defense, but his dark eyes drew me to a stunned pause.
“Valen.” His name came out in a breathless whisper. I rested one hand over his heart. Up close his features were wrapped in kohl and runes. His eyes like black fire with his fury raging. He was real.
The forces of Ruskig were taking an upper hand. More ravens were dead and bloody than were standing. Valen didn’t check over his shoulder, he seemed to care little about the fight around us when he kissed me, hard and fierce. Teeth and lips crashed for a moment of heat and need. It ended too soon.
“Get free of the wall,” he shouted. “I will face the king.”
“I am standing with you!”
“Elise,” he warned.
“Do not take the throne today dark prince!” Calista shouted, her eyes glassy. She rubbed her head.
Valen stared at her strangely. I rested my hands on her shoulders. “What did you say?’
She shook her head and stammered, “Don’t, don’t take the throne today. I-I-I don’t know, it just came to me. Something . . . is coming.”
I clung to Valen’s arm. “She’s the enchantress. She feels things, Valen. Heed her.”
His jaw clenched. He swept his gaze to the dais with a hint of greed and lust in his eyes. “I do not let Calder live. I cannot, fate owes me that, at least. Get her free of here.”
Bloodlust lived in his eyes. In a deep place, but there all the same. The call to avenge his folk, his family, dug deep inside the Night Prince. But if he took the throne, what would happen? Calista had never lied, not to me. She had no reason to start now.
But I would not let him face it alone.
I wheeled on her. “Calista, you run to the gates, find a place to hide. If I do not come back, look for a woman—Siv—tell her you are the storyteller. She will help you. Or a man, Mattis. They will look after you if I cannot.”
Her eyes brimmed in tears again, then widened. A haze covered the bright blue, like white smoke. “It’s coming, kind heart.”
“Night Prince!” Calder’s voice roared over the fading sounds of death and battle.
Steel silenced. Shouts of battle were echoes in the night. A path cleared around the cracks in the soil, leading an opening from where I stood beside Valen and the dais.
The Timoran king stood in the center, a hand gripping the cloak of a hunched figure.
“All gods—Lumpy,” Calista said, the haze breaking.
“Give up your crown, false king,” Valen shouted, gripping both his axes. “This land is no longer yours.”
“Are you so sure? You think I do not have power to end you? Do you think kings before did not have the power to keep our land, our kingdom? You underestimate the strength of Timoran. It will be your downfall, yet again.”
“I warn you again, false king. Step down. This land is not yours.”
A roar of agreement rose from the people of Ruskig.
“You think you are clever hiding in plain sight. True, I did not know of you,” Calder admitted. “But I knew of him. I wonder—did you?”
Calder removed the hood of the third prisoner in the dungeons. Where I expected an old, withered man, instead a young, pallid, sunken face shone in the firelight. Dark hair to his shoulders, ears tapered to a point, and a black tint to his lips. If fed properly, doubtless he’d be broad, tall, and fierce. His gaze was empty, but for a bit of red rimming the pitch of his irises.
I didn’t know him, but Valen—he stumbled. As if the strength were knocked from him and he had to force his legs to hold him.
I reached for him, a hand on his back. He trembled. Eyes wide, almost horrified. The Night Prince shook his head in disbelief.
Some great trick had gone on, though, for Calder laughed. A cold, unfeeling sound I felt to my bones. Valen took a step back, hand to his heart. I opened my mouth to ask him what had happened, but my blood turned to ice when he uttered a name, soft and dangerously low.
“Sol?”