FULL NOVELXO Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 19
quickly. I hardly had time to lift a blade and gut the shadowy gizzard of one before another was at our backs. Elise struggled to take out her blade, the pommel snagged on the leather sheath. I maneuvered so her back was to mine and cut down the guardians before they came close to her.
“What are you doing?” the bleeding idiot of a carpenter shouted. Mattis stared at us like we’d lost our minds.
“What the hells does it look like?” I snarled back. “Pick up a blade and fight them.”
“Fight who?”
All gods, there was no time to deal with Mattis and his constant questions. Elise straightened at my back, weapon at last in hand, and let out a cry of rage when a fury guardian flew at her heart.
“There are too many!” she screamed.
I cursed under my breath. The shadows fought me. Those cursed fiery swords drew wretched heat across my face. But after a moment it was clear who the guardians really wanted. My insides curled in a bit of cold terror. Elise. They were aiming their strikes at her.
Once I made the connection it was clearer than anything. Somehow these bastards were aiming all their focus on her. I was merely in their way.
We swung and jabbed. Some of the refugees stared at us like we’d lost our minds. The dark remnants of the creature inside wanted to slit their throats to get them to stop staring and bleeding help us.
Tor and Halvar sprinted back to us, blades raised.
“What is it?” Tor shouted. “What is it?”
“What . . .” I grunted through a swing against a guardian. An otherworldly shriek rattled my blood when it turned into cold mist at my strike.
Tor and Halvar held weapons. They stood off at least twenty paces but acted like they didn’t know where to strike.
“Can you not see them?” I shouted. Cut. Dodge. Jab. Elise screamed at my back. She thrust her dagger through a guardian, and if it had a throat, it would be shredded.
“No!” Halvar shouted. Stieg, Casper, and Junie had joined them, just as bewildered.
“It’s the damn guardians!”
Tor came closer, swinging a sword aimlessly. He hit one guardian by chance. “Tell us where! Why the hells can’t we see them?”
“They’re . . .” I faded and focused on two guardians coming at my flanks. Each sword burned in my grip. I cursed Ari. Fury would slaughter these shadows, no mistake, and the fool of a king and his wretched bindings were keeping me from protecting us. From protecting her.
“They’re everywhere!” Elise finished.
Tor and Halvar stepped in. So did the others. Junie closed her eyes. But after a moment she started turning to guardians and striking with near perfect aim. Could she taste them?
Frey and Ulf stared at us in bewilderment. They were bleeding worthless. Siv rushed for Elise, but a guardian shoved her back. She screamed in surprise, no doubt, unable to see what force had stopped her. Mattis had ceased with his stupid questions, raised a battle axe, but no one knew where to strike.
“I think it’s blood,” the lunatic of a guard shouted at us.
I hardly heard him. My arms ached. Elise breathed heavily. More guardians rose. They’d soon swallow us whole. I nearly watched her die here, I refused to do so again.
“It’s blood!” the raven shouted again. He was smiling, the fool. “Wraith, they want her blood.”
“What the hells are you—” I couldn’t finish. I needed to save breath.
“It was marked for a Lysander!” Brant said again. “This land is cursed for her. It wants her blood!”
“Then how can he see them!” Halvar shouted.
It didn’t matter. Call it instinct, call it desperation, I had an idea, and it wouldn’t leave me. This place had demanded blood to lift a curse once. The guardians would spill it anywhere, but we’d spilled blood in a specific point to break the bonds of fury.
It was the only chance I had.
Without warning her, I snagged Elise’s wrist and sprinted up a slope.
“Valen . . .” She must’ve realized where we were running and quickened her step.
At our backs, wails and shrieks, like phantoms in the trees, gained. We clawed our way over a raised lip of the stone symbol at the top of the hill. A sphere of briars and coiled serpents on the hilt of a blade. I dragged Elise to the center. The crest that broke my curse remained part of the stone.
“Your hand!” I shouted.
Elise held out her palm. In a breath I slashed a wide gash across her fair skin and forced the blood on the stone.
Nothing.
Bleeding hells. Nothing.
The guardians rushed at us. At her. There were too many and I had no more plans. With nothing more to do, I wrapped Elise in my arms, smashed her to my chest, and pulled her down to the stone. With my body, I covered hers. She clung to me, and I closed my eyes. Elise buried her face in my chest. I curled one hand around her head, holding her tightly, waiting for the strike of those fiery blades.
Light glared through my clenched eyes. Hisses and growls faded like smoke on the wind. In another moment, all I heard were our own gasps and the thud of my pulse in my head.
“What is that?”
I think it was Frey who asked. I cracked an eye. A faint dome of light surrounded us, then dissolved into mist.
Another moment and Halvar skidded to my side. “Are they gone?”
I nodded, still clinging to Elise. She trembled. Or maybe I was the one trembling.
“It was the same as that night,” Halvar whispered, so only we could hear. “The blood glowed, then the light came.”
“Get the raven.” I had questions for Brant. We’d adjusted into sitting, but I hadn’t released Elise, and she hadn’t released me by the time Brant was dropped to his knees. I glared at him. “You said it was cursed for her. How did you know?”
“I told you,” he murmured. “I get these feelings and I know enough about fury curses to know most require blood to end them. If this land is truly cursed, I assumed blood would be required. The Lysander crests, they told me it was likely Kvinna Elise’s blood it was after. I used no great magic, I am not hiding anything from you, I simply deduced the feeling.”
“But if it wanted Elise,” Frey said, “why did the Blood Wraith see them and no one else?”
Brant squared his scrutiny against me. “I don’t know. The only conclusion I have is this land knows the Blood Wraith. It could not hide from him.”
My blood stained this land in sacrifice. I wouldn’t say it out loud, but if Brant was right, it made a bit of sense. Unfortunately, his assumption drew everyone’s eye. Frey and Ulf regarded me like a new enemy. Siv bit her bottom lip, but she knew as well as us why this land knew me. Mattis tilted his head, studying me, then Elise.
Tor stepped forward. “We can all take guesses into understanding fury curses later. I say we get the hells off this bleeding land and out of the open.”
The Guild of Shade guided the others away from the stone, back to the refugees below. Elise and I followed, but once we crossed into the shadows of the trees, I took her hand. After the guardians, I could not keep my hands from her if I tried. At least, not for the next few moments.
Alone, I faced Elise. She leaned into me when my hand traveled up the length of her arm. “I hate this place.”
She laughed and pressed her forehead to mine. “All gods, so do I. And I hate how you insist on continually using your body as my personal shield.”
Elise rested a hand over my heart. I covered it with mine. “You are smaller than me. It makes sense I should be the shield.”
“No, size has nothing to do with it. You have a sick need to play my hero.”
“Am I your hero?”
She hit my chest. I laughed and curled my arm around her waist, keeping our heads together.
Elise’s fingertips stroked the side of my face as her smile faded. “I’d rather you keep breathing than be any kind of foolish hero.”
“I’d never be a foolish hero. I’d be a grand one.”
“I think I hate you.”
I laughed and before I could think better of it, pressed my lips to hers. She drew in a sharp breath, but it was short lived. Elise kissed me back. Our breaths tangled, until we breathed as one. My grip tightened in her braid, urging her body to mine. I grinned. “If this is hating, I rather like it.”
She hit my arm and curled her fingers into the neck of my tunic.
“I think of you too much,” she said, breathless. Her teeth scraped my lip.
A groan hummed between us—from her or me I didn’t care—it rumbled through my veins.
“Oh?” The smooth skin of her neck grew too enticing, too tempting, to ignore. She bared her throat when I kissed her there. “Tell me what you think about.”
Why was I allowing this to go on? I should stop and walk away. My logic, my fears, all screamed at me to release her at once. But my logic fled into the deepest parts of my mind. Practically forgotten. I’d longed for this. It was wrong and weak. I’d bring nothing but discontent in her life, likely death.
“I think,” Elise said, her gentle touch tracing the stubble on my jaw, “of what a fool you are.”
“Hmm.” I smiled against her mouth. “How romantic.”
“About how you lied to me. Tricked me.” Her fingers raked through the sweat and grime of my hair as if it were nothing. “About the night in the schoolhouse.”
My stomach tightened. A dark, sensual need to spread her out beneath me, the same as that night churned inside.
“I think,” she whispered, “of how I would do it all again if it brought me you.”
I did not deserve the crown of Etta. For a logical, reasonable king would keep his mind on what mattered most instead of indulging in baser instincts, instead of taking what he selfishly wanted.
I kissed her, hard and needy, wanting all of this to return to those dark, private nights. My hands claimed the curves of her body, her taste, her tongue on mine. I wanted time to turn back. Before I was the Blood Wraith to her; before I was the Night Prince. When we were simply Legion and Elise.
This would not end how we wanted; of that I was certain. I had every plan to destroy Castle Ravenspire and had few hopes I would walk away still breathing. She deserved more than a man who wallowed in blood. Elise ought to live a long, quiet life. And after this, if Ari succeeded, she might be able to have a love of her choosing. Not someone dark and lost as me.
I dipped my chin and broke away. I didn’t look at her but kept her close.
“Valen,” she whispered, rubbing the furrow between my brows. “You do not need to turn away from me.”
“You don’t understand,” I admitted, cracking my ribs a bit, and letting her in. “The memories I have—what they would do to you—Elise, it would be worse than the most wretched memory.”
“I am at risk with or without you.”
I knew it, on some level, I knew she was hunted for her name not me. But add the truth that Kvinna Elise freed the Night Prince—she would be a greater prize for Ravenspire than me. A true traitor. I knew what Ravenspire did to traitors.
I remained silent.
Elise sighed. She pressed a kiss to the side of my head. “I cannot understand the horrors that haunt you, Valen Ferus. I wish you would burden them on me sometimes; ease your own. But you should know, I have never, nor will I ever, stop believing you are more than vengeance. You are the power to heal this place.”
She touched the point of one ear gently, then eased from my arms. Elise left me alone with nothing but my thoughts and an unquenchable longing I could not satisfy.