Silver in the Bone (Silver in the Bone #1)(38)
Author: Alexandra Bracken

 

Neve stood behind a shocked Cabell, her arms outstretched in front of them. Magic blazed around her like a wild flame, nearly blinding in its intensity. Her braids had fallen out of their buns as we’d fled, and now lifted at her shoulders, rising with the incandescent swell of power. The intensity of her expression, her face glittering with sweat, was as breathtaking as the way her power electrified the air and turned the clearing into the heart of a star.

 

Neve’s eyes flicked to us, her face set with the kind of determination that made you ache to see it. The raw potential of her power was stunning. I looked around, trying to find the sigil she had used. A large stone was at her feet, but the sigil for a protective spell was only half finished. But that was impossible—this power had to be drawn and channeled through the marking.

 

“Neve . . . ,” I began.

 

“I can’t hold this much longer,” she warned, her voice crackling with magic. “It’s too much—”

 

“How are you doing this?” I asked her.

 

She shook her head, clenching her fists. “I don’t know—I thought we would die and it just—it just happened—”

 

The magic flared brighter, hotter. The monsters retreated into the shadows of the trees.

 

“I don’t suppose anyone has a half-decent idea for how we could survive this,” Emrys said faintly, a hand pressed to the wound on his arm.

 

“I’ll take a bad idea at this point,” Cabell said, his expression dark. He was still panting, but it was the hair growing thicker and darker on the back of his hands that had me terrified.

 

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

 

Cabell, for once, didn’t lie about it. “Need a second. Need to slow my heart.”

 

Emrys’s eyes shifted off where Cabell crouched, face pressed to his filthy hands, breathing deeply. I gave a small shake of the head at his questioning look.

 

“What are the chances they’ll get bored of being obliterated and go away?” I asked.

 

The barrier flickered. Briefly, I wondered if I had pissed off a god of luck in a past life.

 

“Guys,” Neve said, her voice cracking. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing left—”

 

I moved close to her side, holding the axe out in front of me. Emrys’s back was pressed to my side as he faced the other way, burning hot in the freezing air. Cabell staggered to his feet again, his face flickering with shadows as he fought to keep his grip on his mind and body.

 

We are going to die. That strange, deep calm returned, cold and accepting. We’re going to die.

 

“We’ll try to get to the tower Neve thinks is at the isle’s center,” I said. “If we can find some sort of shelter—”

 

A blazing light tore through the air in front of us, soaring past the devastated trees to slam into the nearest creature’s shriveled skin. I jumped as it went up like a match, screeching until I thought my eardrums would burst. Spinning, I searched for the source, but there was no need.

 

A volley of flaming arrows flashed through the dark, streaking over our heads. Neve’s magic was a shield against the heat of the burning world around us, and I knew the second she released it, we would be consumed, too.

 

“Is that . . . ?” Cabell began, spinning around.

 

The horses and their riders charged at a full gallop, sending the remaining monsters scattering like rats back the way they’d come, seeking the cold relief of the dank water.

 

The flames illuminated the knights’ silver armor as they circled the barrier, bows at the ready. Their horses stomped and pawed at the ground, shuddering with the unspent exertion. Five in total.

 

“Release your magic, sorceress!” one of them shouted.

 

Neve startled at the vehemence of the words and didn’t do as she was told. If anything, her magic burned brighter than it had before.

 

The same knight sheathed his sword with a sound of quiet fury. The others waited, slashing and shooting at any mindless creature that dared to approach us again. When Neve still didn’t drop the shield, the first knight reached up, ripping his helmet off.

 

A long silver braid, shining bright as the sword in her hand, spilled from beneath it. The face that stared down at us from her black horse was pale and freckled and young—not the grizzled, scarred man I’d been expecting.

 

“I said,” the young woman ground out, “release your magic, sorceress.”

 

Emrys was the first to shake off his shock. “Not to be an ungrateful wretch, but won’t that roast us alive?”

 

“Our fire will not harm you,” said another, removing her own helmet. She was dark-haired and dark-eyed, her tight curls fluttering around her head with the foul breeze. Her skin was a rich brown, save for the place where a raised pink scar ran down one cheek, and her expression was coolly reassuring.

 

The others followed. All young.

 

All women, it seemed.

 

“Unless you want to die here with the rest of the travelers, I suggest that you come with us now,” she continued. “We will take you to safety.”

 

“Not the sorceress,” the silver-haired one snapped. “They can devour her.”

 

“Cait,” another admonished.

 

“Who are you?” I managed to get out.

 

“I’m Caitriona of the Nine,” the girl with the strange silver hair said. “These are my sisters. I do not know how you’ve come here, but I can tell you that this is no place to die.”

 

“And where is this place, exactly?” Emrys asked politely.

 

Some part of me—some small, hated corner of my heart—had held on to a dying ember of belief that Neve might have made a terrible mistake. That she had somehow brought us to another realm, another place far from the one where Nash was trapped with the ring.

 

That same ember was crushed beneath the heel of the girl staring down at us, suspicion creasing her brow. Neve’s magic faded like a hurricane easing to a gentle fall of rain.

 

“Do you not know it by sight?” she asked sardonically, pulling her helmet back on. “You have found the blessed isle of Avalon.”

 

 

 

 

 

We rode across the misty isle in a ferocious storm of galloping hooves and clattering armor. No one had said a word since leaving the clearing, and none of the others had bothered to give us their name. I could practically feel their eyes shifting to Neve again and again, the outright hatred that radiated from them like our breath fogging the air white.