She’s near incapable of following orders, and that in itself could be as deadly as a sword in the heart.
The rest of the soldiers draw their blades, but they hesitate to approach. Patrix blinks as his mind works for a solution. He hadn’t planned on Nefari’s rogue actions.
But the soldiers aren’t attacking, and when Patrix studies for the reasoning, he realizes the only reason they haven’t is because that man – the man under the Princess of the Shadow People – is important to them. They need him alive. They’ve been ordered to keep him alive. Why?
It dawns on Patrix, and he bites back a curse. Of course! Of course, Fari would attack the lieutenant of this small raiding unit. A lieutenant! Foolish, foolish woman!
Knife still tight against his throat, Nefari Ashcroft feels her heart skip a beat at the Lieutenant’s order. “Kill her!” the lieutenant orders the others. His face is a shade of pure white, but his cheeks are bright with anger. “Kill her now!”
A bowstring snaps, and an arrow whizzes through the air. Nefari’s sharp senses pick up the sound a fraction of a second before the arrow can find its mark. She tilts her body an inch and catches Patrix’s wince when it knicks her shoulder. The arrow embeds in the frozen dirt ten feet past the lieutenant’s head.
Nefari hisses at the pain, and blood seeps into the sleeve of her cloak. She doesn’t release her hold on the blade as most would, though. Instead, she presses the blade farther into the man’s neck. Beads of red slope down his filthy skin.
“Fari,” Patrix barks. He gathers himself to his knees.
That one word is enough to break Nefari’s concentration. The lieutenant frees one arm and elbows Nefari in the jaw. They tumble through the snow, both grappling for the upper hand. The lieutenant dwarfs her, and if it wasn’t for Nefari’s quickness, it wouldn’t be an even match.
But then, she gets stuck underneath him.
Shouts rise from the crowd, and the soldiers turn toward them, readying to strike down the next person who dares make a stand.
Patrix struggles against his ropes again, cursing under his breath about hot-headed young females. The tip of a sword is pointed at his neck, and he stops moving. The soldier wielding the sword snarls at him, a clear threat.
“Don’t,” the soldier warns him. Patrix swallows thickly, his Adam’s apple brushing against the blade.
A horn is blown in the distance, and the village’s writhing panic seizes. The sound came from the other side where the trees hold their ground against the North’s frigid bite.
All falls quiet except for a child’s tiny cry.
Nefari and the lieutenant look to the woods at the same moment, and then Nefari’s face, bruised and cut, spreads into a feral grin. She peers up at the lieutenant whose fist is raised.
“What is this?” the lieutenant demands. True fear finally settles in his expression. “Who are you?”
Nefari plunges her borrowed blade into the man’s chest. The warmth of his blood gushes across her palm. She whispers quietly enough so only he can hear, “I am nobody. To the realm, Nefari Astra Galazee Ashcroft was never here. She is dead.” It takes a moment for the man to recognize the name. It takes even less time to recognize her face – the face of her mother – when she drops the shadows shrouding her features. He’s old enough to remember who her mother was and what she had looked like, Nefari is sure. And when he does, his eyes widen while he gurgles on his own blood.
She grins wickedly and answers his other question louder, “And that, in the woods, is the Rebel Legion.” She plunges the knife in deeper, twists it.
When he grunts his last breath, the shadow princess pulls out the knife and pushes the lieutenant’s body to the side. He drops, limp and motionless beside her. She glances once at Patrix and notes his displeasure. Satyrs have excellent hearing, Patrix’s greatest asset in his line of work. By his expression and the tick of his jaw, he had heard what she said.
“Prepare yourselves!” the foot-soldier holding his sword to Patrix’s throat shouts to the unit. The thunder of many hooves quakes the ground, and the soldier leaves Patrix’s side to join the others.
With the soldiers distracted, Nefari liberates the lieutenant’s sword from its sheath and dashes back to Patrix. He says nothing about her disobedience. Instead, he snorts at her.
“Don’t get all goat-ish on me,” she chastises with great humor. She cuts the rope around his wrists first and then hands him the sword while she dashes with the blade to the beaten woman and uses it to free her. A bruise is spreading rapidly across her cheek, and Nefari touches it lightly when the woman is free of her ropes.
“Take this,” Nefari says quickly to her. “Free the others, and then hide in those trees. Do not stay here.” She points over the woman’s shoulder to the forest across the ice where all is as quiet as the grave.
The woman shakily takes the blade with one hand, gripping Nefari’s wrist with the other. “Thank you.”
A smile tugs at the edge of Nefari’s lips. “No one deserves the fate of Caw’s Cove, nor what comes after.”
Nodding, the woman turns to the villagers and begins the process of freeing them.
Satisfied, Nefari whips around.
At the edge of the forest, the first centaur emerges. Then another and another, each carrying weapons and shields double the size of a human soldier’s. Their circular shields are dented from past battles, but their plain swords are as sharp as the day they were forged.
The centaurs have been trained for battle since they were young boys and girls, vowing to protect the innocent once they officially joined the Rebel Legion. Nefari is fortunate to have learned from them – lucky to be counted among their numbers.
Each roars with war cries as they gallop toward the soldiers. The soldiers shout back, and as one – both possessed and unpossessed – they dash to meet the centaurs halfway, weapons raised.
Metal clashes against metal as the two sides meet. Swords reflect the trees while breath mists into thick clouds, and blood peppers the snow in a spray of fat, red blobs.
The princess watches the battle for a second, and then she dips inside the nearby hovel where the weapons were hidden. She presses against the wound on her shoulder. It throbs, and the tumble across the snow with the lieutenant hadn’t done it any favors.
The orange flames still roar in the hovel’s fireplace, and the heat inside licks at Nefari’s cold cheeks.
There, on the crooked wooden table, are the weapons stolen from the villagers. Seated next to the table is a soldier. At her sudden intrusion, the gangly youth nearly drops the sword he’s holding – Nefari’s sword. He trembles as she approaches, her eyes narrowed with unspoken accusations.
“I believe you have something of mine,” she snarls.
“I – I –” The soldier regards Nefari’s sword, blinking rapidly as if he isn’t sure how it had gotten into his grubby hands in the first place. She had bought it from the black market at the edge of Caw’s Cove the last time she and Patrix had traveled through there. The odd man who sold it to her assured her it was one of a kind, and Nefari hadn’t questioned him. Sellers in the black market don’t lie, for if they do, it ensures their death.
The black pommel is unique but simple; the cross-guard is black strips of twisted metal that swirl and twine together like vines. The blade itself is made of the finest steel, but when the light hits it just right, there’s a substance mixed in with the metal itself that sparkles blue and purple. It had reminded her of the Shadow Kingdom, and she had to have it right then and there.