“She’s my sister!”
Elestren raised her blade to attack, and Morfyd opened her mouth and unleashed a line of flame that snaked across the cavern, wrapped around the blade, and yanked it from Elestren’s stunned grasp.
Those who’d been with Elestren ran for the exit, but they met Briec and Gwenvael, who didn’t seem to be in any mood to let them leave.
Elestren held her claws up. A sign of surrender. A move rarely made by a Cadwaladr, but one that clearly signaled the fight was over.
Ragnar landed beside Keita, dropping to one knee.
“Gods, Keita.”
“Help me up.”
She held up her claw, and he took it. Fearghus landed on the other side of her and grabbed her other claw. Together they helped her stand.
Keita watched as Morfyd raised her claw and chanted, pulling her talons in until she made a fist. Elestren went down screaming as if something inside her was being torn apart.
Éibhear grabbed Morfyd’s shoulders, tried to pull her back, to stop her. But with a flick of her wrist, she sent their oversized baby brother spinning across the cavern, Ragnar and Fearghus quickly pulling Keita out of the way.
Talaith looked away from Dagmar and the god she couldn’t see. It felt like her chest was being squeezed, and the last time she’d felt that, her Izzy had been in trouble. She moved from the table, her gaze shooting up to the top of the hallway stairs. The centaur stood there, watching her, Ebba’s serene, but direct expression telling Talaith all she needed to know.
She was up on the long table and over it in seconds, running out the Great Hall front doors.
Talaith saw the two Lightnings coming from around the building.
“Vigholf!” she yelled. “Meinhard!”
They both stopped and watched her dash by and out the side exit. She was near the forest that would take her into the west field.
“Mum!”
She saw her daughter running toward her—saw what was behind her.
Nearly on her. Men that were no longer men. And that meant only one thing.
Kyvich.
“Don’t stop!” Talaith yelled at her. “Go!”
Mother and daughter charged past each other, Talaith pulling out the blade she always kept tied to her thigh. She cut the throat of one mad bastard, leaped onto a nearby boulder, and shoved off with one foot, slashing her blade across the throat of another. When she landed on the ground, she kept running, trusting her daughter could take care of herself.
Izzy did as her mother ordered and kept running. She ran until she cleared the trees, and that’s when the first one slammed into her from behind, flipping them both over.
He caught her by the hair, yanking her head to the side and wrapping his mouth around the side of her neck. Teeth dug in and bit down. She screamed out, her hand reaching for the blade she kept tucked into her boot.
She had her fingers on the handle when the man was pulled away from her, his brains dashed when a Lightning in human form slammed him to the ground.
Izzy released her knife and got to her feet.
“Izzy!” She looked up as Meinhard tossed an ax to her. She caught it, spun, and hacked through the crazed male closest to her. She stopped, swung the blade up, and tore through another from his bowels to his neck. Then she hefted the ax and ran back into the forest.
She saw her cousin and screamed, “Get the kin. Get them all!
Meinhard! Vigholf! Follow me!”
Morfyd crouched in front of the keening warrior at her feet. “Did you really think you’d get away with this?” she asked. “Did you really think I’d let you do this to my sister?”
She heard someone calling to her, someone yelling at her to stop, but she couldn’t. Not after seeing what Elestren had done to Keita. How she’d hurt her. How she’d been moments from killing her.
“Tell me, cousin, what does it feel like?” she asked in a whisper.
“What does it feel like when I turn the blood in your veins to shards of glass?” Morfyd squeezed her fist, making the shards inside her cousin bigger. “Does it make you want to scream? The way you tried to make my sister scream?” She caught Elestren’s green hair and yanked her head up, bellowing in her face, “Does it hurt? ” She watched the human queen tear through enemy men that her sisters, trained in the art, had broken and tormented until they became nothing more than attack beasts. The loyal dog at her side, however, was her companion and partner. She protected him as she protected herself and her horse. But these men were of no concern to her and allowed her to wear down the Blood Queen of Dark Plains.
A head flipped past, and Storm picked it up in his fangs, shaking it before offering it to her horse, Death-bringer, so they could play tug. They loved playing tug together.
“Ásta,” her second command, Bryndís, called to her. “A Nolwenn.” Surprised, because they’d had no warning, Ásta watched the Nolwenn witch charge into the field. She had a blade and nothing else.
Ásta growled a little, Death-bringer pawing the ground restlessly beneath her.
“Hulda,” Ásta said softly. “Kill it.”
Hulda grinned and tightened her legs, her horse knowing exactly what to do.
Nolwenns were the bane of the Kyvich. The why of that fact had been lost to memory a millennia ago, but the hatred remained.
The queen had nearly finished with the males, an outcome Ásta cared little about.
“Unleash the second wave,” she said, her voice never going above a very soft call.