Page 111 of A Trial of War
My brother stepped to his wife’s side and placed his hand on the small of her back.
I clenched my fist, shaking with rage. “You two are out of your fucking minds! What do you mean you—”
Chapter Forty-Five
Castor Aegaeon
“—are leaving.”
They left.
“Castor!” a voice cried out.
I didn’t respond to the sound of my name echoing across the battlefield. Didn’t breathe. Gods, I couldn’t even move an inch from where I’d watched my brother, my high king, and Skylar, my high queen, vanish from the fight, wonderingifthey would return.
“Castor.”
A familiar hand clapped my shoulder, spinning me to face him. Dark eyes, the color of the churned earth beneath my boots, stared back at me with the fire of battle blazing within.
“Hey, you’re alive. Thank the gods,” Gunnar said.
I blinked, trying to summon the strength to speak. “Gunnar?”
Our general smiled at me, the only way he could among the carnage and destruction unfolding around us.
“In the flesh. Well, a little bone too, I’m afraid.” He gestured to his leg, where a long gash was open near his calf. “But the bastard who got me is already living it up on the other side of the crossing. Probably emptying a barrel of wineall to himself, bragging about how he managed to land a blow against the general of Silver Meadows.”
His rambling somehow snapped me out of my haze, and I leaned down to examine his wound. “You’re limping.”
“I can still beat you in a foot race.”
“Only if I were blind and drunk,” I muttered under my breath. I’d still beaten him that one night he blindfolded me on a dare and—
The familiar buzzing of arrows tipped with iron zinged overhead. Gunnar raised his shield, crouching over me to protect us from the onslaught. “Hold on! And don’t you dare let your gods-damned eyes turn black.”
Thud.Thud.Thud.
The arrows struck the ground, ricocheted off stone, and unfortunately found their targets in the fur or chests of shifters or High Fae at our sides.
Lowering his shield, Gunnar peered up. “Castor, where did Daxton and Skylar go?”
I swallowed, eyes scanning the valley. “I… I don’t know.”
“When are they coming back?”
When. When are they coming back?Such a simple alteration to the thought. Here I was, panicking aboutwhetherthey were coming back. And here was Gunnar, who beyond any doubt knew they would return to us. It was only a matter of when.
I pulled him into a bloodied embrace, the battle continuing to rage around us as I grounded myself in his unwavering belief.
“Thank you,” I rasped, my throat raw from battle cries and my strength drained from the fight.
Gunnar, somehow sensing my faltering strength, held me firm. “Stay strong, my high prince.”
Gunnar pulled away from the embrace first, rolling his shoulders and lifting his shield as another wave of nalusa falaya emerged from the darkness at Minaeve’s command. They were phantoms of fear and death, tattered cloaks flowing in an unseen wind as their hollowed eyes framed by skeletal faces scanned the field, looking for their next victim to consume. Behind them, human soldiers advanced in tight formation, blades gleaming with borrowed courage.
Gunnar grinned like a madman. “Good, I was beginning to think they’d fled.”
I drew my twin swords as a vein of cold thrummed up my arms, gathering in my chest, my magic begging to be unleashed. “I’ll take the left,” I said.
