Page 138 of The Lure of Wolves and Whispers
Caoranachs.
These arecaoranachssoaring and shrieking through the air, gnashing teeth ripping through flesh and bones. Their wings look like soaked and worn leather, and their tails—barbs cover the ends, smashing stone from the walls and carving out chunks from the ground with each menacing swoop.
Columns of gardai pour out from the castle with swords raised, uniforms soaking through in an instant. But what good are swords against mages and fangs?
The walls of Castle Mount have never been breached. Not by any battering ram or army.
This is no mere army, though. These are mages. These are caoranachs. I know it in the marrow of my bones—this iswar. This has to be why Wolf told me to run after I kill the king when we danced last night. He knew this was coming, within hours.
The Whisperers are making their move. Launching this war in an attack just as the last test of the Assay ends—while they think the High King is dead.
I can’t let them down.
Another bolt of lightning sizzles in a dizzying fork from above, smashing the tallest turret and sending blocks hurtling down into the nearest column of gardai—nearly striking the figure at their helm, wielding a broadsword in soaking, dark velvet.
“Cash!” I scream his name, forcing myself up on shaking knees.
Saraid grabs at my arm, yanking me back down. “What the fuck?”
I wrench her fingers off where they dig into my elbow. “We need him!”
He’s the only person other than the High Queen that the gardai would surely let in to see his father, with an attack underway. I need him to help me and Talon get into that room.
Her cat eyes narrow, and rain rips down her cheeks.
“You’re working with Wolf.” I drop my voice as much as I can beneath the roar of the battle. “You know what I’m here to do. And I’m telling you—I can do it, right now. But Cash is the only one who can get me to his father.” Her eyes flash, but the words spill out of me. “He wants to help us. He’s the one who planted the magic on Eavan.”
She tilts her head, a predatory look in her hard stare. “That’s what’s turned the nobles against the High Queen.”
“Yes.” Pride presses up against my ribs. “It is.”
Saraid looks me up and down, but I can see the resolve in her eyes. She turns her back to me, face slick with rain, eyes surveying the chaos. I can’t follow whatever she’s searching for, but she finds it, waving her axe high.
A figure runs toward us, wearing the black and crimson of the gardai, and I recognize the shaved copper hair, even in the downpour. Relief floods over me.
The freckles across Talon’s cheeks tug into a grin that feels completely at odds with the danger swooping and diving and shrieking around us. “You’re not dead!”
I can’t give them any points for eloquence, but honestly? I don’t know if there’s a moreTalonway to admit I’m not just someone Wolf ordered them to look after. We’re friends now.
I clap a hand on their shoulder, throat tightening. “Want to help me keep it that way?”
“Fuck yeah.” Talon dodges a blast of rock exploding from the wall fifty feet behind us. They glare up at the track of a menacing black caoranach and the figure—the mage?—in a navy cloak on its back. That cloak’s the same color as the one Fang wears, and as I scan the skies, I realize every one of the wraithlike figures on the caoranachs wears the same navy robes as the Whisperers’ mage, except for one figure in green-black armor, flashing with every bolt of lightning.
Saraid looks between the two of us as if we’ve suddenly sprouted serpent tails ourselves and groans. “Okay, this is lovely and heartwarming and all that shit, but can you two stop having a moment? We’re kind of in the middle of a battle here.” Her eyes flash to Cash, yelling at the gardai flanking him. She drops hervoice, glancing up at Talon. “You know what she’s here to do. She says he can help. You trust her?”
Talon doesn’t hesitate. “I do.”
“Then get her there in one piece. And you better be right.” She glares at me. “Or by the Martyr, I don’t care what Wolf wants. I’ll kill you myself if you fuck this up for us.”
Saraid reaches her free arm behind her shoulders and draws out a long, needlelike blade. Old Ones, it must’ve been sheathed right down the length of her spine. “Use this—it’ll take them longer to figure out how he died than if you use a sword or a knife. Now go!”
I seize the narrow blade andrun.
The skies above boom, a blinding flash breaking across the clouds. The gardai around Cash fly back into the castle walls, but he manages to remain standing. I scream his name, the sound raw in my throat, across the thirty or so feet between us.
His eyes match the blackened storm all around us, darker than I’ve ever seen them. They lock on mine, and the cold armor masking his expression melts away. “You shouldn’t be here!”
“None of us should be!” I shout back over the chaos. Pain rips through my skull at the raw crack of scales on stone and claws tearing into metal. “I need to know—you said you want to help us.”
