Page 102 of The Blood Queen

If she made it through, if she got this far, who survived?

I feel everything shift. The threads of fate themselves. I feel them moving around us.

My throat swells shut, eyes stinging, but I swallow it all down and pull my shoulders back.

Alyth’s eyes meet mine, a half second of connection, and in that look, there’s apology. There’s I love you.

“Go,” I barely get out. Barely manage the command. “Go. Go, now.”

Her eyes tear. Spill over.

She races off.

The spiders cover her retreat. They string webs in her wake, closing up the room behind her in a thick curtain of sticky white.

Leaving me on this side, with the High Blade.

The light orb Alyth made highlights the High Blade as she slices and stabs through the webs around the door, ripping spiders off her body as they climb her armor and scrabble at her eyes, her ears, her mouth. She fights her way forward on a rampage of bloodlust.

My heart lodges in my throat. My own blood pumps through my veins like cannon fire, making me twitch and shake.

Alyth’s gone.

Gone to the loom.

She’s going to die. Because of the High Blade. Because of the fae. Because I wasn’t—because I couldn’t—

No. No. I’m not cheapening what she’s doing. This is our fate. Somehow, I feel that, feel it like the threads of the loom itself behind me are already set.

She’s meant to defeat the High Blade.

I’m meant to give her time to do that.

And neither of us is getting out of this room alive.

I reach for the other sword at my waist. Slowly draw it out. I’ve been in a Red Cap rage since we got through the portal, but it doesn’t feel like the asset it once did. What good’s it gonna do me now against the queen of the Red Caps?

The High Blade catches my movement, her predator eyes focusing on me with a flash and a snarl. “You” is all she says, too far gone for grand, villainous speeches.

Her magic reaches out to me. Tries to control me.

I brush her aside, as easy as a shrug now.

There’s that, at least.

Her snarl contorts, darker, more furious. She hefts a sword—a massive one, as tall as she is and nearly as thick—and lunges.

I duck, manage to just barely miss the blade. But it sends me toppling to the web-covered floor, and I roll with the motion, web ripping up around me, sticking to my shoulders, my back. Spiders dart out of my way and throw themselves at the High Blade, but with brushes of magic, she’s fighting ’em off, dashing the creatures aside like they’re no more troublesome than dust.

Scrambling, I shift onto my knees and raise my swords in time to catch her next blow. The force rings up my arms, jars me so hard I bite my tongue, blood dribbling down my chin.

The High Blade doesn’t relent, doesn’t stop. She hacks and surges, beating me back, fighting to get through.

To get to the loom.

To Alyth.

I just need to buy her time. As much as I can.