Capture the Crown (Gargoyle Queen #1) -Jennifer Estep Page 0,117

some such nonsense. Fools. I sprinted ahead, taking the fight to them.

I ducked under the first man’s swing, shot back up, and sliced the arrow in my hand across his face. At least, I tried to slice the arrow across his face. The barbs dug into his cheek, and the weapon got stuck in his skin.

The guard yelped and staggered back, jerking the arrow out of my hand, although it remained lodged in his face, as though he were a fish I’d hooked. While he was distracted, I reached down, plucked my dagger out of the side of my right boot, and sliced it across his stomach. That man dropped his sword and crumpled to the ground, whimpering and clutching his guts, which were oozing everywhere.

I twirled the dagger around in my hand and stepped up to face the next guard. I ducked his blow, then whirled past him and punched my blade into his back. As he screamed, I yanked the dagger out, then sank my fingers into his hair, pulled his head back, and cut his throat. He fell to the ground, gurgling and bleeding out.

Across the workshop, Leonidas was battling several guards, along with Wexel, who was using his superior mutt strength to hammer his sword at the prince over and over again.

Leonidas blocked Wexel’s blows, then smoothly spun to the side. His long black cloak rippled around his body like a cloud of death as he punched his sword into the chests of first one guard, then another. He skewered a third guard, then spun back toward Wexel. The prince easily avoided another attack and slashed his sword across the captain’s arm.

Wexel howled and staggered away. Leonidas cut down another guard and stalked after the captain—

A glint of metal caught my eye, and I instinctively ducked. A guard had snuck up on my left side, and his weapon whizzed by close enough to ruffle my hair. He lifted his blade for another strike, so I snapped up my hand, reached for my magic, and used my power to toss him across the room. The guard hit the wall with a loud, sickening crack, then dropped to the flagstones—dead.

That one harsh crack echoed in my mind, and I froze, my hand still hovering in midair. Despite all the training I’d done with Rhea, Serilda, and Evie, memories of the attack in the woods all those years ago flooded my mind. The chambers around me flickered as my magic rose up, trying to toss me back into the past yet again.

Another guard yelled and charged at me, and the noise and motion jolted me back into the here and now. I didn’t have time to lift my dagger or spin out of the way, so I lashed out with my power again. This guard also flew through the air and hit the wall with a loud, sickening crack. That second sound joined the first one still echoing in my ears, and even more memories erupted in my mind, like fireworks lighting up the night sky.

“Not now!” I snarled at my magic, as though it was something that could be scolded into submission, but of course it ignored all my attempts to quash it.

Several more guards yelled, charged forward, and swarmed all around me. The sheer mass and force of the men threatened to push me back, but I planted my boots on the grimy flagstones and held my ground. If they shoved me down to the floor, then I was finished.

Rhea had always said that losing your footing in a fight was one of the worst things you could do, and she’d knocked me down enough times to prove her point. So I gritted my teeth and swung my dagger as hard and fast as I could. The frantic bang-bang-bang of metal hitting metal rang in my ears and rattled my whole body.

I couldn’t kill all the guards with just my dagger, so I reached for my magic again. But my power suddenly felt as slippery as an eel, and it squirted out of my grasp and sank into the sea of memories still churning in my mind. I growled with frustration, sliced open another guard’s stomach with my dagger, and whirled around, trying to give myself more space to manuever.

Across the workshop, several dead guards lay at Leonidas’s feet, although a few were still standing, along with Wexel.

Leonidas’s eyes locked with mine, as though he was checking to make sure I was still alive, the same way