The Girl Who Fell From The Sky - Rebecca Royce Page 0,56

“look. The brand is healed. I am fine. Better than you, probably.”

“You have… Your health is poor,” he reminded me, and I almost screamed.

Instead, I bit the fury off at its root. I thought about my brother’s words a lifetime ago. Deep breaths. You’re letting it happen, juxtaposed with Astor’s and Torrin’s confidence in me. Someone had handed me a sword. Me. Most of all, no one was locking me away. They were letting me fight. Live. The freedom of it energized me, and I realized I wasn’t even breathing hard. I might be pale, but my heart was steady.

“Come,” I told Nox. I stood, held out a hand. Without a word, Popop took it. He was shaking, and his eyes were wild, but he responded to my instructions. With a heave and muttered protest, so did Nox, though he got up under his own power. “I’m getting us into those tunnels.”

Chapter Fifteen

The next few minutes were a blur. I couldn’t describe it in terms other than mystical nonsense. It was like another presence inhabited me—some goddess or woman who was fully confident, in command. As if someone like Dreama just slipped into my body. I called, and people came. I gave them commands, and they followed.

I used the sword, slashing wildly when Reamers came near us. Nox joined in, and I think he killed one. Or we did. Did I actually…kill someone? Something? It was entirely possible, but I never went back and checked. The air was thick with that horrible dust, and there was nothing to cover my face. Grit caked at the corners of my eyes, and I could feel the tears pushing through, trying to cleanse my sight, carving runnels down my face. My overused and dust-choked voice grew hoarse, but I couldn’t stop.

We met up with Dreama sometime in the melee. She was coming up the street with a group of women, probably prostitutes.

“I’m going to put them in Mattis’ bar,” she said, her voice as hoarse as mine. “He won’t mind.”

“Are you kidding? Take them to the cavern, the deep one with the stalactites. Nina’s down there, and Nox’s grandfather.”

She frowned. “These aren’t respectable folk, highness.”

“We’re worried about that right now?”

Dreama’s eyes met mine, and something passed between us. Understanding, I guess. Camaraderie. Compassion. She pulled her raggedy group toward that yawning hangar entrance where the fortified tunnels started.

Last time there was fighting, I’d been down there, protected. Now I was in a thousand times more danger, but I felt so much more alive. I was doing something. Living.

“Hey, beautiful,” a familiar voice rumbled from behind me. I turned to see Mattis, gore-splattered and hulking, grinning at me. “If Nox let you up here and gave you that sword, you know I’ma have to kill him.”

I wanted to kiss him. I wanted to wrap all my arms and legs around him and hold on. Nox, beside me and clearly worse for wear, could barely stand but managed some saucy rejoinder.

“Couldn’t stop her,” he said. “She’s impossible.”

Impossible. Girl who fell from the sky and lived. Yeah, that was me. “None of my men are dying today,” I said. “But I think Nox needs to go in there and fortify the caverns.”

Mattis flashed a glance at his friend. “Yeah. Can’t leave all those kids with only Dreama to protect them.”

“Torrin told me to protect our woman,” Nox argued.

As I had before this all began, I put a hand to his face, only this time, the other hand held a blood-soaked sword, so perhaps the gesture was not as sweet. “You have protected me. It would kill me to lose you. And Mattis is here now. Go. I will see you soon.”

He pulled my hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to the back. His pretty eyes burned through the dust-blown air. “Soon.”

My hand throbbed where his mouth had been, but I let him go. I needed him to go, to get out of this fight.

“Now your turn,” Mattis said.

“No.”

He smiled at me. The disarming one that made me want to kiss him even more. Would he mind? In my battle euphoria, I decided I didn’t care, I leaned up and kissed him. Gently at first, and then, as he pulled me to him, I deepened our embrace. I’d never have risked this the day before, never have thought it possible.

Mattis pulled back, staring at me in the eyes. “And tonight you are with Nox.” He shook his head. “So unfair. Make no mistake, sweet Bianca,