blond head bent over his bondmate, hands covered in blood as he plucked shards of glass from the phoenix’s trembling wing.
The sight of it sent a fiery stab of anger through Tristan, and next to him Veronyka let out a growl. In one swift move she lifted her bow, nocked an arrow, and loosed it.
The arrow whistled through the air, embedding itself into the sign above the inn, the loud thump causing everyone in the crowd below to freeze. They stared up at the quivering arrow, fletched in bright red and purple feathers, then slowly turned to find the source of the interruption.
“Do we have a problem here?” Tristan said loudly, his voice carrying in the silence. He strode purposefully forward, spinning his staff idly—as if it were a walking stick and he was taking an afternoon stroll—though the crowd backed away from him, clearing enough space for him to cut through to Ronyn and take up a position beside him. Veronyka followed, another arrow nocked and ready, and came to stand on Tristan’s other side. Anders hurried after them, pushing through to help Lysandro calm the still smoking and sparking phoenixes.
“We’ve got a problem, all right,” said one of the farmers, a woman standing near the front of group. “We don’t want these foul creatures near our village.”
“That’s right,” said the man beside her, spitting onto the ground between them. The gob of saliva landed very close to the tip of Tristan’s boot, and before Tristan’s own temper could rear up, Veronyka had whipped up her bow again and taken a step forward.
“Do that again,” she said softly, but the words carried nonetheless. A chill ran down Tristan’s spine at the look in her eye. “Do it,” she whispered, and he believed that she really wanted him to, that she longed to give in to her fury.
“It’s okay,” Tristan said hastily, putting a hand on Veronyka’s weapon and gently lowering it. He stared at her, waiting until she met his eye, but she wouldn’t. A part of him was still back in the clearing, still clinging to the threads of their relationship before he lost her entirely, but he had to focus on the here and now. We can’t let this get out of hand, he tried to convey to her, wondering if she could hear or understand him or if she was trying not to and that was why she wouldn’t look at him.
Whatever it was, she grudgingly relaxed her hold on the bow, fixing the farmers with a fierce glare.
“Obviously with the celebrations tonight, things got out of hand,” Tristan said reasonably. “However, I’m not sure how you expect us to leave the village when you’ve trapped us against a building.” He made his words as cool and condescending as he could manage, as if they’d been spoken by the commander himself, but there was a sliver of anger there he couldn’t quite bury. “If you want us to leave, you have to get out of the way.”
The man who’d spat at him earlier took a cocky step forward, emboldened by the lack of an arrowhead pointing at his heart.
“I’m thinkin’ I’d like you to make me,” he said. Tristan tightened his grip on his staff, while Veronyka shifted next to him, ready to use her bow. He sensed the rising tension of the rest of his patrol behind him, knowing they were preparing for a fight.
“What is the meaning of this?” demanded a voice from the back of the crowd—a familiar voice. The words echoed off the nearest buildings and reverberated back with such volume and authority that everyone in the vicinity whipped around in alarm. Those at the farthest edges of the crowd moved hastily out of the way as a man strode toward them, the man Tristan knew he would see as soon as he’d heard that booming voice.
Commander Cassian himself parted the crowd with all the ease of a hot knife in butter, revealing a contingent of stronghold guards behind him, mounted on horseback and with weapons drawn.
Whether it was the commander’s natural presence, his position as leader of the Phoenix Riders, or the fact that those mounted reinforcements made the angry group of villagers dangerously outnumbered, the crowd of onlookers hastily ducked and scattered. All that remained were Tristan’s filthy, beaten-down patrol and a smattering of riled-up farmers who’d failed to slip off or find a way to hide their handfuls of stale bread and rotten cabbage.