Prisoner (The Scarred Mage of Roseward #2) - Sylvia Mercedes Page 0,107
the open doorway, shouting, “Close it! Close it now!” Nelle saw him stagger and nearly fall, only just caught by his shadowy servant. As the tall doors began to close, she glimpsed armored men lining up just outside, and right before the doors snapped shut she saw . . . she saw . . .
She saw three of them lifted into the air by massive, tentacle-like vines. Enormous thorns pierced through armor. Blood spurted.
The doors shut with an echoing thud. The wall stood blank and solid, without even the barest crack to indicate where the doors had been.
And then . . .
Cracks. Hundreds and hundreds of cracks running through the wall as if it were fragile crockery.
Kyriakos screamed; the skull-dogs howled. The shadow-beings bodily picked up their master and carried him along the arched hall, making for the far end.
The wall shattered. Dust filled the air, choking, blinding.
When Nelle’s vision cleared, she lay beside a fallen pillar-tree, covered in dust and bits of rubble. Her ears thudded dully, the throb of her pulse almost drowning out the other sounds—screaming, snarling, crushing. She rubbed dust from her blinking eyes and briefly feared the pink woman’s magic was wearing off already, leaving her blind in the Noxaur darkness. But then her vision slowly cleared.
The Thorn Maiden approached.
Standing eight feet tall or more—a creature of thorns and roses, but altogether womanly, altogether beautiful and sensual—she strolled along the ruins of that hall, savage briars sprouting from her body in thick masses. More thorns and briars crawled up the pillar-trees, tearing them apart and dragging them down one after another. Much of the roof had caved in, and one whole wall had collapsed.
All around, guards in armor hacked at the writhing branches with swords that flashed with brilliant, blinding magic. But for every limb they struck down, another grew in its place. The guards themselves were caught and yanked from their feet into a constrictor embrace that drove blade-like thorns deep through their armor into their writhing bodies.
Kyriakos? Where was he? Nelle thought she caught a glimpse of fluttering red, but before she could determine whether it was her fae captor, something slithered around her ankle. She just had time to look down, to see the briar catch hold of her.
To realize she was about to be crushed, impaled.
The next instant she was dragged across harsh rubble, kicking and screaming. She tried uselessly to catch hold of something, to stop or at least slow her progress, but then she was lifted upside down by her leg. The long slitted skirts flapped down around her face, and she pushed them wildly aside, her arms thrashing at random.
An exquisite face of rose petals appeared before her vision.
There, little mortal, the Thorn Maiden said, her voice a hiss of deadly perfume. I’ve found you. Her strange mouth broke into an even stranger smile. Much as I’d like to play, I’ll have to save you for later. For now, my master compels me elsewhere.
Nelle tried to open her mouth, tried to scream. But before any sound could emerge from her throat, she was half carried, half flung from the rubble by that clinging vine. Her head spun with whirling, violent flashes. Then she collapsed in a bundle of limbs, and the briar was gone.
At first she could only lie there, convinced that she must be dead. But she was breathing. And when she tried to move, she still had possession of her body. She pushed up onto her elbows, taking stock of her injuries. Her wounded side spasmed, and her arms and legs and bare shoulders and bosom were a mass of small cuts. But she wasn’t dead.
Struggling to her feet, she stood swaying, staring at the horrors in the darkness. The vine had dropped her in the center of the courtyard outside the ruinous hall. Dead bodies littered the stones—fae guardsmen mutilated almost beyond recognition, skull-dogs torn to pieces, remnants of shadow-beings shredded and discarded like rags.
Nelle turned around. The gate. The gate was broken. Shattered. Along with most of the wall.
With a whimpering cry, Nelle staggered for the opening. With each footfall, her will to live revived. She increased her pace until she was running faster than she’d ever run before. She climbed over the rubble, which heaved dangerously under her weight, and all but fell out into the open road beyond.
Behind her, screams and the sounds of crushing stone continued to fill the air. She stopped up her ears and simply ran.