once possessed—long, deadly claws that shot silver sparks as she waved them through the air. “Brain in a jar,” she screamed, her voice heavy with malice. “That’s your fear. Worse than the crawlers, isn’t it? That’s your only fate, dear heart. Brain in a jar. I’m about to make that happen.”
Rune stumbled and fell to one knee, her entire body shuddering. Damascus had plucked that particularly nasty fear right out of her head, and there was no doubt that if the witch defeated her that day, it was over for Rune.
Brain in a jar.
God, no.
“Get up,” a man commanded, and she looked up, dazed, to see the lord of Death Shimmer, Nikolai Czar. “Get up and fight her. You must win. You must.”
Yes, she must.
She had power.
She had so fucking much power. She just had to use it.
Then the witch stilled, her narrowed eyes on something to the left of Rune.
Rune followed her gaze and saw a small figure running through the crowd, standing out like a lone flower in a field of grass with her wild white hair.
Snow.
Shame.
And she had the witch’s attention.
In that instant, as she watched Snow lope toward her, it hit Rune like a sucker punch in the gut. She really had a sister.
A sister.
A maddened legislator charged Snow, roaring as he stomped toward her.
“No,” Rune screamed.
In the back of her mind was the fact that she’d just given the witch someone else to torture and use against her.
But it was too late to worry about that.
She was a protector, and Snow was about to be crushed beneath the monstrosity heading straight for her.
Chaos. The world was simply chaos.
More of the witch’s legislators fought, kicking up great clods of charred earth with their enormous hooves. They roared and beat at their chests, and Rune saw it as if in slow motion as she ran.
Not the run of a vampire.
She was more than a vampire. More than a monster.
She was death.
She reached Snow seconds before the legislator did. Snow grabbed her hand and held up her free one, sending fire at the beast.
Rune did the same thing, at the same time.
Together, they sent the legislator to hell.
Then they turned to look at each other for a startled moment.
“Thank you,” Snow said.
Rune smiled. “Are you ready for this?”
“I’ve been ready for this my whole life. Now that you’re here, we have a chance.”
And that time, there was no bitterness in her voice.
“Then let’s blast our way to the witch,” Rune told her. “She has to end today.”
“Are you…” Snow hesitated, though the witch roared her order and more legislators began to streak toward the sisters. “Are you okay? You look like death.”
Rune had no idea what she looked like, but she knew what she was. “I am death.”
“Keep hold of my hand,” Snow said, as the beasts ran them down. “We can combine our powers and create a wall around the boneyard. The witch won’t be able to get through it. Not before you kill her.” Her voice was grim, and a little something more.
Sadness?
Maybe.
It didn’t matter. They’d both do what they had to do.
“Please Rune,” she said. “Kill her.”
“I swear it.”
And still more screaming, armed people poured into the area. They were weak, sick, skinny, and tortured. But they were full of something Damascus couldn’t take from them.
Faith.
The princess was there, the time had come, and every single person in Skyll believed.
They believed.
Even some of the witch’s army of guards turned mid-battle to fight against the witch.
Rune and Snow sent flame after flame into the legislators, barely waiting for one to fall, a skeleton of brittle bone and putrid ash, before they shot another one.
But the legislators were big, fast, and mean.
And they were many.
Damascus watched from her hill, watching as Rune and Snow fought their way ever closer to her.
Rune glanced up as the sky darkened, thinking at first a storm was approaching. But it was cold. There was no storm.
More crows were arriving.
Thousands of them.
“Yes,” she whispered. “My army of crows.”
As they zoomed from the sky, more of the witch’s armies stomped onto the burnt grounds.
And still more of them.
Legislators, men, other creatures Rune didn’t recognize.
“Carricorns,” someone screamed.
“What are—”
Before Rune could finish her question, she saw what could have only been carricorns.
Birds—sort of. Long, dull yellow, and featherless, they flew at Rune’s crows and attacked them with sharp beaks as long as their bodies, keeping the crows aloft and away from the fighters on the ground.