Tacorn.

Rayghast, the bastard, had arrived.

Marai dashed inside the cave and grabbed Dimtoir and her dagger. It was time to wage war.

The others followed her outside like lost kittens, panic knitting their brows.

“How did they find us?” Thora questioned, biting her lower lip, glancing between Marai and Keshel. “And why so many?”

Twenty wasn’t many. Rayghast could have sent dozens more.

“What are you doing, Marai?” asked Keshel. He placed a hand on her shoulder, briefly halting her.  “My barriers will protect us. The riders will leave if they can’t find us.”

“Rayghast ordered those men to find me at all costs. I’d rather kill them now and be done with it.” Marai was a threat to him and his plans. She’d killed too many of his men; had humiliated the king by escaping with Ruenen from his dungeon. And more than that, she was fae, and Rayghast wanted to eradicate all traces of faerie blood from Astye.

Marai stalked off in the direction Aresti had come from, ignoring Keshel and Thora’s calls from the cave entrance.

She’d make them bleed. The riders weren’t Rayghast, but it didn’t matter . . . Marai would make them pay for what the cruel king did to Ruenen.

The riders weren’t hard to spot, cantering through the canyon pass, beside the river, to the edge of Keshel’s barrier. Fifteen brawny soldiers sat astride their mounts, sporting Tacorn’s crossed-sword emblem pins upon their chests. Marai briefly wondered how suffocatingly hot they must be wearing all that black armor. Their five bounty-hunter companions were olive-skinned men of Ehle in lightweight linens and protective turbans. They couldn’t proceed through. Their horses reared and neighed at the sensation of magic; their ears twitched. Animals could always sense magic in ways humans couldn’t.

“What’s going on? Why can’t we get through?” one of the soldiers asked.

Hidden behind Keshel’s invisible wall, Marai crept closer to the men. Maybe they’ll turn back.

A bounty hunter pressed his hand up against the invisible shield. “It’s magic!”

The soldiers stirred, grabbing for their weapons.

“We found them! The fae are here,” one of them said; their commander, based on the red plume on his helmet. “Find a way through this barrier.”

The soldiers and hunters began pummeling Keshel’s shield with their swords and spears, hoping to break through. Marai wondered if Keshel could feel each strike. Would he weaken? Would his barrier fall?

Feet pounded the earth behind her. Aresti, Leif, and Raife had followed. As reluctant warriors, they lifted their bows and arrows with trembling hands. Twenty against four was frightening odds to them as inexperienced killers.

“Stay back behind the barrier,” Marai whispered. “You can shoot from here, and stay out of harm’s way.”

Aresti, Leif, and Raife didn’t move, not forward, or further to safety.

Passing through the shield, Marai leapt onto the nearest rider, pulling him from his saddle. Men swore in surprise. Horses whinnied. Before any of the hunters or soldiers could raise their weapons, arrows flew from behind the barrier.

One of Raife’s arrows lodged in the throat of an Ehle man. Blood gurgled from his mouth as he tilted out of his saddle. Leif hit another man in the thigh. He yelped, falling from his horse into the dirt. The bounty hunter was then trampled by hooves in the frenzy.

Bodies tumbled onto the ground. Dimtoir slashed through stomachs and necks, any exposed skin, whistling in the carnage. Eventually, Aresti tired of waiting behind the barrier and joined Marai in the fray. Her two swords became blurred silver in the air as she brought down a rider. His flailing sword sliced through her arm as he fell. Blood spurted, and Aresti gasped at the pain.

Leif and Raife’s arrows kept flying, hitting true. Marai cut down a hunter whose spear was aimed at Aresti’s heart.

All twenty men were dead in minutes. Their horses galloped away through the gorge.

Leif let out a shuddering breath as he lowered his bow. He was pale, despite the high sun of the afternoon. He’d struck five men with his arrows. Raife had six kills. All shots had gone straight through the eye.

“Is this what you want me to do to all the humans?” Marai asked him and Aresti. “Use the ring to inflict this kind of slaughter on everyone in Astye? I know death. Killing makes you numb. It rips out your soul. I don’t want you all to become me.”

Leif cringed, like he might vomit, but he still managed to lance Marai with a glare. His hands shook as his eyes settled on Marai’s cream linen shirt. She’d borrowed it from Thora, and now the shirt was stained with splattered blood. Perhaps Thora wouldn’t be cross, what with Marai protecting her, and all. Aresti clung to the wound on her arm with clenched teeth.

Raife approached, staring down at the dead men with a pained expression. “We’ll need to bury them right away. They’ll rot faster in the sun. And Aresti, make sure you have Thora tend to that wound.”

Leif and Aresti went to retrieve their shovels from the cave. While they were gone, Marai knelt to search the dead men’s pockets.

“What are you doing?” asked Raife, a twinge of horror in his tone, as Marai pilfered coins, valuables, weapons, and food from the dead men.

“They don’t need this. We do,” Marai replied. She handed Raife two daggers and a long, thin knife. Her hands grasped a piece of paper inside a soldier’s breastplate. She unfolded it as Raife loomed over her shoulder. Leif was returning with the shovels.

The note was from Rayghast to his soldiers.

I want the Lady Butcher found. I have reason to believe there are more of her disgusting kind still alive in the Badlands. You have one job: find her, and kill all those associated with her.

Merely seeing the king’s signature at the end electrified Marai’s blood again. She crumpled the note in her fist, and tossed it into the mass grave Raife and Leif dug behind a boulder.

For you, Ruenen.

Marai dumped a shovel-full of red dirt over the bodies.

Rayghast could send a hundred men, a thousand men, after her. She would never let him win. 

A week later, Keshel came to her by the river. The sky was brilliantly bright with layers of tangerine and peach. Marai sat on a rock, meditating as usual before training.

“Beautiful morning,” he said, and it was. Insects chirped, a frog croaked; there was a gentle, warm breeze, bringing with it the smell of blossoming cactus flowers. Keshel sat on the rock near Marai. He stared at her, taking in every inch, as if truly seeing her for the first time.

He’d been softening, too. Day after day, Marai saw the signs of life in his face, a light in his eyes. He kept finding reasons to be around her, like sitting next to her at meals, or helping her and Kadiatu in the garden. Keshel had his own stone walls inside, and the longer Marai stayed, the more of those walls crumbled.

Unnerved by Keshel’s attention, Marai scowled at him. “What?”

“I wasn’t sure who you’d be when you came back to us,” he said, catching Marai off-guard. “I assumed you would still be that ferocious little girl.”

“The demon child?” Marai snorted.

A smile flashed upon Keshel’s face, but it was gone quickly. “You were never a demon, just wild. Unhappy. I understand why you were, but it was my duty to protect you, and you never wanted to be controlled. That’s why we clashed so often.”

“I know that, but it doesn’t mean I liked it.”

He smiled, this time for real. “I was never surprised you left. Honestly, I’m amazed that you’re still here now. But I’m glad you are. You brought a much-needed spark back into our lives.”

Marai picked her fingernails, avoiding his gaze. Worms wriggled around in her stomach at the earnest, tender tone of Keshel’s voice.

“But there’s something you must know.” Concern darkened Keshel’s expression. Whatever it was he had to say, Keshel struggled. He hesitated, pursed his lips, like he didn’t want to say it at all. “Ruenen is alive.”

The words hit her like a punch to the gut. A bucket of ice cold water dumped over her head and now she had to gasp for air.