Chap took a quick step at that opening and then faltered.
Magiere’s falchion lay in the middle of the street, and he raised his eyes and spotted her. He panicked at the sight of her twisted features. A raised memory of hearth and home would not reach through to her now, and Leesil was not here. There was only one other thing that might make Magiere respond.
Chap had to end this fouled exploit.
Still dazed, Én’nish tried to twist away as a blurry hand came for her throat. She barely whipped her head aside, for her opponent was now too fast and so impossibly strong.
The hand latched onto her shoulder and crushed its grip closed. Én’nish cried out in pain that made her sight darken, and she lashed out with a foot.
It connected with the inside of a knee. Her assailant instantly began to topple, but the grip held. It did not break until Én’nish’s back hit the street. Those fingers bruised her shoulder muscles before she rolled away.
She rose, shaking her head to clear her senses amid pain. Then fear overrode anguish, anger, and hate. She looked into the face of a monster not three paces before her.
The white face beneath stray tendrils of black hair was covered in a sheen like a quick sweat. Tears rolled from narrowed eyes that were completely black, with no whites. Features twisted in rage and madness. An open mouth exposed the teeth, the fangs, of some animal.
This was the true face of the monster called Magiere.
Rhysís came into Én’nish’s peripheral view, backing up the street’s far side. “Break off!” he shouted in their own tongue. “Now!”
All the anger came back to Én’nish, but horror overwhelmed it again when the monster took a lunging step.
Magiere stalled at an eerie wail that pierced Én’nish’s ears.
It was like the mewl of a large cat, but so loud in warning, as if rising from the throat of a dog. As that sound seemed to vibrate through Én’nish’s bones, she shivered, and Magiere turned in its direction.
Én’nish spotted Chap lowering his head, and her spite resurfaced again. She held out a stiletto, pointing it at Magiere as she shouted in Elvish, and Rhysís instantly leveled his aim on the majay-hì.
“Think of your misbegotten mate and the love he took from me! I will suffer that for a lifetime ... but I will see you suffer the same an instant before you die.”
Chap caught every word of the smaller anmaglâhk’s shout in Elvish, even as his wail to Magiere had left his throat raw. There was no mistaking Én’nish’s voice.
Magiere twisted back at the woman’s vicious voice, but she could not have understood those words. The anmaglâhk archer swung his aim toward Chap.
Before Chap could move, Osha lunged out in front of him.
“You shoot, you die!” Osha shouted, and then his voice dropped to a menacing whisper. “Even if I die ... you die!”
Chap did not know why Én’nish had spoken in her own language. Perhaps the young woman had intended only Osha to understand and be rattled. It had not worked. Osha stood poised and steady, just the same, with an arrow fully drawn back, its black feathers almost to his dark tan cheek.
“We leave—now!” the other anmaglâhk barked in Elvish, but Én’nish hesitated and then took a step back.
Magiere started to lunge, and Chap went at her with a vicious snarl and snap. This had to end now. Neither side would win, even if half of them ended up dead.
Magiere wheeled on him, and as he looked into her fully black eyes, Én’nish’s words still stuck in his head.
Think of your misbegotten mate and the love he took from me! I will suffer that for a lifetime ... but I will see you suffer the same an instant before you die.
He kept rumbling as he closed on Magiere.
Én’nish’s threat was real, though it mattered little. There was never a doubt that these assassins wanted Leesil dead almost as much as Magiere. One of them had a personal vendetta, and that was both doubly dangerous and potentially useful for the future.
Magiere stared at him, half panting from exertion or fury, but she did not move.
“Chap?” she whispered.
He almost collapsed in relief when she recognized him, but he quickly reached for her memories. Of all those he had glimpsed before in her, he had to find and raise those of Leesil amid her awareness filled with older, hate-laced recollections of Én’nish and other anmaglâhk. He flooded her with memories that might soothe her. But he was also aware of Osha, just to his left, stepping into sight.
Én’nish and her accomplice were gone.
“All right?” Osha whispered.
Focused only on Magiere, Chap was uncertain to whom the young elf spoke. When Osha tried to step around toward Magiere, Chap sidestepped and cut him off.
Magiere stumbled back against the street’s far wall. Perhaps she was now aware enough to stay back.
Chap kept his focus on her memories. Her head sagged until her face was curtained by black hair, but her fingers twitched, clutching at the wall stones like claws.
Magiere sank into those memories of hearth and home. There was the moment of her wedding, of holding Leesil’s arm as they walked down the aisle, with Osha and Wynn walking together behind them. The whole place was filled with their neighbors and friends in Miiska.
She didn’t fight these memories and let Chap wash away everything else in her thoughts. But Wynn still waited, here and now, and Leesil was out there trying to get to her.
“Enough,” she whispered, though it slurred between her teeth. “That’s enough, Chap.”
When she raised her head, the whole world was dark and dim again before her eyes. There was only Chap watching her, and Osha behind him, with his bow at his side and an arrow still notched to its string.
Magiere remembered so little of what had happened only moments before.
“We go now?” Osha asked insistently, though a slight frown wrinkled his high brow. “Go where Brot’ân’duivé say.... Follow plan.”
Chap huffed once.
Magiere stared at Chap as Osha’s words sank in. They were simply supposed to act as a decoy, draw off any lurking anmaglâhk watching the guild castle, and seed a little chaos among them.
They’d done their part. She took a deep breath and heaved herself off the wall.
With a last worried glance at her, Osha turned away. Chap lingered until Magiere actually followed and then fell in beside her. As they neared the alley’s mouth, Magiere looked at the wagon, trying to peer beneath, but no one was there.
“Leanâlhâm?” she called.
Something moved at a near corner of the alley’s mouth. Leanâlhâm stood looking out, wide-eyed, from the shadows.
Magiere faltered in the middle of the alley’s mouth. The girl was supposed to have stayed hidden until they came for her. Had she been there all along and seen everything?
Osha passed Leanâlhâm and stopped short of the narrow space between the wagon and the alley wall. Leanâlhâm still looked at Magiere without blinking, stuck where she was at the alley’s corner.
“Are you ... all right?” the girl whispered.
“It’s time to go,” Magiere said, and reached out.
Leanâlhâm flinched and pulled back, and then so did Magiere.
Osha carefully put his hand on the girl’s shoulder, turning her to follow him, but Leanâlhâm glanced back over her shoulder. It was too hard for Magiere to see her face in the dark of the alley.
No doubt the girl kept looking back at her as Osha led her away. Magiere stood there, unable to follow.
Once, as an invader in Leanâlhâm’s homeland, Magiere had been asked, or rather intimidated into, something by Sgäile. Looking back now, it seemed like some forewarning of what had come later: Sgäile’s own death. She’d agreed to watch over Leanâlhâm if she could. And she would protect that girl of mixed blood, now caught between worlds like the rest of them.