When it stopped, she lowered her arm and saw the flaming tyger pounce on the Archon, driving her to the ground. Beside them, the dragon shrank until it disappeared in a puff of vapor.
But Khirro’s dead. Where did the tyger come from?
The living warriors who remained all stopped fighting to watch, Kanosee and Erechanian standing side by side as the unbelievable fight unfolded before them. Emeline skirted around them, trying not to draw their attention, but one man saw her and stepped into her path.
“What have we here?” the Kanosee soldier said.
Mud smeared the warrior’s face and his left arm hung limp at his side, a gash near the shoulder oozing blood. He smiled to show the gap in his teeth where one was missing, and Emeline froze, her body remembering the man’s rough touch and the terrible things he did to her even before her mind recalled his name.
“Hektor,” she said.
“I told you we’d see each other again, didn’t I?” He held his sword’s scabbard steady with his left wrist, wincing in pain as he did, and slid his weapon into its sheath. “I just didn’t expect it to be here.”
He moved in close to her and Emeline’s jaw clamped tight. She smelled the odor of his sweat, felt his touch on her arm, and the memory of their trip to the fortress came back. In her mind, she saw him kill her husband.
Anger and worry for her child forced fear from Emeline’s mind. She moved a step closer to the man so their bodies were almost touching and put her hand on the top of his chest.
“I hoped we’d meet again,” she said.
With one quick movement, Emeline plunged her fingers into Hektor’s wound. He cried out and jerked back a step; gripped in Emeline’s other hand, his dagger pulled from its scabbard and she leveled it at him.
“What are you doing, woman?” He raised his good hand for a moment, as if in surrender, then lowered it. “You won’t hurt me. You’re just a farm girl. You don’t have it in you.”
His lips curled up in a smile again, revealing the gap that had haunted Emeline’s dreams. He took one step toward her and she planted the dagger in his throat. His eyes went wide with surprise, his mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, blood bubbling on his lips. Emeline pulled the knife from his throat and drove it in again.
Her rapist-her husband’s murderer-collapsed at her feet, and she stared down at him as he twitched on the ground, his life spurting onto the grass. She felt his blood on her fingers and tasted the metallic tang of fear and disgust on her tongue, but her body felt numb, otherwise. When she looked up, she saw Therrador lying prone a few yards from where the tyger was mauling the woman and immediately forgot the dying man at her feet.
Maybe he knows where Iana is. Maybe he took the children to safety.
Emeline dropped the knife and stepped over the first man she ever killed, moving toward the king as quickly as she dared. She crouched, shuffling between the bodies scattered across the ground, but hesitated with only five paces separating her from Therrador to watch the tyger back away from the Archon, leaving her burning to ash upon the plain.
The animal’s flames flickered out and Graymon stumbled back a step before his knees gave way and he crumpled to the ground. The king called out to his son; Emeline found herself unable to do more than stare at the tendrils of smoke rising from the boy’s clothes, her mind refusing to believe what her eyes saw.
Graymon has become the tyger?
She stared, mouth agape, fear and anger and death forgotten until the boy rolled onto his back and she saw the bundle he held in his arms. It felt to Emeline like her heart leaped into her throat, choking her before she found the breath to call out her daughter’s name.
She ran across the scorched and cracked earth where the fight between dragon, tyger and Archon had occurred. The hard ground scraped gashes in her legs as she fell to her knees at Graymon’s side.
Other than a smudge of black soot across her soft, pink cheek, Iana’s face looked peaceful, like it did when she slept. The baby didn’t move.
A weight fell on Emeline’s chest, compressing her lungs until she couldn’t breathe. Her shoulders trembled; a cry of grief began deep in her throat, clawed its way up into her mouth and between her lips. She reached a shaking hand out toward her daughter’s cheek to wipe the soot away, but stopped short of touching her and put her hands instead over her own face, stifling her sorrowful wail. She leaned forward, elbows on her knees, and let the sobs shake her.
“Em…ah…leen.”
Through her grief, she barely heard the quiet syllables. She sniffled deeply and moved her hands from her face, wiped away her tears. Graymon’s looked up at her from beneath drooping lids.
“I’m here,” she said.
The boy’s face pinched with pain and discomfort for a second, then he looked back into her eyes.
“Iana. She…she…”
“Sshh.” Emeline brushed sopping hair from his sweaty forehead. “Don’t speak.”
Graymon nodded minutely and Emeline inhaled a deep, shuddering breath; in it, she smelled her daughter’s familiar scent mixed with the stink of brimstone and singed grass. She forced an unconvincing smile on her lips for the sake of the boy and reached out to take the baby from him.
Iana’s skin was warm. Emeline hugged her close against her chest and looked down into the babe’s angelic, innocent face, struggling to keep tears from coming anew.
Why did this have to happen to you?
She closed her eyes and said a silent prayer to the Gods to take care of her child, to make sure she found her father in the fields of the dead.
Both of her fathers.
She kept her eyes closed and rocked back and forth on her knees as though she comforted her daughter, but it was herself in need of comfort. But where would she find it with Lehgan and Khirro both dead? What was she without her child?
A soft sound reached her ears and she held her breath. She heard it again and opened her eyes.
Iana looked up at her, smiling.
A ragged, laughing sob broke free of Emeline’s throat and she kissed all over her daughter’s face, eliciting coos and giggles from the baby. She hugged her close and breathed deep of her baby smell.
“Graymon!”
The king’s voice rasped behind her and Emeline chastised herself silently; she’d been so concerned for the welfare of her child, she’d forgotten Therrador must be experiencing the same thing.
“Graymon is alive. So is Iana,” she said over her shoulder. She turned to Graymon and saw his eyes were brighter, more focused. “Can you stand?”
“I…I think so. Is my da all right?”
She stood, Iana cradled in her right arm, and helped Graymon to his feet.
“Take it easy,” she said putting her arm around his shoulders.
He held onto her to steady himself as they crossed the distance to where Therrador lay. When they arrived, Graymon fell to his knees and hugged his father, his head resting on the king’s chest. Emeline stood back and watched them, emotion clogging her throat. She kissed Iana on the head again and the baby giggled.
“I’m so glad you’re all right, son.”
Graymon leaned back and looked at his father. “What happened to you, Da? Are you all right?”
“The witch paralyzed me.” The muscles in his jaw clenched tight and he looked away from his son’s gaze. “It will wear off with time.”
Graymon hugged him again. “I was in the fire, Da. I was in the tyger.”
“You are a brave hero, son. The bravest.”
“You saved the kingdom, Graymon,” Emeline said.
Graymon looked up at her, his eyes sparkling. “Iana-”
“Sshh, honey. The baby is fine,” Emeline said.