Crown of Blood and Ruin: A romantic fairy tale fantasy (The Broken Kingdoms #3)(11)

“Down!” Tor rushed to me, covering my head as arrows rained over the wall in a perfect arch.
The sick thud of iron slicing through flesh boiled in my ears. Screams, shouts, curses, all of it spun as the arrows fell. Tor’s arms surrounded me, holding me against the wall of the watch tower, unable to do anything until it stopped.
Once a shout from our walls roared to return fire, I shoved Tor away. “When I said I didn’t want Valen as my shield, I thought it was understood none of you are easily sacrificed, Torsten!”
Such a rare thing, but Tor flashed a white smile. He tapped the end of his arrow, igniting the tip with his blue pyre fury, then pulled the string taut. “I think you like us, Elise Lysander.”
Another battle was beginning. Fear grew potent until it left a sour taste on my tongue. Yes, I liked them. I loved the entire Guild of Shade like I would a family, like I would true brothers.
And every time the people of my birth showed their bleeding faces, they threatened those I loved most. I tired of it all.
Pulling the tail of an arrow against my cheek, I locked my sights where my father cowered beneath his canopy. He was a stranger to me. Today, he would pay for trying to harm them.
Both eyes open, I let the arrow fly.

Chapter five

Night Prince

We were always prepared for Ravenspire. They tried to breach the wall, but in every crevice, every gap, we had warriors at the ready. Now they held the hearts of more than a few Ravens in their hands.
I stood, buried in our archers, using fury to split the earth. To divide us further from the Ravens. The burn in my blood only deepened as the armies of Calder proved more cunning than I gave credit for.
With heavy bolts they shot rope across the ravine I’d carved. Like spiders to a web, Ravens worked seamlessly weaving rope and tethering it to thick trees, readying to shimmy across the gap.
“Cut the damn ropes!” Halvar shouted.
All around our folk worked on trying to pluck the bolts from the stone, or saw the rope, but some sort of coating glistened on the twine. It added a strength to the line, and made it nearly impossible to cut.
We’d drop a few, but not all. There were too many.
“Halvar! The Divide—remember? The Divide!” I shouted at my friend. During the beginnings of the raids, we’d trained side by side. Dagar taught us to use our fury together, to utilize our strengths, all to protect Etta and bury the Timoran raiders.
Halvar paused and studied the space between us. After a few heartbeats, a smile cracked over his lips. A vicious kind of smirk darkened and brightened his face all at once when faced me. “It could work.”
“Then go!”
“Back away from the edge of the wall,” Halvar commanded.
Archers dropped their bows and backed away. In a crouch, I spread my palms across the stone; the heat of fury scorched the pale stone with blackened marks. A crack fissured under my hands. Stone scraped over stone. Soil tilled in thick, rocky mounds as I broke our wall.
Wails and cries of surprise went up when part of the wall slid toward the ground, as if I shaved it in half.
“Follow the king,” Halvar said at my back. “Go, you bleeding fools. Step only where I tell you.”
It took a few moments before the warriors peeked over the edge of the broken wall, and saw there were now levels, like a stone staircase, I’d carved along the side to take them out into the deep ravine.
“Cover him!” Elise’s voice rose at my back.
I grinned. She had a regal tone, and I did not need to even look to know my hj?rta had two dozen archers at my back.
The Divide was a strategy to be used if the raiders ever crossed the canyons or peaks long ago. It would spend all my fury; it would take unhindered concentration, but if we pulled it off, the Ravens would leave with massive losses.
Arms raised, my hands trembled. Fury pulled from my blood. From the bottom of the ravine, tall towers of rock and earth broke free and sprouted like stony fingers from the ground. The towers were flat on top, and wide enough our warriors could leap from top to top like steppingstones across the ravine.
We’d reach the other side, corner them, and they’d regret stepping into the sunlight.
Or, the better plan, they’d mimic our steps and join us on the tall platforms of stone and fight us there.
A thick Raven stepped forward; the captain of the unit, I presumed. He tossed back a hood, and for a few breaths studied each block of earth as it shot up from the ground.
At last, he signaled his warriors forward, demanding they cross the space on the stone towers I kept carving. My limbs ached, but I provided the Ravens with bits of stone platforms that were close enough it wouldn’t take much for them to step over the darkness below.
And they did.
“Hold,” Halvar shouted, and our warriors stilled wherever they were.
I took a place in the center of the ravine. The blocky pillar of earth I stood on was wide enough to hold four more men, but I was alone there. I could see all sides, all the steps that could be taken.
Steadily, the Ravens pursued us. Shaky at first, leaping from rock to rock, but their confidence gained, and they went faster.
“Ready, My Prince? King, I mean King. Hells, I’ll get used to it, I promise,” Halvar said, laughing a little maniacally as he raised his hands.
“Ready!”
“Go!” Halvar shouted, and chaos followed.
With most of the Ravens out in the open on the stone pillars, I waved my hand and crumbled their towers back into dust. Screams echoed on the long plummet to the jagged ravine floor.
“Fall back!” the captain cried. “Get back, you fools!”
Ravens scrambled to return to their side, to solid ground. Some pushed their own warriors off the ledges in their panic, but where a Raven would step, I would break the earth until the tower fell. Where an Ettan moved, I’d strengthen their footing with closer, surer slabs of stone.