Chapter 10
At Pherson’s anguished cry,Wynda lunged forward, trying to reach for Wren. The lassie had ducked out the door to the secret passages as Wynda wrestled with the heavy latch, and darted away from her now.
“Wren!” she cried, grabbing her skirts up and running after the girl. “Nay! Come back!”
She knew Wren was only trying to reach her father, but Pherson didn’t need the distraction of the little girl. And clearly he didn’t want her to see him die.
Please, St. Tiffani, dinnae let him die.
She didn’t have time to glance over her shoulder, to ensure Evander had found a good vantage from the north wall. She just had to pray for that as well.
And that she’d reach Wren before the lassie made things worse.
And that she wouldn’t trip and fall.
In the seconds it took her to catch up with the little girl, all these prayers coalesced into a generic Please please please please.
It must’ve worked.
Wren had only learned to run a few hours ago, and Wynda’s legs were longer. She reached the little girl and scooped her up, tucking Wren’s head against her shoulder and trying to ignore the way she screamed and flailed.
“Hush, lassie, trust—“
Me
Yer father.
Uncle Evander.
God and all the saints.
One of them must’ve worked, because at that moment her eyes met Pherson’s, and she saw the surprise on his face when the arrow slammed into the forehead of the man holding his right arm.
Evander! Her brother’s aim had been true!
Time slowed.
She watched the man with the long knife hesitate a heartbeat too long. Pherson was already leaning to the left, away from the falling brute, his right hand dropping to the hilt of the dagger at his back.
The one-eyed man in front of him yelled something, but Pherson yanked hard—leaving a hank of hair in the one-eyed man’s hand—and threw himself to the left, atop the bald man.
She was stumbling forward, each breath an era, each heartbeat an eon, Wren’s screams in her ears. The lassie wanted her father, as did Wynda…but she couldn’t allow Wren to see her father this way.
There’d been blood all over Pherson’s face before Evander’s arrow had given him a modicum of freedom, and now there was more. Wynda heard her own gasp as Pherson rolled off the bald man, who now sported a macabre second grin, his life’s blood spilling from his throat.
And that blood covered Pherson to the elbow, even as he rolled to one knee and hurled the dagger.
It struck the one-eyed man at the same moment as one of Evander’s arrows; the dagger found his eye socket, the arrow the back of his neck
Wynda sucked in a proper breath, and time sped up again.
On one knee, his hair hanging around his face and everything bloody, the man she loved watched his adversary fall.
Who was he?
Pherson struggled to his feet, then stumbled to the body, crouching long enough to pull his dagger from the man’s remaining eye and brush his fingers across the fletching of the arrow, as if wondering at its origins.
Wren chose that moment to slam her foot into Wynda’s side, which caused her grunt in pain and loosen her hold on the girl. The lassie seized her moment of distraction to slide from her arms, her feet hitting the ground as she screamed “Da!”