Two girls. Two secrets.
Only one can survive.
Years before Nelle Wychthorn plans her escape, Tabitha Catt may unearth something in a Horned God's lair that is the key to freedom.
Desperate to save her beloved aunt from a dark curse, Tabitha is out t...
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Markel had his arms banded around two toddlers who clung to him. Their slender arms hugged his neck and shoulder. A little girl choked on her sobs, while the boy tried to be brave but his bottom lip wobbled. The boy had one of his hands fisted into Markel's shirt, pulling the material tight around his neck. "We got separated when we went for the children!" he shouted, struggling to remain standing against the jostling limbs of people trying to push him back.
Of course. Aunt Ellena would have naturally run straight for the children separated from their parents and lost. As soon as Jurgana unleashed her beasts, the children she looked after during the day would have been her first thought.
I spun around, momentarily hunting ahead to see if I could see her.
There were small figures—
Oh my gods.
My stomach free-fell.
Children were out there, caught between the soldiers and Jurgana.
Some stood frozen in place, screaming. Others were trying to make it back to the mansion, crying for their parents as they stumbled across the lawn.
When I swung back, Markel was gone. He'd disappeared from view, swept away with the tide of servants fleeing for safety.
A second wave of servants descended upon me. I pushed through the crowd, holding my free arm in front of me like a shield. As I pushed onward, the bloodhound sensed others around me...the flare of fire and a chilling touch of frost, the earth trembling beneath my bare feet—earth-trembler, fire-torch, ice-shredder. They'd lost the ability to hide themselves with the blinding-white terror that had fallen upon them.
I had to find my aunt.
She was the only person in the world that was truly mine. She'd raised me when I had no one else in the world, no memory of who I was, who I'd been. As a child, bewildered by everything and everyone, it had taken a long time to get to know and trust her, because that thing had always been there, shifting in her shadows. She'd lured me out like a kitten as she'd sat in her rocking chair, knitting endlessly, teasing me with a ball of brightly colored yarn that bobbed and rolled as she tugged for more length.
And when I finally relaxed enough and accepted her, she'd been the one to read to me in bed, or sit me on her knee and bind her arms around my waist and tell me that she loved me just as much as my mother once did. She kept me safe.
And I was the one that kept her safe too.
I pushed my way to the tail-end of the mayhem. There...right there...I saw a head of dark blond hair swept into a neat bun and the faintest glimpse of a matronly dress.
My aunt, my aunt...
"Aunt Ellena!" I cried, lurching forward, fighting my way through the last of the servants.
