Gilded Serpent by Danielle Jensen (top 10 novels txt) 📕

was enough for him to see when they recognized him, their determination turning to fury.

Glancing back, Killian saw his men had reached the flood path. That Sonia’s force was helping them across. Another minute and the flood would pass through, and this time, tree trunks wouldn’t be enough to cross it. But a minute was more than enough time for hundreds of Anuk to reach the opposite bank.

“Killian!” Sonia screamed. “Run!”

Ignoring her, he tossed aside his bow, picking up a fallen shield and drawing his sword.

One after another after another they attacked, more interested in killing him than getting across, all dying beneath his blade, their weapons clanging against his shield, against his mail, though a few found their marks. His body ached with exhaustion, blood running from his temple and down his wrists.

Then a heavy weight slammed against his back.

Killian rolled, nearly losing his weapon as he grappled with the warrior. He punched the man in the face, then pulled a knife and stabbed him twice, but it was too late.

They were racing past, running to get across the river ahead of the flood. To have their vengeance on Rotahn despite there being only one woman within the walls that deserved their wrath.

He tried to gain his feet, but another warrior knocked him down, forcing him to fight his way free.

And when he lifted his head, the riverbed was swarming with Anuk, shields held over their heads to protect themselves from Mudamorian archers.

Sonia was shooting arrow after arrow, fighting to hold them back. But she stopped to meet his gaze, her mouth forming the word Run!

He didn’t want to.

Climbing to his feet, he turned his back, ready to die fighting. Ready to die with honor.

“Killian!” Sonia’s voice sounded strangely like Lydia’s, and his chest tightened, the pain almost unbearable. All he knew was that wherever she was, he needed to follow. And that the path wasn’t behind him, but ahead.

 55LYDIA

Lydia had never ridden this fast in her life.

She focused on keeping her seat on the back of the horse, allowing it to follow the men rather than attempting to guide it over the unfamiliar ground that was revealed only when lightning lanced across the sky. Then ahead, she caught sight of what must be the mining camp, lanterns swinging wildly on their posts, figures moving at a run between the buildings.

The soldiers bypassed it, heading into the hills at the base of the mountains that were barely visible behind the haze of falling rain.

And that’s when she saw it.

In between the flashes of lightning, she could make out clouds of swirling mist drifting up from the hills. More than she’d ever seen at one time, and her chest tightened at the realization of where it was coming from. It was where the battle was being waged, and soldiers must be dying by the hundreds.

And Killian was up there.

“Lydia?”

A familiar voice shouted her name, and she twisted in her saddle to see Finn standing a few paces away holding the reins of several horses, his eyes wide with astonishment. “But you’re dead. The message that came today said all the healers in the temple when it was overrun were killed.”

“Not all,” she answered. “High Lady Falorn got me out.”

“He thinks you’re dead.” Hauling on the reins of the horses, Finn closed the distance between them. “Killian. He entirely lost his head when he received the message.”

Lydia’s heart skipped, icy fear pooling in her stomach. “Where is he?”

A question with an obvious answer, and yet when Finn pointed at the path the soldiers had taken, toward that terrifying swirl of life and death, a sob still tore from her lips.

Then she dug in her heels, sending her horse galloping after the soldiers.

Her horse stumbled and slid, but she cracked the ends of her reins against his shoulder to drive him faster, heading toward the great swirls of life given off by the dead and the dying.

The rain’s ferocity increased, soaking her clothes and turning the ground into a slippery mess of mud. She leapt her mount across narrow streams of brown water, her reckless speed pulling her ahead of the reinforcements, who shouted at her to check her pace. But she couldn’t. Killian was in that battle, and the fear she’d seen in Finn’s eyes told her that he might not be trying to survive it.

Lightning flashed, revealing a group of men ahead of her. And before the thunder rolled, she made out the screams.

Please don’t let me be too late, she pleaded to the gods. Please don’t let him be dead.

And then she reached the rear of the Mudamorian force, the vantage her horse gave her allowing Lydia to see over their heads. The riverbed was full of warriors dressed in the colors of the desert, their faces veiled and their weapons gleaming with blood.

Then Lydia heard a noise that turned her blood cold.

A roar punctuated by cracks and snaps of breaking tree limbs, and her eyes moved upstream to see a monstrous black mass surged toward them. For a heartbeat, she thought it was blight, then realized it was a tide of deadfall being pushed downstream by the floodwaters.

“The Six have mercy,” she whispered, ripping her gaze from the beast to search for Killian, her eyes finding Sonia. Her ears hearing the other woman scream Killian’s name.

And then lightning flashed again, and she saw him.

He was bloodied and surrounded by warriors, who threw themselves against him one after another only to drop and die at his feet. But there were so many.

Too many.

“Killian!” she screamed, her voice desperate and shrill. And though the thunder roared and the air was filled with shouts and screams and the clash of weapons, he lifted his head, hearing her.

“Run!” she screamed, knowing he could make it ahead of the flood if he tried. Instead, he turned back to face the enemy.

“Get back!” someone shouted. “The flood is on us!”

Lydia’s eyes skipped to the rolling black tide of death. Then to Killian.

She dug in