One Salt Sea: An October Daye Novel

I bent my head, redoubling my effort to cut the ropes that held her. She wouldn’t choose human, that was all. She couldn’t choose human. Because if she chose human, I’d have to kill her, and then I’d have to break Oberon’s Law myself. If Raysel’s actions forced me to kill my own daughter, I’d strangle her with my bare hands, and go to the Iron Tree without regrets. And that couldn’t happen. I wouldn’t let it happen. My daughter would choose Faerie.

I was less than halfway through cutting the ropes around Gillian’s wrists when Quentin’s shout of pain made me raise my head again. Every instinct I had told me to go to him, to do a knight’s duty to her squire. I risked a look at the fight. Tybalt was holding off two Goblins, the three of them moving so fast that it was almost impossible to tell where one ended and the next began. Not all of the blood I tasted in the air was theirs. I hoped their weapons weren’t poisoned. A third Goblin was lying on the floor, his black blood turning everyone’s footing unsure even as it filled the room with the stink of tar and molten rock. He’d been casting a spell when he was killed, reaching into the limited arsenal of Goblin magic for something he never had the chance to finish.

Raysel and Connor were off to one side, circling one another. They both had their bows raised, waiting for the opportunity to strike. I would have needed to be blind to miss the hatred in her expression, or the sorrow in his. He didn’t love her. But he didn’t mean to fail her, either.

Quentin was backed into a corner, the fourth Goblin prodding at him with a long spear. My squire was already bleeding from several puncture wounds in his side and shoulders. He’d lost his baseball bat at some point; it was lying on the floor, well out of his reach. The pixies were trying to help by darting in and slashing at the Goblin’s eyes, but he just batted them away, his attention remaining focused on Quentin. Quentin, meanwhile, was having more and more trouble keeping the spear at bay.

I only stared for a second before I made my decision. I straightened, pausing to kiss Gillian’s cheek and say, “No matter what you hear, do not open your eyes, understand me? Do not open your eyes.” I didn’t wait for her to answer. I was already running across the room, dodging fallen pixies and broken arrows as I charged toward the Goblin who was harrying my squire.

Quentin pressed himself farther back against the wall when he saw me coming, forcing the Goblin to close in just that tiny bit more. The Goblin chuckled as he advanced, clearly believing his quarry was finally pinned. He never saw me coming up behind him, swinging my knife in an arc designed to plant it firmly between his ribs.

Raysel saw me running. In less time than it took for me to bury my knife in the Goblin’s back, she abandoned her standoff with Connor, whirling to release her arrow in Gillian’s direction.

Connor shouted something that was drowned out by the scream of the Goblin I’d just stabbed. I turned to see him drop his bow, throwing himself in front of my daughter. The arrow caught him high on the right side of his chest, going all the way through before the fletching on the end stopped it. Connor looked down at it with an almost comic expression of surprise . . . and then he fell, hitting the floor in a boneless heap.

“Connor!” I shouted, and ran toward him.

I was still running when Raysel pulled another arrow from her belt, fitting it into place, and drew back her bowstring. Tybalt was suddenly behind her, another of her arrows in his hand. He jammed it into the back of her arm, and she fell.

But she released her arrow first.