Anvil’s gaze fell on Chevelle, silently questioning whether he recognized the words. Chevelle grimaced, the gesture conveying we’d not be able to cross the bounds of the protection spell. He glanced at me, and I immediately shook my head. There was no way I was going to let him battle a council member with castings.
I sat on the rock behind me, careful to secure my foothold among the looser pieces below my feet, and closed my eyes. It took longer than I would have liked, but I tried to focus solely on bringing the animal in with as much speed as possible instead of the attack on Camber or that I should be with my guard, not here in the broken shards of the crag with one council member.
The cat had been hunting at the base of the cliffs, so it came from below us, agile form moving swiftly up the treacherous granite to the saw-toothed rock where we waited.
From that vantage point, I could see the him; it was Clay of Rothegarr. He had not bothered protecting the back side of his enclosure.
His face changed when he saw the golden fur of the mountain lion rushing toward him. It was some mixture of wonder and dread. He hurried to defend himself, drawing a thorn bush toward him and heaving as much energy as he could into expanding its size. The cat struck, clamping its strong jaw around the council member’s leg, and I could feel the muscles of his thigh tearing under the biting grip as he struggled against it. The cat hadn’t been able to reach his neck in time, but this was instinct. It would wait for him to die, never easing its grip until it was over.
I felt my own body jerk as the thorns pierced the cat’s hide. Through its eyes, I hadn’t seen the vines growing, only the blood as it poured from the councilman’s wound and bubbled up beneath our muzzle. We bit harder, twisting, tearing, and lost our footing as the vines pushed us from the ground. A thorn ran through the pad of our paw, breaking through the top, and we yowled before striking again, but we missed, our jaw snapping shut against air as the vines caught our neck and held us in place. We struggled, furious and desperate, but the tree only tightened around us.
A hand on my shoulder, a word in my ear brought me back to my own body, gasping for air. Right. It was the cat. Not me.
“Can you get my lion out?” I whispered to Chevelle.
He knelt beside me. “Not without casting.”
I swallowed hard, my throat dry, and then shook my head. It was too risky.
A high-pitched cry escaped the cat, now wounded and trapped within the thorn tree, and I acted without thought, placing my hands to the ground in front of me, cursing the council member to death.
“Frey,” Chevelle warned from beside me, moving to stand as the ground shook beneath us.
Rock crashed into rock as it tumbled down the steep mountainside and I could hear Anvil swear as he and Chevelle worked to protect us from the avalanche. But I couldn’t stop. This was wrong. We shouldn’t be here, trying to drive out this one remaining nuisance instead of fighting against council in a proper clash. We had given them time to regroup and they were fighting dirty. Like the fey. The fey, who were, as we sat here, attacking Camber. We were being assailed from all sides when we should have been avenging the massacre, setting the wrong to right.
“Frey!” Chevelle’s voice was a command this time as grabbed me by the shoulders and hoisted me to standing. But I didn’t fight him. I was done.
The mountain fell quiet as the final rock settled, and Chevelle spun me around to face him. He was angry, and I knew he’d intended to ask me what I thought I was doing, but whatever he saw in my expression stopped him.
“Is the casting broken?” I asked in a lifeless voice.
He nodded. We’d not been able to use magic within the boundaries of the spell, but the rock had made it through. Clay of Rothegarr was dead.
“Will you get my cat?” I said softly. “We need to go.”
He released my arms and I closed my eyes to call our horses to the castle. I heard the clatter of rock as Chevelle cleared the debris surrounding the thorn tree. I dropped quickly to the mind of the cat, willing it not to hurt Chevelle as he freed it.
We needed to get to Camber. We needed to end this. All of it.
I glanced at the sky as we rode for Camber. The sun was too low on the horizon, though we’d been running since we’d left the castle. Chevelle had carried the mountain lion to the yard, where he’d left instructions to build an enclosure for the animal and tend it as best as possible until Ruby had returned. We’d barely spoken since, nothing but the rhythmic thump of horse hooves on the path, until we neared the bounds of Camber.
“Is it safe?” Chevelle asked from his place behind me.
The heavens were empty, likely due to the fighting, so I drew a red-tail from its perch in the safety of a black spruce. There was nothing in the outlying crevices and copses. Nothing on the paths into town. Nothing, until my circles brought me closer to the epicenter, where smoke and dust rose in caustic clouds above Camber.