“He can do a bit more than that,” Lily pointed out. “Part of working with air means stopping it too.”
For a second, Violet stared at him as she processed what that meant practically. “Suffocation. That’s good. We can use that.”
Creed winced. While he was apparently fine with being injured, he seemed less so with injuring anyone. That, more than anything, told her that he was Seelie. Despite the evidence given by the Seelie princes, the Seelie as a whole were the more gentle court—not by huge measures, but enough to draw the distinction.
“He could feed your fire,” Torquil suggested to Violet. “If he’s adept enough to suffocate with his affinity, he’s good enough to be your aid as you attack.”
The smile that came over Violet’s face was enough to make Lily shiver.
“I think we’re onto a plan then. What do you say, LilyDark?” Violet prompted with a grim tone.
“I don’t know that plan is the correct word, but it’s something,” Lily agreed. “I think . . . what we need is to fight like us, not like fae. You were both raised as guerrilla fighters, and I was raised to be ruthless. Proper swordplay isn’t us.”
Violet nodded and began twisting her own hair into some sort of knot. “I’m guessing Lily’s grandmother isn’t going to be very pleased about those two . . . jerks. I can’t wait to tell her.”
“We just need to survive long enough to do that,” Creed said.
“True,” Lily said.
She looked at Torquil and Creed, assessing their injuries. They weren’t anywhere near in fighting shape, but Creed only had to use his affinity.
Torquil extended a hand to Violet. “Hold on to me until I release you. If you’re mine, I can lend you my fire.”
“What if I’m not?” Violet asked, even as she took his hand in hers.
“Then this will hurt,” Torquil murmured.
For several long moments, there was no sound. Then a roar filled the cave, as if a wall of flames surged toward them. Lily looked around. There was no visible fire.
Torquil jerked his hand away, and Violet sighed. Her eyes were solid flame, eerily flickering like she was far from human. When she opened her mouth to speak, her very exhalation was a tongue of flame.
“Don’t,” Torquil ordered hastily.
Violet turned her gaze on him.
“Not to us,” he amended. “Go talk to our captors, Violet.”
She stalked out of the cave.
“I may have given her more than I meant to,” Torquil said half-apologetically. He stumbled as he stepped forward, and if not for Creed grabbing him, he would’ve fallen.
“I have him,” Creed assured her. “Go.”
But Lily was already running after Violet. She caught up with her as Violet stepped outside the cave. The stones, usually so slow to speak, were all but yelling to Lily. Go. Go. Go. Hot.
A long whip of fire snapped out from Violet’s hand and grabbed the sword the queen had given Lily. As the sword surged toward Lily, she thought she might be stabbed by it, but the fire retracted as if it had all been inhaled into Violet’s body. The sword clattered to the ground a few feet from Lily.
The two Seelie princes, who had been arguing, stumbled toward them. Nacton already had a sword in hand. Calder scrambled toward his.
Lily lunged for her sword, grabbing it and coming back to her feet in as quick of a move as she could manage.
“Are you really this foolhardy?” Nacton stalked toward her.
Lily lifted her sword into position. “I didn’t ask for any of this.”
She studied him as he moved into a defensive guard. For several minutes, they circled, moving in response to one another. No blows were exchanged. He’d been fighting for longer than she’d lived, longer than her mother had lived.
Lily, however, had been taught to use any resource available to survive. She wasn’t fae-born and raised. She was an Abernathy, daughter to the crime lord. As Nacton watched her, she moved through various positions, silently answering his every guard with her own. All the while, though, she summoned earth and water.
A scream from behind her almost drew her attention, but she didn’t look away from Nacton, not this time.
“The girl is adept,” he continued. “That scream was my brother. It’s a shame we must fight. Perhaps we could talk instead, Lilywhite.”
Nacton’s voice grew melodic, and Lily felt herself wanting to smile, to nod, to agree.
“Lower your sword,” Nacton suggested.
This time, she did nod.
However, simultaneously, she summoned every root she could call, wrapped them around Nacton, and held him fast.
“How very lacking in honor,” Nacton murmured. “Is this how the child of the missing heir acts?”
Another scream, louder this time, drew her attention.
Lily glanced past him to see Calder crab-walking away from Violet. The fiery whip had reshaped into a sword, and Violet was stabbing it into Calder.
“Vi!”
The fury-ridden girl glanced at Lily.
“No killing,” Lily stressed.
Then she turned back to Nacton. A thorn-covered vine darted out at her will and snatched his sword away. He was pinned and unarmed.
She lifted her sword to his throat, released the vines holding him fast, and asked, “You wanted to talk about honor then?”
thirty-four
LILY
Nacton glared at her, and she pushed the tip of the sword a little tighter to his throat. Maybe it was unnecessary, but Daidí had always stressed that you needed your enemies to know that you were willing to shed their blood. The trickle of blood slipping down the center of Nacton’s throat wasn’t an accident. From the look on his face, they both knew that.
“You shouldn’t have crossed me,” he said in a voice so low that no one else could’ve heard him.
“I didn’t.”
He tilted his head, cutting his own skin further on the sword tip in the process. “You are holding a blade on me. My blade.”
“True,” she allowed. “But this is a response to your crossing me. I didn’t seek you out.” She slid the tip farther down his throat, trailing it in a line down the center of his chest, and stopped when it was at his sternum. “I could push this in. Puncture a lung.”
Instead of looking cowed by her threat, he smiled. “You will be a wonderful bride.”
Her hand shook. “I’m not flirting, you idiot. I’m threatening you.”
Nacton shrugged.
“You threatened me,” Lily reminded him. “You held your blade to my throat.”
“I did.”
Suddenly, the entirety of the vines containing Nacton erupted in fire. Her sword faltered as she jumped backward.
At first Lily thought it was Torquil or Violet, but as the flames retracted into Nacton’s body with barely a blink, she realized what his primary affinity was. “You could’ve done that before I disarmed you.”
“I have honor.”
Lily lifted her sword and slashed at him. “Honor? Seriously? You are trying to marry me.”