A Betrayal of Storms by Ben Alderson

Author:Ben Alderson [Alderson, Ben]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781915998767
Publisher: Angry Robot
Published: 2024-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 20

My body was frozen in shock, unable to move or speak, as the pool of ruby spread beneath Orion’s downturned face, seeping around him in a halo of death.

A shift in the air caught my attention. I looked up to watch Erix lunge forward, sword outstretched for the Hunter. Gyah moved too, hands like claws as she cleared the space, boots barely touching the floor.

They were both screaming, but it was hard to fathom if they made sense with words or just angered noises. All I could think about was the blood, dark and thick, as it spread across the ground towards me.

I looked to Althea, and my heart cracked clean in two. Her eyes were wide, both brows raised high, and her mouth parted in a small, unignorable ‘O’ shape. Surprise softened her face, whereas the burning of disbelief drained the colour from her cheeks and the glow from her eyes.

Then she snapped out of her daze, swinging an axe while barely making a sound. She caught Erix’s blade with the curve of her own weapon, one large twist of her arm, and the momentum tore the sword from his grasp and sent it surging off into the darkness. Gyah was next, stopped dead in her tracks by a flash of burning hot fire that exploded from the skin of Althea’s outstretched palm. Both warriors stumbled away, missing the wild swing of the axe, as she spun to meet the Hunter.

He was caught in his own manic laughter, not noticing or caring for the danger sweeping towards him.

Althea’s cry broke the night like thunder. The axe was the lightning, warning of what was to come as it turned on the Hunter. The murderer. I winced, expecting to see more blood, deserving blood, spill alongside Orion’s, but I was wrong.

In a blink, she’d turned her wrist, angling the flat edge of the axe’s body towards the Hunter’s head. Metal connected with bone and flesh, the crack deafening as though the very mountains we’d seen on our journey had fractured.

His head snapped back, eyes rolling to whites as a gash poured angrily over his left brow. The dagger, Erix’s dagger, fell from his hand, embedding itself to the hilt in the bloodied ground.

The Hunter dropped like a sack of shit, alive but unconscious, evident from the heavy rise and fall of his chest.

“Althea,” I croaked, reaching a hand for her shoulder. Her back was to me, facing the Hunter, shoulders moving rapidly beneath her breaths.

What could I say? Words were useless as she glared down at the dead body of her brother, shoulders rising and falling dramatically. I didn’t know Orion well, or like him, but death was death, and he was her family. She didn’t have to like him, but through blood and time, she had loved him as her kin.

And now, he was gone. Forever.

I wrapped my arms around her. She was warm beneath my touch, or perhaps I was just cold now, having hosted the untamed power of the Icethorn Court.

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