Whisper of Blade | ✓ (Crimson #1)

Sequel Excerpt: Blood Shadows

Kaolin gritted her teeth. Arrows thudded into trees, sending bark flying all around her. I hate getting shot at.

She wanted to turn Mala around so she could fire back at her stalkers without a low branch unseating her. An arrow whizzed by her face, sending a sear of pain across her cheek. Kaolin bit her lip and blinked back tears. Stick to the plan. We have to be clear of the border now.

Hugging her knees against Mala's sides and tightening her core, Kaolin plucked an arrow from her quiver—one with red fletching instead of white. Behind the arrowhead, the shaft had a packet secured around it. Kaolin lit the short fuse with a spark from her fingertip and readied to fire.

Straight into the sky.

The bowstring gave a satisfying twang and the arrow sped toward the heavens before weight and the falling force slowed its course. The missile exploded into light and flower fire with a pop, leaving golden sparks to rain back down to earth.

Kaolin risked a glance behind to discover her enemies closing in. The Blood Shadows must have traded their toka mounts for creatures more suited to the climate and terrain. Giant lizards slithered over the earth—their green faces an ugly mess of overgrown teeth and fin-like protrusions. One scaled a tree for its rider to shoot from a better vantage, all six of its scaled limbs clinging to the rough surface.

But their utter inability to appeal to her artistic senses weren't the worst of it.

When Kaolin met the stony gaze of the one in the tree, her limbs locked with paralysis. If she weren't already trying so hard to stay on Mala, she'd have keeled over like a woman in a faint. As it was, though she ripped her eyes away, her fingers wouldn't uncurl from where they gripped her bow. She might as well have tried to pry apart the hands of a statue.

Mala keened in fear as one of the creatures snapped at her hind legs.

Some repulsive imitation of laughter gurgled in the monster's throat.

"Don't look at them, Mala!" Kaolin yelled. Her voice seemed to break the spell and she plunged one of her arrows into the creature's skull. Its scream sent prickles of fear traveling up her arms.

The ground seemed to ripple beneath them—waves of green undulating before breaking apart into lashing roots and vines. Kaolin hit the dirt some distance away as nature ensnared the assassins. Several sunk into the ground as if it were water while roots dragged others into holes forming in the trunks of trees.

Kaolin nocked an arrow before realizing all the Blood Shadows had been captured and incapacitated. When she raised a hand to brush the soil from her cheek, it came away sticky with blood.

A woman dropped from the tree above, landing with ease on the forest floor. Her thick black hair hung in dozens of braids down her back and over the silver of her breastplate and shoulder armor. All around them, soldiers clad in green climbed down from the canopy to tend to the trespassers. Their method being to stick a sliver of metal in their necks until their struggles stilled.

Kaolin could hardly take in the presence standing before her, from the curious ring of flowering antlers crowning the woman's head to the mixture of dark and light patches of her skin. Not to mention that silver tachi... she hadn't thought Terrons used swords after the Pyro-make.

Her fingers twitched. If only I had brought my materials.

Under the woman's scrutiny, Kaolin quickly remembered propriety and kneeled. She had no idea who she might be addressing. Governed by their militaries, the terrenes held no concept of royalty. Most pledged their allegiance to Warlords—generals of their armies—but she'd gathered enough rumors of this particular terrene to know Rampara did not follow in the steps of her surrounding neighbors.