Peter Brett - The Skull Throne

The last time it had taken the mimic several minutes to adapt to a sonic attack. This one did it in seconds.

It was warned, Leesha realized. They’re learning our tricks.

The mimic lashed out at Thamos again, but this time he caught the blow, deflecting it off his shield. Leesha drew a freezing ward in the air, and the tentacle holding Wonda snapped off and she landed on her back, struggling to get free of the binding ring of demonflesh.

Finally with a clear target, Leesha raised her wand to blast the demon from existence, but the hora was drained, and mustered only a weak push.

Leesha threw her remaining klats, heedless of their effect. The demon was alternately burned, shocked, frozen, and shoved, but it seemed more angered than harmed, its body reforming in seconds to heal the damage.

It became a rock demon, but with eight long obsidian arms instead of two. Every ridge of the carapace looked sharp, but none more so than the wicked talons that topped each limb, edged like shards of glass.

A sweep of its arms knocked Thamos aside, splintering his spear and hooking the edge of his shield, snapping the straps from his arm. It hung limp, more hindrance than help.

The demon bunched, leaping at Leesha, but Thamos screamed, throwing himself bodily in its path. The wards on his armor saved them both, but he was thrown into her in the process. Leesha felt his powerful hands lock on to her arms, twisting himself to take the brunt of the impact as they slammed into the broken trunk of a once great goldwood.

They clutched each other as the mimic charged, but then a bolt of lightning lifted it clear off the ground, slamming it down a dozen feet away.

Amanvah stood at the edge of the clearing, holding what looked to be a lump of gold, bright with magic. The demon began to reform, and she sent another blast of power to knock it back down.

Rojer and Kendall were at her side, fiddles keeping the corelings at bay as the dama’ting worked her hora. Coliv kept his distance, hurling sharpened steel triangles into the demon, their wards sizzling on impact.

The mimic turned to regard the new threat, but Wonda had worked her knife from its sheath and managed to free herself. Her fine uniform from the duchess was soaked in ichor, but she glowed bright with magic as she renewed her attack.

The demon began to shrink back from the blows, and Leesha knew immediately it meant to flee. She thought to cry a warning, but to what end? The mimic had failed to kill her, and she had nothing left to fight with. The longer the battle went on, the greater the chance one of them might be killed.

A blunt attack knocked Wonda back a few steps, all the time the demon needed to dematerialize and find a vent to flee back to the Core.

Leesha closed her eyes, leaning into Thamos’ arm as he guided her back to her carriage. The others gave them a wide berth, and she was glad for it. If almost being killed by demon assassins was the price to be in Thamos’ embrace again, it was a bargain.

Thamos held her just a moment longer than necessary when they reached the carriage, and she turned into him, wrapping her arms around him. She felt his chest expand as he inhaled the scent of her hair, and for a moment, she began to hope.

But Thamos shook himself, as if waking from an unpleasant daydream. He let her go abruptly, taking a step back.

“The child?” he asked.

Leesha felt her stomach. “Fine, I should think.”

Thamos nodded, his aura an unreadable mix of churning emotion. He turned to go, but she caught his arm.

“Please,” she said. “Can’t we at least talk?”

Thamos frowned. “What is there to discuss?”

“Everything,” Leesha said. “I love you, Thamos. Doubt everything else in creation, but never doubt that.”

But doubt did color his aura. She clutched at his cloak. “And you love me, too. Sure as the sun rises. You protected me with your own body.”

“I would have done as much for any woman,” Thamos said.

“Ay,” she agreed. “It’s the man you are. The man I love. But there was more to it than that, and you know it.”

“What does it matter?” Thamos asked. “It doesn’t change that you lied to me. You bedded me under false pretense, a shield to guard your reputation. You used me.”

Leesha felt tears welling in her eyes. “Ay. And if I could take it back, I would.”

“Some things can’t be taken back,” Thamos said. “Am I to marry you, knowing in half a year you’ll humiliate me before all Thesa?”

The words were a slap, but not so much as those that followed.

“You love me, ay, but you love the babe in your belly more. No matter the cost in lives and honor it may bring.”

Leesha began to weep. “You would truly have me kill my own child?”

“It’s too late for that, Leesha. The time for that choice was in the weeks before you told me.” Thamos sighed. “It was wrong of me to ask you to drink Weed Gatherer’s tea, and for that I am sorry. I don’t think I could love a woman who would do something like that simply because I asked.”

Leesha clutched at his arm. “So you do love me!”

Thamos tore his arm from her grasp. “Spare me the Jongleur’s show, Leesha. How I feel doesn’t change your circumstances.”

Leesha stepped back, stung. “What is your mother planning to do to me?”

Thamos shrugged. “If she knows you’re with child, or suspects the father, it hasn’t come from me.”

Leesha breathed a slight sigh. It was a small blessing, but she was in no position to refuse a blessing of any size.

“I won’t lie to her face,” Thamos warned. “Nor will I marry you with another man’s babe in your belly. My mother is no fool, so you’d best choose carefully what you say to her.”

Leesha watched through a crack in the curtain as they passed through streets of Fort Angiers. People gathered to point and stare at the procession; even Jongleurs on the street paused in their acts as their audiences turned their attention away.

Many of them whispered to one another as the carriages rolled past. Others cried out as if they had no idea she might hear.

“It’s the ward witch and her fiddle wizard!”

“Neo-countess of the Hollow!”

“They make you sound downright ominous,” Jizell said.

“Oh, yes,” Leesha said, waggling her fingers and giving her best cackle. “Beware the ward witch, lest she turn you into a toad!”

Jizell laughed, but Vika shook her head. “It’s funny now with the sun above us, but those demons that attacked you on the road weren’t laughing. It was more than a pinch of Bruna’s blinding powder and flamework that kept them at bay.”

“Woman’s got a point,” Jizell said.

The procession came to a halt before Jizell’s hospit, and Leesha watched with envy as Jizell and Vika left the carriage. What she wouldn’t give to go back to the time when her greatest worry was the next case in Jizell’s hospit.

She rapped on the side of the coach, and Wonda appeared. “Pick two Cutters to guard the hospit, and ward off any unwanted visitors.”

“That’s not necessary …” Jizell began.

“Humor me, please,” Leesha said. “The men will answer to you, but I’ll sleep more soundly knowing they’re here.”

Jizell sighed. “If it’s to be Cutters, I’ll take women. This is a hospit after all.”

Leesha nodded, and in a moment Wonda had two brawny Cutter women selected. Both could thread a needle with their crank bows, but were better known for their willingness to fight demons in close. Magic had made them larger and stronger still, and they would be as imposing as any man if they stood at the door with their arms crossed.