“Later,” I say.

When Volanna tries to advance, I hold out the shortsword.

“I swear I didn’t mean you girls harm. This was out of my control. I couldn’t ignore the threat of magic.”

I shake my head in disgust. “You failed us. Just as you failed your son. Our father was so ashamed of you that he ran away so he could marry Mother, knowing she had magic. They were happy. And so were we. Now you’ve lost us. We won’t be seeing you again.”

“Bladesmith!” Kellyn shouts, and I turn to see the whole room of devotees standing from their pews, getting ready to charge.

“There’s a back exit,” Volanna says. “Through there. Go!”

We could be trapping ourselves, but our only other option is to push through the horde of bodies.

We run.

CHAPTER
THIRTEEN

Volanna did not lie, it turns out. So we’ve one small thing to be grateful for. As soon as we step down from the alabaster steps of the church, we take off.

The angry mob follows.

I suppose the good news is none of them carry weapons, but faith appears to count for a lot.

I hand the shortsword over to Temra, since she has a knack for it, and keep the spear for myself. Not that I can actually throw the weapon, because then I’d have to go back to retrieve it. But Petrik has no problem throwing the staff as hard as he can, taking out waves of Thersans in the process. They fall down in the road, tripping the others next to them. The staff whizzes back to Petrik’s outstretched hand each time, like a lodestone drawn to iron.

Bit by bit we gain some distance.

Then they start throwing things.

The first rock catches Kellyn in the shoulder. The second, square on his back.

“I see how it is. Aim for the biggest target. That does it.” He plants his feet, refusing to run any longer. The rest of us slow our pace but don’t stop.

“Kellyn!” Temra shouts over her shoulder. “What are you doing?”

With the tip of his blade, he draws a line in the dirt road, from one tree line to the next, covering the whole width of it.

He shouts in a voice I’ve never heard from him before, “Anyone who crosses that line is going to have their head separated from their shoulders!”

The city folk come to a halt just before the line, but one large man near the front tosses a rock up in the air and catches it in his hands in an obviously threatening manner.

“Try it,” Kellyn says. He runs through an impressive series of slashes, showing off his sword’s length and speed. He becomes someone I’ve never seen before. A hulking giant with death in his eyes.

“Abomination!” someone in the back of the crowd yells.

“The Goddesses demand blood!”

“Destroy the blight of magic!”

The crowd is tense, toeing that line Kellyn made.

“Oh, the Goddesses will get blood,” Kellyn says. “It’s just up to you whose they get. The first volunteer may step forward.”