“Find the Riders!” he barked at Uther and Caswyn before running into the temple and toward the back.

* * *

The blade sliced into her arm. The blood began to drip down her skin.

Bending her elbow, Brannie swiped her wounded arm against her attacker’s face, temporarily blinding him with her blood.

With her other arm, she rammed her blade into his belly, and shoved him away with her shoulder.

Someone ran up behind her and she turned at the waist and took his head.

“Branwen!” Aidan came sliding out the back door. “Soldiers. Lots of them.”

Brannie stepped over the bodies of those she’d just killed and, finally managing to get her chain mail shirt on, she called out to one of the witches pummeling an assassin, “Where’s my cousin?”

“With Meihui.” She pointed to the other side of the building.

With a grateful nod, Brannie grabbed her travel bag and ran, slinging the strap over her shoulders as she did, Aidan right behind her.

They’d just cleared the other side of the building when a black horse charged past them. The only reason Brannie didn’t get run down was that Aidan grabbed her by her chain mail shirt and yanked her back.

“Keita!” Brannie yelled. But her cousin was charging off into the woods.

“Here.” Meihui arrived with another horse for her, with Kachka right behind her. “Go.”

Brannie turned to Aidan.

“Go,” he said.

“But—”

“We’ll keep them off your back. Go. Now.”

Brannie didn’t have time for grand good-byes. She just had to keep moving.

Grabbing the reins of the white-and-brown horse, she mounted him, and took off after her cousin.

* * *

Aidan faced Meihui. “We have to—”

He jerked back but it was Meihui’s quick reflexes that saved Aidan from the black-clothed attacker who’d snuck up behind them.

She blocked his strike with her forearm, and one of her sisters snatched the weapon from his hand while the others stabbed at him with their seax.

Meihui motioned to a sister who came out the back. She held up the attacker’s weapon. “Find out if there are any others still alive. I’ll be in the front.”

She headed back into the temple. “Watch these,” she said offhandedly, moving quickly, Kachka following them both.

“Watch what?”

“These weapons. The edges have been dipped in poison.”

* * *

Uther cringed watching Zoya taunt the legion that marched toward them.

“Come!” she yelled out. “You want to challenge Zoya? Come challenge Zoya!”

Aidan returned to the front of the temple with Meihui and Kachka.

“What is she doing?” he asked.

Aidan shrugged. “I really don’t know. But she’s been doing it for a while.” He glanced at the others. “Where’s Brannie and Keita?”

“Gone. We need to keep the attackers off their backs until they get some distance between—”

Meihui stepped close to Aidan. “Those are the Empress’s legions.”

“So?”