I leaped ahead, darting away from their outstretched hands, but one was faster. He caught my hand, pulling on my finger until it gave a sickening pop. I screeched as pain radiated through my knuckle, traveling down to my wrist, but he only tightened his grip.
The other guard maneuvered around me, interlocking his arm with mine and tugging me forward. My forehead collided with his steel-covered chest, but I used the impact, throwing my body weight forward to knock him off balance.
My twisted finger was still grasped by the first, so I lifted my leg and sent my heel straight between his thighs.
“Let go of me!”
He grimaced, dropping my hand to cup his lower region, his knees bowing inward.
“You stupid girl,” he roared.
I cradled my hand to my chest, scooting back. “You are not welcome here.”
The guard to my left scoffed, using the wall as leverage to pull himself back to his feet. “We do not need an invitation. Least of all from a traitor.”
I glared at him, kicking my leg out until it connected with his unarmored kneecap. He shouted, hobbling back into a seated position. My head whipped back to the other guard.
“What are you here for?”
“Is it not obvious, girl?” he sneered, taking a step closer. “You.”
“Do not come any closer,” I hissed, raising my pointer finger in warning.
He barked out a mocking laugh and withdrew his sword, a large silver rod with a scythe-like curve. “You do not scare us, Kaelia.”
The guard on the ground withdrew a smaller dagger from a holster strapped around his calf. It glinted as he held it toward me, the tip dangerously close to my achilles tendon.
“I wish I could say I am sorry for this.”
The guard in front of me tilted his head, his sword dropping ever so slightly. “Sorry for what?”
A volatile heat ignited in the tips of my blunt nails and climbed up my arm with celestial speed. I rounded the inky wisps in the palms of my hands until the form spun into a large, floating mass of smoke and shadow in front of me.
The guard gaped, taking a single step back just as I rotated my hands in a half-circle and snapped my arms out.
The sphere split, one section aiming directly for the standing guard and hitting him square in the chest. He shrieked as he was flung backwards, his armor skidding noisily across the stone. The other half completely encased the seated guard, until only his outstretched legs were visible beneath the storm.
He kicked his feet out. “I cannot breathe! I cannot breathe!”
I clenched my fingers, urging the ball to tighten and with a squeal, the guard dropped limp, his booted feet collapsing outward as his back hit the ground.
I did not waste another second looking at their bodies, I ran.
I rounded the corner and nearly collided with a petite, dark form.
Neya was standing eerily still, shadowed tendrils shooting from her shoulder-blades and forming a wall of shadow in front of her.
“Kaelia,” she snapped, angling her hip in front of me to block me from the lashing spirits. “Where are you going?”
“Talon,” I gasped, my hands bracing themselves on my knees. “I have to find him. An army is here, Neya. They are here for me.”
Confusion flickered across her face before her gaze slid past me to the guards I had left in the haze. “Get to the Gauntlet. Head down the way you came. There are too many guards beyond this wall.”
Neya’s monstrous shadow expanded, filling the empty corners of the corridor.
I watched, paralyzed, as she shaped the darkness into spears that hissed through the air, cleaving through silver armor we could not see.
She was a whirlwind of unleashed fury, a storm of lethal grace. A single strike shattered bone, another cleaved a helm in two.