Storm and Steel by Jon Sprunk Page B

over to join the queen's defense, and Horace saw a translucent barrier of what looked like water vapor form around Byleth. Before he could decide how to handle the situation, Xantu glanced over. “Man the east windows! They'll try there again any moment!”
    Horace turned to obey, but Alyra pulled him to a stop. He looked at her and saw the anxiety in her eyes. “We need to leave, Horace.”
    The fires outside reflected in Byleth's eyes as she turned her head. Blood dripped in a steady stream from a cut along her left cheek. “No! We stand against these traitors who would dare attack their queen!”
    With a long look to Alyra to show the tight spot he was in, and a quick glance at the handmaiden, Horace entrusted them to Mezim and crossed to the other side of the room. He stepped over a mess of cushions, pillows, and clothing strewn over the floor. The windows had been busted out. Their shutters had broken loose, and glass fragments were scattered everywhere. Horace peered out but couldn't see anything more than the darkness. He considered conjuring a ball of light but decided against it. For one thing, there no sense drawing attention to himself. Also, his recent failures to connect with the zoana weighed on his mind. He felt out of control. Lord Mulcibar had warned him that he might someday become a danger to himself and those around him. It seemed that day had come.
    A shout from behind made him turn. Alyra stood just inside the doorway with the slave woman by her side. The way they stood together, so close, made him wonder. Almost as if they were sisters. He mentally flogged himself. Of course she still has close friends in the queen's service. She spent so long in the palace. I should have made the effort to free them as well.
    Byleth still stood before the hole in the wall. Lord Xantu had fallen to his knees, bloodied hands pressed to his face. Ubar stepped to take the lord's place beside the queen, but a hail of tiny stones ripped through his watery barrier. Horace hissed as a small flat stone tore through his thin tunic and sliced into his side. He pulled the ripped fabric away with a grimace. A quick lookassured him that it wasn't bleeding much, though he couldn't see whether the stone had exited the wound or was still lodged inside.
    However, Ubar had collapsed in a heap beside Xantu. Byleth held her ground alone, her sheer dress ripped to bloody shreds. Horace was about to go to her when he felt something outside the villa. Building up, like the explosion at his suite, but this was far more powerful. There was nowhere to go. Nowhere to escape what was coming.
    He rushed across the room, pausing only to grab Alyra by the wrist and haul her over toward the hole, trusting the handmaiden and Mezim to come along. Horace let go when they reached Ubar. As Alyra knelt down beside the youth, Horace grabbed the queen around her waist. He dropped to his knees, dragging them both down to the floor. The villa shuddered.
    Horace pointed at Xantu, unconscious on the floor. “Get him over here!”
    The tall guard lieutenant seized Lord Xantu by an ankle and pulled him over to the group. Meanwhile, Horace was bracing himself. This was his best idea, and he had no way of knowing if it would work. The force gathering outside the villa continued to grow. It felt like a mountain teetering over their heads. The queen's face was ashen, her lips pressed into a tight frown.
    He reached for his qa . He felt the energy pulsing behind it, but the fear that it would elude his grasp almost overwhelmed him. Then he felt a firm grip on his arm. Alyra was looking at him intently. She nodded.
    I can do this.
    Taking a deep breath, he delved into the pathway to his power. The pain in his chest returned at once, an icy heat suffusing his lungs and making him gasp, but all physical sensations were pushed to the back of his mind as the zoana came to life within him. It filled him up, allowing him to feel every muscle and