The sounds changed from the ruckus of charging soldiers to the lapping, quiet thrum of a small waterfall moving across stone. Even the air smelled different. It carried the faint scent of eucalyptus.
Brythonica.
Home.
Owen put his hand on her shoulder. Light filtered back from the entrance of the cave—just enough for them to see each other in the darkened interior, while the world outside was swathed in rich, vibrant color. She could see the stone plinth, covered with a sheet of crumbled oak leaves. The silver bowl was still chained there, brimming with the Fountain’s magic. She felt so depleted, so drained, yet the grove was a place for magic to be replenished.
“Oh, Papa,” she cried, clinging to him with joy and misery, her heart cleft into two separate pieces. Part of her was dead inside, afflicted by the loss of Fallon.
There was a hesitation on her father’s part. She was a near stranger to him in his present state. But she couldn’t help herself. It was still him, and he was back after such a long absence. Gratitude welled up inside her, squeezing past the tears still falling from her eyes.
Thank you, she whispered silently to the Fountain, hearing the gentle murmur of the nearby brook.
And then there was the crackle of breaking twigs outside the cave and she felt her father’s hand stiffen on her shoulder.
“We’re not alone,” he whispered.
Trynne’s relief at making it back home and her grief at losing Fallon had blinded her to the possibility that Morwenna might have left allies to thwart their return. She reached out with her magic and sensed dozens of soldiers, maybe more, hunkered within the confines of the grove. They were armed. They were waiting for them to emerge.
Trynne lacked the strength to fight so many. She was exhausted from the ordeal, from lack of sleep, and her reserves were diminished. Even someone who was Fountain-blessed had limits.
She could sense the soldiers creeping toward the mouth of the cave. When they all arrived, she and her father would be overwhelmed. These men probably had orders to kill them. If she returned with her father, it would upend Morwenna’s plans.
Owen drew his sword. “We’re going to need to fight our way out of here,” he said softly, looking into her eyes.
Too many. There were too many.
Then the idea struck her. A defense that could help them.
“Father,” she said. “You see the silver bowl? Fill it from the waterfall outside the cave and then pour its contents onto the stone plinth. I’ll distract them until you do. It will even the odds. Prepare for a violent storm.”
“I don’t understand,” he said, shaking his head.
“You will,” she promised, giving him a crooked smile.
Trynne breathed in the sweet-smelling air as she drew her twin blades. In her mind, she invoked the magic of her ring and turned herself into the Painted Knight, making her face half-blue, changing her outfit to look like the armor of the Maid. Then she marched out of the cave, swords in hand.
“There, there!” someone shouted.
The twangs of crossbows sounded across the grove, and missiles flew at her from several points. She felt herself wrapped in the oath magic and time seemed to slow, allowing her to jerk and dodge the bolts, which clattered harmlessly into the rocks behind her. Trynne marched forward, swinging her swords in matching circles as she had practiced thousands of times. Onward she walked, each footstep thudding in her ears, moving past the stone table, past the silver dish, bringing herself into the middle of the soldiers who were converging on them. The men wore black and carried the badge of the white boar. Men of Glosstyr.
They readied to charge. She saw their anxious, determined looks. She was completely outnumbered.
Trynne stopped on the gently sloping ground, well ahead of the plinth. She was nearly surrounded now—at least twenty soldiers at full alert with unkempt beards and angry frowns had fallen in around her.
They rushed her at once.
Trynne reacted in a blur of motion, her strength sustained by the power of the Fountain, even as she felt it ebbing quickly. She blocked the thrusts that came at her, deflecting blades and countering with her own. She did not fight to kill these men, just to hold them off, to fix their attention on her, giving her father a chance to slip out of the cave and seize the silver bowl. Shouts and grunts filled the calmness of the grove. The men were all bigger than her, but she was quicksilver fast, dodging away from thrusts and jabs, responding with two blades at once to trap and then disarm her opponents. Still, their sheer numbers were like a swelling tide, one that would drown her given enough time.