Part 9 (1/2)

We'd been wrong about the sylph. Sort of. They had attacked people for thousands of years. They'd attacked me on my birthday last year, too. But there was something about them. They loved music. And now Cris was one.

What if we'd been wrong about centaurs?

Hoofbeats pounded on the ground, coming closer. Sam twisted to look back at me, and in the darkness, his eyes were wide. ”Go,” he mouthed. ”Fast.”

I scrambled across the path as quickly as I could, aching to get up and use my legs. But if they were coming our way, I didn't want to be seen.

The hoofbeats thumped and a high, thin voice shrieked.

I jerked my face up to find a young centaur staring down at me, wearing a shocked expression. Another stopped next to the first. They both screamed.

I screamed.

Sam reached back and grabbed my wrist, and together we lurched for the other side of the path, but the centaurs were followinga”

And then the ground shuddered. Not from the herd. No, this was from the opposite direction. One solid thud followed by another.

The young centaurs stared past Sam and me, and the herd went quiet.

A hush fell over the entire area as the thuds came louder, faster. Then Sam climbed all the way to his feeta”making the young centaurs jump backa”and dragged me into the woods.

”Troll!”

At once, the area turned loud with centaurs shouting and metal clas.h.i.+ng. And when I glanced over my shoulder, the young centaurs were just standing in the middle of the path, staring up with their mouths wide open as a human-shaped beast three times my size came roaring toward the field. Ice and branches flew away from the troll's destructive pa.s.sage.

”Wait!” I shook myself away from Sam and darted back to the path. The young centaursa”colts? children?a”both snapped their attention to me. ”Come on!” I had no idea if they understood me, but when I reached for them, one of the boys clasped his hand around my damp mitten, and we raced into the woods just as the troll thundered into the place where they'd been standing.

Sam opened his mouth, but shook his head and began running through the forest as cacophony erupted by the pond. Screams and roars spurred us through the woods. The children surged ahead, shoving branches and bushes out of the way. Sam and I hurried to keep up, but the dark forest was only brokenly lit with torches on the battlefield.

My SED buzzed in my pocket, but I couldn't answer it. I focused on jumping over the tangle of roots the centaurs jumped over. On ducking ice-white limbs. On putting one leg in front of the other.

Shouts filled the area. Then a thundering growl. And the world thudded hard as something dropped. I stumbled, but one of the centaur children reached back and took my arm until I was balanced and running on my own again.

”Ana! Sam!” Stef's voice came from just ahead. ”There you are! Ia””

Blue lights flared, targeting the young centaurs as we broke out into the open. The rest of the herd was far to our right, gathered around the fallen troll, so now it was just four humans and two scared centaur kids.

One of the boys screamed. The herd's attention s.h.i.+fted.

”No, don't!” I moved in front of the boys and held out my hands. They tried, unsuccessfully, to hide behind me. They were both much bigger than I was. ”Don't shoot. They're just kids.”

”They're centaurs.” Whit kept his weapon up. No one else moved, either.

Sam stayed off to the side, looking between us. ”Don't shoot Ana.”

”They're just kids,” I said again.

The herd of centaurs rumbled closer, swords and spears lifted and glinting with blood in torchlight. Suddenly, we were surrounded. All of us humans. The young centaurs.

Stef swung her laser pistol toward the approaching army, but there was no way she'd overcome a thousand centaurs.

One targeting light still aimed at the young centaurs. I didn't move from my position guarding them. And the other centaurs were deadly quiet as they appraised the situation.

No one moved. I could hardly breathe.

And then shadows appeared in the forest, falling toward the torchlight as they abandoned natural shadows. These were tall and thin, not attached to anything. They hmmed quietly, singing among themselves.

Gradually, the centaurs' attention s.h.i.+fted from us to the shadows approaching from the other side. Heat billowed across the cool s.p.a.ce as one shadow pushed forward, ahead of the others. It paused near me, a slender black rose blossoming inside one of its tendrils before it s.h.i.+vered apart.

The sylph had come.

11.

REUNION.

HOPE KINDLED INSIDE me, then was smothered when, as one, the herd of centaurs lifted their weapons and screamed their rage to the sky. Ground shook under their pounding hooves as they ran to meet the sylph.

The sylph keened: awful, dissonant wailing. Shadows surged forth, sending waves of heat throughout the gathered humans and centaurs. What had been a midwinter night now became like summer as the sylph songs morphed into terrible cacophony.

The two young centaurs sobbed and dropped to the ground, clutching each other, clutching my legs. I tumbled down with them.

Sam and my friends cried out, but an insubstantial wall of shadows forced itself between us, carefully not burning delicate human flesh. But they were going straight for the centaurs, who just wanted their children back.

”Stop!” I pulled myself up from the tangle of limbs.

When I tried to throw myself into the ma.s.s of shadows, one of the centaur boys grabbed my wrist and shook his head, a panicked look on his face.

I used my free hand to cover his k.n.o.bby knuckles, sharp with the strength of his grip, and smiled a little. ”It's okay.” No idea if he understood, but when he released me, I turned and shouted, ”Stop!” again.

The sylph and centaurs kept moving toward one another, and the centaurs were about to be boiled alivea”

I sang one long, sustained note. The pitch fell, and my voice cracked with winter and nerves. Though Sam had given me a few tips on how to best project my voice, we'd never arranged real lessons. There'd never been time.

But the sylph nearest me s.h.i.+fted and turned at the sound of my voice, peeling itself from the ma.s.s of shadows. It hovered around me, waiting, matching my note.

If music were water, this would have been a ripple. The angry keening dropped, and the sylph all seemed to gasp and face me. They watched me, though they had no eyes, no faces. They were but tall shadows, with tendrils that flickered toward the sky as I fumbled to free my hands of mittens, then found my SED and searched through the music function.

I chose Phoenix Symphony. Some of the sylph already knew it, and it was one of my favorites.

The first chords rushed from the speakers like a waterfall, and I let my voice fade beneath the powerful sounds of the piano, violins, and thunderous ba.s.s.

I pushed the volume as high as it would go, so that every sylph heard. They halted just before they reached the line of centaurs, and the incredible heat faded to something more bearable.

Behind me, the centaur boys scrambled to their feet. One touched my shoulder, and his gaze fell on the SED clutched in my hands. The light from the screen illuminated his face, scratched from our run and his fall to the ground. But he smiled when his hand pa.s.sed through the SED glow, and he said something I could neither hear clearly over the music, nor understand.

My SED screen flashed; on the other side of the sylph swarm, Sam had synced his SED with mine. Phoenix Symphony played all around.