Page 122 of Sharpest Court

“Good. You’ll need it.” I looked at Perla, my breaths coming out hard and fast, my specter coiling like a spring inside me. “How long until midnight?”

She checked her pocket watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

I nodded. “Stay behind me.” There was no use in trying to convince her to run for Holden’s tent alone. With Erik’s guards slitting throats in the Crater, I was her best chance of getting there unscathed.

But if I ran with her now, this mass of soldiers would surely follow. I needed to incapacitate some of them first to damage their ranks.

And to save Perla, I had to do so before the stroke of midnight.

Finbar stood on my left, prepared for battle with his little knife and an ear still leaking blood. Perla stood on my right, fists clenched, ignoring my order to keep behind.

My power was building with a solid force inside me as the first of Erik’s soldiers came within striking distance, the fog from the explosion billowing around him.

Then he came to an abrupt halt, rocking where he stood.

A gust of wind carried the haze off him, revealing a dagger handle sticking out of his chest.

There was a fraught, stretched-out moment in which none of the soldiers seemed to know what had happened to the figure at their helm.

But I did. Looking to my far left, I saw the person who had thrown that dagger, towering like a dark-armored monument against the rugged landscape, his expression like thunder and his arm still extended from the throw.

As Keil unsheathed a second dagger, the soldier slumped to the ground.

And chaos descended on the sands of Banarrat.

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Erik’s soldiers charged forward, trampling the body of their fallen comrade. My heart rate spiked with reflexive panic, instinct screaming at me to grab Perla and run in the opposite direction.

But before I could even stumble backward, a clamoring sound streamed from the Crater.

Then the Banarrati soldiers were pounding ahead of us, weapons drawn, meeting the attack in a clash of black uniforms on gold.

As the first Banarrati soldier fell to one of Erik’s men, I knew that the king had timed this assault perfectly. He’d caught these soldiers unprepared by striking during the final jolly, when many were too fuzzy-headed from having chosen liquor over duty.

But still, they were the soldiers of Banarrat, trained as a frontline force in the Western War. Where their judgment might have failed, muscle memory took over, and the night erupted with clanging metal, roaring voices, and bloodied sand spraying up into the air.

And standing at the edge of the fray, his features gilded in the firelight, was Keil.

To anyone else watching, he might have appeared unwilling to enter the battle. But as I followed his eyeline and saw Erik’s soldiers falling inexplicably, one by one, I understood Keil’s strategy. He was taking out the unit leaders—those who were shouting orders—before they even knew they were under spectral attack.

He was single-handedly unraveling their ranks.

“He’s a fool,” Finbar spat, knuckles still clenched around his knife. “He’ll make himself a target.”

Though Finbar might have been right, my relief was currently more powerful than my concern. Because Keil had made it here, seemingly unharmed; Erik must not have set an ambush after all.

Which meant that someone among our group may have found the Unbreakable Blade.

I straightened, steadying myself. Yes, we would somehow need to regroup within this chaos. But we still stood a chance of making it off the island with the sword, and with Perla.

We just needed to reset her oath band first.

I was about to urge her toward the Crater when one of Erik’s men barreled toward Finbar, sword swinging.

Finbar staggered back just as my specter slammed into the man’s gut. The soldier doubled over, wheezing. I was readying my next assault when the soldier took one startled look at me and surged away, toward another target.

“Thank you,” Finbar said, breathless.