Page 139 of A Touch of Poison
Maybe Bastian was right. Maybe I was brave. I certainly stood here facing a magical beast, lining up my shot.
Thatsoundedbrave.
Pulse pounding in my throat, face, temples, I exhaled and aligned my arrowhead with the creature’s eye.
I didn’t need to kill it. I just needed to buy myself enough time to get to the palace.
I loosed the bowstring.
The arrow flew.
And skimmed off the monster’s brow.
Fuck.
I’d rushed and missed in my fear. Under my gloves, the stains had to be covering my hands—a marker of my out of control emotions.
Another arrow. Deep breaths. Calm. Focus.
The orange sky turned the Horror’s carapace into a fiery rainbow. As if it understood what I meant to do, it hissed. Acid sizzled and pitted the stone paving.
If it could corrode granite, what would it have done to my skin if not for my…?
“Poison.”
Touching it hadn’t worked, perhaps because of the carapace, but…
I yanked up my sleeve. If I delivered my poison directly…
Twenty feet away now.
I still had time to run.
But I would have to run away from the palace. And then I’d be dead, anyway.
Desperation. Bravery. It didn’t matter what it was—I sliced the arrow across the back of my arm, gritting my teeth at the streak of pain. One eye on the Horror, I let the blood well and coated the arrowhead.
Fifteen feet.
There was no time to think.
Draw. Aim. Exhale. Fire.
Every part of me stiffened, trained on the arrow’s arcing flight.
Please.Please?
I didn’t see it strike, but I saw the Horror’s head snap back. Its shriek split my ears.
It stumbled, my arrow buried in its eye.
Had it worked?
Maybe more poison…
Another arrow. Quickly. Quickly.
I smeared it with blood as the Horror slowed and tossed its head side to side like it might be able to throw off the one already embedded in its eye. When that didn’t work, it lowered its head and roared.
