This was not a training exercise.
This man was about to kill him.
But I’m just a boy, Conor thought.
There was no trace of mercy in the guard’s eyes.
“Briggan!” Conor cried out desperately.
The wolf pivoted. But he was too far away —
A woman struck the guard with a soaked piece of wood. For a bare moment, his expression didn’t change. His sword was still poised over Conor. But then the guard’s eyes went blank and he slumped to his knees.
All of the breath escaped from Conor’s lungs.
The woman with the piece of wood threw her arms around Conor and dragged him to her in a hug.
“Conor!” she said. Her voice was so familiar. As Briggan bounded breathlessly to Conor’s side, Conor got a good look at his savior’s face. His mother!
Like all the prisoners, she was tattered and careworn, but her appearance couldn’t get in the way of Conor’s relief. She was alive.
“Mother!” He hugged her tightly. His head was a clutter of images: that man’s face as he prepared to kill Conor, the Greencloak supporter being attacked by the mastiffs, and even Finn’s hands trembling as he tried to open the lock. His mother was so skinny too. “I —”
“I know,” she replied. “But there’s no time. You need to go! It isn’t safe here for Greencloaks anymore. They even . . . even Isilla is gone.”
“But th-this is wrong,” Conor finally stammered, shocked to hear of the gentle Greencloak who had presided over his Nectar Ceremony. She’d been a revered figure in Trunswick for as long as he could remember. “I don’t want to leave you behind. Come with us.”
“I can’t,” his mother said. “Your father and brothers still need me.”
The others had finally noticed Conor’s detainment, and they struggled to fight their way back to him. Nearby, Abeke and Uraza fought with two of the mastiffs. Overhead, a seagull, someone’s spirit animal, circled and screamed.
Madness, Conor thought again. Their odds were technically better than in that forest battle, but in this chaos, the Greencloaks were doomed.
“How can I help?” he asked desperately.
“Did you get my letter? You’ve made us all so proud, Conor! You called Briggan, and surely there was a reason. Briggan was a great leader. You’re good and wise. Do what you feel is right. You always do what’s right.”
“But I don’t know what is right!”
His mother hugged him again. “Do what is right in your heart, Conor.”
Conor hesitated. He was certain that if they left, all these Greencloak supporters would give their lives to shield them. Maybe they were okay with that. But he wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He just couldn’t. Like Lady Evelyn had pointed out, he was a guardian. He couldn’t just stay, though, either. Then they would all die. What was right in his heart?
He didn’t know.
“Briggan,” Conor said. He buried his hand in the wolf’s ruff. “Can we help them? They need us.”
What this group needed was a leader, he knew. He just didn’t know if he and Briggan were ready to be leaders yet. Well, he knew Briggan was ready. He just didn’t know if he was.
The wolf’s ears pricked. He surveyed the chaos. Conor did too, and as he did, he saw that even worse was in store for them. The Earl of Trunswick’s white horse was making its way jauntily down the streets toward the courtyard. The earl sat high on its back, his powerful lynx spirit animal lumbering beside him. He was riding in a leisurely fashion, as if he had come to the same conclusion Conor had: The Greencloak supporters had no chance.
This was the Fallens’ last chance to run.
Conor and Briggan met each other’s eyes. This time, neither of them looked away.
Cupping his hands around his mouth, Conor shouted, “Meilin! Rollan! Abeke!”
When he was sure he’d caught their attention, he gestured wildly for them to join him.
Meilin reached him first. “Come on! Let’s go.”
“We’re helping,” Conor said. “It’s what we’re meant to do.”
Conor’s mother nodded. She stepped back, tightening her hands on the piece of wood she’d used to hit the guard.
“What did you have in mind?” Rollan asked.
“Training room, like we practiced. Find weapons where we can and fight as a team.”
He didn’t have to say it twice. Rollan brandished his knife, Meilin put up her fists, and Abeke crouched low beside Uraza. Briggan tipped back his head and let out a long, cool howl. The sound pierced the fighting. It raised the hair on the back of Conor’s neck and on his arms. Every spirit animal there turned all attention to the wolf.
In that brief silence, Conor shouted, “Greencloaks! Attack!”
They moved forward as one creature. Uraza slunk low before them, Briggan charged beside them, and Essix swept by overhead. They threw themselves into the battle. But not as four people fighting four separate targets. As a single entity dispatching one enemy at a time and then moving on to the next.
Rollan fought with his dagger. Abeke brandished a torch. Conor swept up a shovel from a cart near the blacksmith’s. Meilin still preferred to fight bare-handed.
It didn’t take long for their efforts to catch the eyes of the other Greencloak supporters. The first to catch on had been fighting with only the help of her spirit animal, a goat. But when she saw the four of them battling as a team, she leaped in behind them. Then a man with an owl. Then a young man with no visible spirit animal. When they saw how the Fallen had found weapons and worked together, they began doing the same.
It was working. The cacophony was dimming. The guards were falling back. The mastiffs were finished.
We’re doing it, Briggan! Conor thought fiercely. He could feel the wolf’s power surging through him, giving him strength. It was like he was a wolf himself. He was faster, stronger, sharper. This was what the bond could be.
They were winning.
Then the Earl of Trunswick’s voice rang over the courtyard.
“If you want this man to live, I suggest you lay down your weapons!”
In the uneven torchlight, the Earl of Trunswick stood on an auction block at the other side of the courtyard. Finn stood in his grasp. The earl’s sword was pressed against his throat, and his lynx prowled the block, as if daring anyone to intervene.
The fighting stopped. The only sound was that of several people trying to catch their breath.
Finn’s voice was softer than the earl’s, but in that ragged quiet, it was just as audible. “Go. Don’t listen to him! Just go!”