Flying splinters of wood shot toward the group in the throne room, and they all ducked. To her credit, the concubine covered the Maharaja’s body with her own.

Kett spun quickly, pressed the briefest of kisses on Bael’s lips, then her hand left his and grabbed the nearest piece of wood. She hurled it at the breached door. It was a token gesture, but it stopped one man in his tracks.

Behind the rushing onslaught of soldiers, a battle raged. Darson’s battalion had gotten here in time.

The trick now would be escaping.

Soldiers surged forward like the tide into a suddenly wide channel. Spilling through the door they charged, swords raised, toward the short line of two big cats, three humans and a kelf.

The first men reached the six defenders and the tide broke with a clash. Var and Véan leapt forward, roaring in a spray of blood. Dark swung his sword in a high arc, bringing it down and then sideways to take out two men at once. Lya ducked, getting in close and using her shorter blades with the confidence of someone whose skin couldn’t be cut.

Kett leapt forward, relishing the fierce rush of battle, but even as she moved, her body taking over automatically, she became aware of the man beside her.

Bael fought like a dervish.

A blade in each hand, he whirled and spun, slicing out low to cut down a soldier with one hand then swinging the other over to take out another. The momentum of the first cut took his sword around and up, into a third man. As a fourth swung his blade at chest height, Bael dipped backward, graceful as a dancer, and plunged his sword into the man’s chest.

He took down four men in as many seconds.

He moved in a never-ending ballet of death, the swords in his hands like extensions of his own body, fluid as water, and Kett’s heart picked that moment to tell her she was in love.

She heartily concurred.

Swinging away, fresh determination singing in her veins, she cut and swung and slashed, taking few hits and delivering many. All the time, the six of them moved backward, toward the throne where the Maharaja lay cradled in the arms of his concubine. She cowered away from the fighting, tears staining her beautiful face.

Kett ignored her and shoved her sword into the belly of an oncoming soldier. He twisted as he fell, taking her sword with him. Another man rushed at Kett and she ducked, deflecting him but losing her chance to regain her blade. Left with only her knife, she cut and slashed three more men to create a space before crouching and leaping into the air, spinning over and over as she changed her shape.

Lion’s paws, eagle’s beak and claws, one of her favorite shapes for fighting.

The sight of a gryphon where a woman had previously been startled several soldiers, gaining Kett the seconds she’d lost in changing her shape. She went into a dive, slashing with her front claws and swinging her head around, her beak cutting through the carotid artery of one man while her back foot kicked out, ripping the face off another.

Leaping, flying, twirling, Kett danced in the air the way Bael danced on the ground. Var, still tiger-shaped, rolled and leapt, his huge paws tipped with claws that could kill with a single blow.

They passed the throne. The small door was in sight. Kett knew timing was critical. If she opened it too early, someone could come through from the other side or get around behind them. Too late, and they’d be backed into a corner.

Fifteen feet away. Twelve. Nine.

At six feet, Kett soared through the air, grabbed the wooden barricade and yanked it free with her back paws. Dark, man and beast, was closest, and both his forms rushed through it. Lya darted after him. In the corridor ahead, someone screamed. On the far side of the room, Darson’s red-coated men flooded in, the tide rapidly turning in their favor.

They were winning. They’d won.

“Bael!” Kett yelled to her mate, who was about ten feet away, but it came out as an eagle’s screech.

Bael spun, one sword high and one low, taking out three men at the same time, then swung both swords in front of him in flashing circles, clearing his path to her. His eyes gleamed.

“Fun, huh?” he said-and then froze, doubled over in sudden pain.

No one had touched him. His head snapped around to where a soldier was yanking his sword free of Var’s flank. The tiger roared, trapped against the throne, and another sword slashed into him.

Kett stared, her elation quickly souring into dread.

Bael turned and ran to Var, whose ears were flattened to his head, one foreleg hanging limply. Bael moved as if suddenly each limb weighed a hundred pounds.

Kett swooped down on the men attacking Var and slashed open the throat of one before turning to the other. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the concubine, her silk sari drenched with blood, clutching the Maharaja’s arm in one hand and a length of splintered wood in the other.

As she turned, the girl raised her arm. The shard she held was sharp and bloody. Kett twisted back, but not fast enough. The slashing point came down on her.

And something thudded into her, knocking her into the ground.

It was Bael, the piece of wood embedded in his chest.

His breath came in jerks. His mouth gaped. Blood fountained from his chest. A few feet away, Var rolled heavy against the throne, his great body heaving, blood pouring from a dozen wounds.

An invisible circle suddenly swept out from the throne, culling all the Maharaja’s men with an unseen power, throwing the concubine into the air and letting her body fall onto the upturned sword of a dying man.

But Kett barely noticed, her entire world condensed into the space by the throne where Bael’s arm stretched desperately to touch the bloodied fur of his twin. Gulping in horrible, terrifying panic, Kett wriggled from under him and grabbed his arm with her beak to yank it closer.

Bael’s human fingers touched Var’s tiger fur, and both their eyes closed.

Kett screamed, and the sound wasn’t the cry of an eagle but the wail of a soul in pain. As she watched, winded, Var and Bael began to merge until there was just a man lying there, his body torn and bleeding in a dozen places. The shard of wood stuck out of a bloody, revolting gash on his chest.

He was barely breathing.

She needed to get him out of here. Desperately Kett roused herself, grasping Bael’s shoulders in her claws and rising ponderously into the air. The fight was all but over now, the throne room eerily silent as she flapped urgently toward the high doors.

Her eagle eyes took in flashes of detail. Darson’s men fighting the Maharaja’s legions, and winning. Pradeshi soldiers huddled in small defensive groups, hiding. Kelfs tending to the injured. Women and children fleeing into the desert’s all-consuming clouds of dust.

Kett flew on, away from the palace, her wings finally failing her a few hundred yards away. The clash of steel on steel rang in the air as she eased Bael’s body down on the sparse, sandy grass of a small hill.

He was breathing, but only just. His clothes were saturated with blood. Kett turned herself human again to rip his shirt open and check his wounds, trying to find the worst so she could stop it, but her eyes were blurry with tears and her hands shook.

“Bael,” she whispered. “Please don’t die. I love you. Please don’t die.”

His eyelids fluttered.

“Can you hear me?”

“No,” said a man’s voice behind her. “He’s dying.”

It was Striker, his eyes alight with bloodlust. Behind him, the Maharaja’s palace burned.

“Do something!” Kett begged, appalled to hear her own voice breaking.

Striker shrugged. “Any one of these wounds could kill him. He has dozens-”

“So do them one by one! The worst first. Like a…a…a triage or something.”