(Tried something different for this chapter, including music that was in my head  as I was writing it. If it detracts from the story, let me know!)

The attack on the War Council was over before most people had been able to draw their weapons.

Shelby grabbed Cavin to pull him backwards from the circle of stones placing his body between the chaos and his king. Oliver moved with him, followed by Benchan and a couple more Guardsmen as they moved away from the threat and surrounded their King to create a wall of bodies to protect him from another attack. 

All of them knew that they had been too slow to stop what had really mattered, all of them fighting to force their hearts to start beating again and their breathing to return to normal. They were all thinking the same thing he was, he was certain of it. Their King, his closest friend, the heart and soul of the Kingdom would be dead at this very moment, if not for Verana's quick reaction. It was a tough pill to swallow, realizing how helpless they had been in the moments when their action had mattered most and how lucky the entire kingdom was for the allies it had just begun to recognize.

By the time they met the reinforcements from the Royal Guard and Shelby had taken one of the rider's horses, the chase was already on. The attackers seemingly outdistancing their pursuers with a head start and fear-fuelled flight. His horse caught up with and passed the Clairvalan men who had been running on foot. It wasn't long before he saw the first of the attackers that had been felled, laying on the ground, bleeding heavily. The man's legs appeared to be bleeding heavily and the man was screaming in pain. 

Shelby didn't stop, knowing the man would be picked up by the riders and fighters coming up behind him, knowing that there were more of his ilk heading towards the coast. He only spurred his horse faster when he passed the second man, now only a corpse, blood pooling around his head.

When the cliff came into sight, he saw three small fighters, downing the remaining bulky outsiders as if the men hadn't been trying to fight back. They outclassed their opponents so completely that the large fur covered men barely appeared to be warriors compared to the Fey who were engaging them.

 A fourth small form stood on the river bank and as he got closer, he made out Verana, one arm dripping with blood, the other reaching out towards a long boat that was barrelling towards her against the wind and current of the river. She shifted out of the way and the boat flew over her head, spraying water through the air as it landed hard on the ground and skidded towards him and his men.

Shelby reigned his mount in roughly, cursing a couple times as the boat came to a rough stop only feet in front of him, a long path gouged out of the ground from the force of whatever had been moving the wooden ship.

The two men onboard, dazed from their inconceivable trip, stumbled to their feet grabbing for weapons drunkenly as they tried to dismount the ship to fight. Shelby saw Sencha sprinting up the field towards the ship, followed by two other Feysha and leapt from his horse, tackling one of the men to the ground hard. He didn't have to turn to look to know that the three Feysha had engaged and subdued the second man, focusing on the brief struggle between him and his opponent as he tried to keep the man alive while not being injured himself.

A hard enough punch to the jaw and the man was out cold, allowing Shelby to restrain him quickly before standing and seeing a growing crowd of humans surrounding him, the Feysha and the ship. 

The crowd continued to swell as more and more fighters arrived only to find the situation well at hand thanks to the Feyshan fighters. The humans had been late and Feysha had handled the problem without breaking a sweat, if you didn't count Verana, with half an arrow in her shoulder.

"Ride the river, patrol as far as the Sea, on either side." He said tersely to the gathered Guard, not caring if they belonged to him or not, he was their General in times of war such as this. "If there's more of them, find them and remove them from my lands."

Sencha looked at him and nodded to the other side of the water, where more Feysha stood, holding weapons, waiting for... something. "They will roam with them. We don't like horses, so they'll keep their distance but if there's anything out there, the hunters will find them."

"Understood sir, but how do we get across the river with the horses? The water only gets deeper and rougher from here." Benchan's second in command nodded first to Sencha, then to Shelby. 

"I'll make a bridge." Verana was standing there, dripping blood, nodding towards the river. "I will make it as visible as I can, but hurry." She moved away from them before anyone could object, walking towards the river, where something began to shimmer and take shape across the raging water. 

Slowly her power darkened to the colour of angry storm clouds, solidifying until the first of his men could lead their horses across. The mounts were not happy with the insubstantial bridge they were being forced to cross, making it a slower endeavour than Shelby would have liked. 

After giving the twenty human riders a wide berth, a dozen Feysha sprinted across the bridge, moving to jog after the riders who had already started on their patrol. The two groups, comprised of Fey and humans, began to comb the land to look for more of the foreign attackers. 

The weight of the moment wasn't lost on Shelby, seeing how the Feysha seamlessly integrated with the humans and took over tracking and leading the mounted Guards in search of more possible enemies.

"My lord. We have two prisoners, one more who might survive if he doesn't bleed out. What are we doing with them?" Another of his guard, this one young and handling his first bit of action as best as could be expected stepped closer to him, glancing uncertainly towards the prisoners in question.

"Take them to the dungeon, chain them up and post guards on the cells. Keep them separated. Do what we can for the injured man but the healers see our people first." Shelby growled, before turning to glance around and take in the situation as he tried to understand what had happened in the last few heart wrenching moments.

The world was beginning to slow back down to a normal speed, leaving a messy confusion in its wake that he was struggling to order into place. He paused for a moment when he saw Oliver's racer speeding down the river, filled to the brim with the duke's men. 

He inclined his head, even knowing his friend was navigating the river far faster than he should be moving and wouldn't be doing more than glancing to shore to ensure that they didn't need assistance. Oliver would hit the ocean and his ships would patrol the area, looking for anything within their waters as the Admiral in charge of protecting Clairval's shorelines. Both Oliver and Shelby appeared to have failed in their task of ensuring the Kingdom was safe, just as surely as they almost failed to protect their Regent only moments ago.

It was only once Oliver was out of sight that he turned to look at the boat that had been beached and saw the four Feysha staring oddly at the figurehead on the bow of the ship. He realized that the two that he did not know were women now that he had time to really look at them. 

Shelby was cognizant of how covered in gore the four Fey were and how unsure the rest of the humans appeared around them. Still without any official declaration of allegiance, the reality of how dangerous the Fey actually were seemed to be hitting some of the fighters harder than most. 

He issued orders to send everyone but a few of his trusted Guard back to Keepsal and began moving carefully towards the four fighters and the bow of the longboat. Something about the way the Feysha stood, the violence on their features, made him feel that humans might be out of place.

He watched the blood drip from Verana's fingers and noticed now that the humming of his sword had stopped once the bridge had done its job and disappeared. When none of them spoke or acknowledge how injured she was, he turned his attention to what they were looking at.

 Shelby found himself frowning up at the workmanship of the carving as he tried to understand what was so unsettling about it. It looked like a Feyshan woman, carved so exquisitely he thought for a moment that she was real, the look of anguish causing shivers to run down his spine.

"So this is what they have done to our brethren in their lands." Sencha murmured softly, for his benefit, surely, because it was Clairvalan that he spoke.

"Why would they carve that?" Shelby asked softly, looking to Sencha for a moment then back to the ship. "Usually one carves strength, calm, serenity or anger, but I don't understand the expression."

Verana looked at him, her eyes swimming with tears. "Lord Shelby, that's not a carving. Someone has used magic to put her there. She's still alive, suffering, trapped on the front of a warship. She isn't a warrior, everything she's seen or been through, its not something she can even begin to contemplate, she is one of the peaceful ones."

Shelby took a couple steps backwards as the weight of her words slammed into him, feeling as if he was about to get sick, his body shuddering violently. If someone had asked he couldn't explain why he believed something so outlandish but he didn't doubt Verana's words for a moment. "That sounds like torture."

"The worst kind." Sencha murmured softly before turning to look at Verana. "Tell me what you see, child."

"I think I can undo it." She was firm but quiet, glancing between the older Fey and the boat. "I won't have much left in me after that... but she can't stay there any longer. I will not wait."

There was no room for argument in her voice, her eyes hard and her jaw set stubbornly, though no one looked ready to stop Verana, drained and injured as she was. Shelby could only watch alongside the others as Verana stepped up to the ship, raising her hand to touch the woman's foot and his sword began vibrating and humming wildly. 

Verana didn't move or say anything further but his sword was shuddering so much so that he had to rip it out of the scabbard and lay it on the ground to stop it from numbing his back. Verana's own blades vibrating as wildly as his own as he watched her stand there silently. 

The air was filled only with the movements of the blades as the small group watched the bow of the ship, though Shelby didn't know what he was expecting to see. He didn't even know if rescuing the Feysha on the ship would result in the woman being alive or dead, though he couldn't imagine what type of dark power could keep someone alive and entombed like she was.

Long moments of silence were brought to a crashing end when the wood began screaming, as if it were put under tremendous pressure and about to be crushed. He had heard that sound once in the arctic, when he watched ice form around a floundering ship, crushing the thing it its grip.

Shelby had to step on the hilt of his sword to stop it from jumping violently in the dirt. Even as he winced against the noise, he saw tears running down the faces of the Feysha who were baring their teeth but forcing themselves not to shy away from what was happening.

 The screams began to sound more and more alive when  the figurehead fell from the ship. The woman was flesh and blood as she was caught first by Verana and then taken by Sencha, who gathered the small form up into his arms and gave her over to the two other Feysha to carry towards the river.

Shelby looked over his shoulder and stepping away to call for his men to find a row boat and help the women cross. He paused only long enough to pick up his sword before he turned to see Sencha was sitting on the ground, cradling Verana's head in his lap. Her breathing was coming out ragged and weak, her skin paler than normal, clothing smeared with blood. 

 With a curse, Shelby sheathed his blade and whistled for his horse as he crouched down beside the other man. "Tell me where to take her, your healers, somewhere in the Wild, anywhere you need me to, I will get her there. I'll run my mount into the ground to get her where she can be helped."

"Your healers are better than ours. She has bled too much, lost even more than that." Sencha's hands were slick with blood, just from holding Verana and struggling to stem the flow of blood from around the arrow. "I asked too much of her. There was just too much evil in this day, but I asked far more than I should have."

Shelby nodded gravely, mounting his horse easily and reaching to accept Verana's limp form. "Give her to me. I will take her to the keep. I will call every healer I know for her."

Sencha stood and lifted her up to him. "Ride, Sword Keeper. I will follow"

Without any more encouragement, Shelby wheeled his horse and set it at an all out run back to the Keep. He held Verana tightly, one hand pressed to her shoulder, as if he could keep more blood from leaving her weakening form, feeling the precious warmth spilling over his fingers with every beat of her heart.