Garrick looked at her; a dull fog clouded his gaze. His voice crept out thin and ragged. “Foolish child… Why do this… I’m not worth such a price…”
He fought against the shaking in his legs, hauled himself upright, and once more shoved Vivian behind his battered back.
The white-haired elder strolled up, looking down from above. “Garrick, you’ve done all you can. Hand the girl over and I’ll let you die cleanly!”
Garrick slowly shook his head. The words came out weak but carved in stone. “If you want my daughter… Step over my corpse first…”
The white-haired elder exhaled a quiet breath. “Stubborn even in death…”
He flicked his hand. Celestial Palace soldiers advanced again, blades gleaming and killing intent rolling off them like smoke.
“Protect the Patriarch!”
“Protect Miss Vivian!” The six elders still left inside the manor, battered, bleeding, robes in tatters, charged forward again. They planted themselves in a line between Garrick and Vivian, roaring their defiance.
In the very next heartbeat they collided with Celestial Palace soldiers and House Wagner guards, weapons and fists exploding together.
The red-faced elder smashed a Celestial Palace soldier away with one palm, then twisted back toward Vivian and forced out a hoarse shout, “Miss Vivian, run! Don’t worry about us! Jus go!”
The white-haired elder drove his sword straight through a Wagner guard’s throat and yelled, voice rasping, “Miss Vivian, move! Don’t let our blood spill for nothing!”
Another elder, hemmed in by three soldiers, took blade after blade. His robe soaked dark, yet he locked his arms around one attacker and refused to loosen his grip.
He glanced over his shoulder at Vivian, pupils dull, mouth twitching with words that scraped out like broken glass: “Miss… We wronged you… We chased profit… We doomed our family… We earned this…”
As the final syllable left his lips, a longsword punched straight through his heart. Strength ran out of him, he folded to the ground and lay silent in a spreading pool of red.
“Third Elder!” Vivian’s scream tore through the clamor. Another elder buckled under a ring of enemies, spat a thick splash of blood, and hit the dirt with a thud.
Before air left his chest, he stared at Vivian and murmured, barely louder than the wind, “Tell Jared… We were at fault… We… Should have died long ago…”
Vivian dropped to her knees. Her whole body shook, tears fogging everything she could see. The elders who had watched her grow from a child, who once spoiled her with smile after smile were falling one by one, each fall forever.
Every sight of a familiar body hitting the ground carved at her like a knife. Breathing itself became torture she could not escape.
The red-faced elder, already cut in a dozen places, fought three soldiers at once. He would not retreat, hacking and clawing until nothing but raw stubbornness kept him upright.
With his last burst of strength he slapped two soldiers flying, then collapsed slowly, eyes drifting to Vivian. A faint, relieved curve touched his lips.
“Miss Vivian… take care…”
The white-haired elder from the House of Chance caught the crown-shattering palm of the white-haired elder leading the enemy.
The blow landed squarely on his skull. Blood splashed outward like rain. He died where he stood. Even in the instant before he fell, his gaze clung to Vivian, gentle and unwilling to leave. “Miss Vivian… Go… Live…”
All six elders were gone. The House of Chance no longer had a single shield left to raise. Vivian stayed on her knees, staring at bodies and blood that covered the Courtyard stores tears shed soundlessly down her cheeks.
“No… Don’t… Please, don’t die…” The words leaked from her lips, little more than breath, her mind fraying at the edges. Garrick clawed his way upright, grabbed her with what strength and rasped Vivian more, ” We leaving…”
Clutching her hand, he bolted for the rear gate, caring for nothing except forward momentum. Roars and steel rang out behind them; the pursuers’ shouts rolled over the manor like thunder.
Garrick sprinted, then whirled to swat aside one soldier with a palm strike and skewer another through the throat with his blade, but the enemies were endless he could no clear them all.
At last they burst through to the back-courtyard gate. Garrick suddenly shoved Vivian hard, flinging her past the threshold. “Go! Run! Never come back!”
Vivian sprawled on the ground, looked back with a flood of tears, and cried, “Father! What about you? What will you do?”
He met her eyes and, in that flash, offered the softest, and most hopeless, smile she had ever shown. “Dad can’t leave… Dad will stay with the Chance ancestors… But you… You must live…”
Turning away, he faced the wave of Celestial Palace soldiers and House of Wagner guards. A final, unbroken resolve tightened in his stare.
