I couldn't believe it.
I was completely screwed.
My heart hammered in my chest as I watched them, the brief hesitation I'd managed to buy with my bluff already beginning to crack. It had worked for a moment, just long enough to make them uneasy, and they'd even started backing away from me as if I might actually be dangerous. I could almost taste what it would feel like to walk out of this alive, but then one of the idiots had to go and recognize me.
"You're right!" another one shouted.
And just like that, every bit of their hesitation was gone, replaced by something far worse. They surged forward with renewed fury, their expressions twisted and mean, and I knew without question that this time they weren't stopping until there was a knife somewhere in my chest.
"Damn it!" I spun toward the injured princess, whose wide eyes and pale face made it pretty clear she understood exactly how bad things had gotten.
"What do we do, princess?" I asked, keeping my voice as submissive and respectful as I possibly could, because desperate times called for desperate measures.
"Don't think for a second I won't kill you!" she snapped back.
Right. Depending on this psycho was hopeless.
I scanned our surroundings quickly, and that was when I spotted it, a narrow path that led around to the front of the mansion. It wasn't ideal, but it might've been the only shot we had.
Though now that I thought about it, why hadn't any guards shown up yet? She was a princess. Someone should've noticed her absence by now, so where the hell was everyone?
No time. I'd worry about that later.
I lunged toward her, closing the distance fast, and that seemed to jolt her out of whatever daze she was in. She gasped and threw her hands up, and a volley of ice shards materialized in front of her and launched straight at me like bullets.
"Fuck!" I yelled, ducking and twisting as the jagged projectiles shot past my face, close enough that one wrong move would've had me skewered.
"Don't come any closer!" she shrieked, her eyes blazing with equal parts fear and contempt.
What was wrong with her? Couldn't she see I was trying to save us both?
If not for one very specific reason, I would've turned around and left her to deal with this on her own, but I couldn't, not when I was the one responsible for this whole mess in the first place. If things had played out the way they were supposed to, she would've handled these attackers without breaking a sweat. She should've been able to manifest that terrifying ability of hers by now, but instead of trying to save herself, she was more focused on trying to kill me first.
I closed in on her again, and just before she could summon another wave of those ice shards, I did the only thing I could think of.
I punched her. Square in the face.
Look, it was either that or let her kill me.
The shock on her face was something else entirely, and judging by the sudden stillness behind me, the attackers were probably just as stunned. I didn't waste a second on it. I scooped her up in a princess carry and bolted for the narrow path, choosing that over throwing her across my shoulder because I wasn't about to give her a clean angle to stab me in the back, and knowing her, she absolutely would've tried.
"Ahh!" Something tightened hard around my neck.
She was strangling me.
"Arck! Stop that!" I wheezed, trying to keep my footing. "If I go down, we both go down!"
"How dare you address me that way!" Her voice was sharp and furious, dripping with righteous indignation. "You struck a princess, you laid hands on me, and now you still have the nerve to touch me with your filthy hands?!"
With every word, her mana surged, and I could feel ice starting to creep up along my neck. If I didn't act fast, I was going to be frozen solid and that would be the end of it.
I did the most unpredictable thing I could think of.
I dropped her.
"What are you—!"
Thud.
She hit the ground hard, and the scream that followed was loud and thoroughly indignant.
Too bad. I wasn't dying for anyone today.