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An unnatural rustle above. A shadow dropped. Leaf gripped his sword with two hands, stepped, and sliced as he walked past. Elven sharpening glyphs flared on the steel. Blue light arced behind his blade, ensuring it cut like butter. The vampire’s body split in two before it hit the ground.
After that, it was chaos. Grung bellowed from the right. Every soldier left awake surged forward in a second wave. But a wave was what Leaf wanted. It felt like home.
Afraid, Nova clutched his sword arm. His other hand released mana like a geyser. It had no form, shape, or intent beyond forging a path forward. Raw power thickened and sizzled in the air, blasting outward in an invisible ring of death. Skin flayed from bodies. Blood sprayed. Muscles, ligaments, and tendons stripped from bone. Skeletons ripped apart as though flimsy sticks in a hurricane.
“¡Dios mío! ¿Qué pasó aquí?”Nova’s tone of horror wrestled with Leaf’s conscience.
But still, his mana surged.
His eyes stung from the force of raw, torrential energy. It was as though he’d tapped into the very Well itself. If it wasn’t for Nova’s hand squeezing him, he might have succumbed to the addictive pull. Roaring with the effort, he mentally closed the lid on his inner well. Power rebounded inside his body, furious he’d cut it off.
Pain seared his mind. He dropped to a knee, and darkness crowded his vision.
“Leaf!”
She needs me.
He lifted his heavy head and searched for more threats. Instead, he found terror. His jaw dropped at the disaster he’d made of the forest camp. Trunks had ripped from their roots, tents were blown away, and supplies were caught in branches. Anything left standing was painted in bloody innards and bone. There wasn’t a soul left alive. His power had blown through everything in a quarter-mile radius.
Shit, the horse.
He tried to rise, but his vision crowded again.
“Horse,” he grunted.
Crimson, it hurt to speak. Words were sandpaper on his tongue. His skin ached so profoundly that he feared to look in case he’d flayed himself too. But Nova slipped under his arm, propping him up. It mustn’t be too bad.
“I don’t see it,” she muttered.
“Fuck.”
They staggered in the direction the animals had been corralled. They waded through blobs of unidentifiable, biological, and inorganic mess. The further they limped, the more objects and trees remained standing. Eventually, they came across untouched tents.
But no fae. Yet.
Still withReckoningin his hand, Leaf gathered his strength and forced his legs to carry him without Nova’s help. If any survivors thought to finish him off, he had to pretend he had the energy to fight. A quick inner assessment told him that thought wasn’t entirely false. He did have reserves—plenty, actually.
Odd.
Had this raw power been within him all the time, was it an accident of the taint, or was it… he glanced at the woman beside him, stricken. No. He shook his head. No, he wasn’t going there yet.
“Look!” Nova pointed to where the corral stood intact, complete with living animals. And his horse.
“Thank fuck,” he rasped, sheathing his sword over his shoulder.
But as they approached the horse, the fae who’d remained behind at the hunt jumped out from behind a feed barrel. “Don’t hurt me!”
Leaf’s hand splayed on Nova’s sternum, holding her back.
The fae flinched, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Let us go, and you have my word I won’t hurt you,” he said.
The soldier peeled one eye open, then the other. Seeing Leaf hadn’t moved, he bolted into the forest.
“Let’s go.” Leaf walked into the corral, and as he untied his horse’s reins from a post, he noted half-eaten bowls of feed. His brows lifted at his luck. It seemed Grung’s rules were good for something. Someone had fed the animals as promised at dawn. Someone had also removed the saddle, brushed the flanks, and supplied water.
So even if Leaf was exhausted, his ride wasn’t.
