“Maybe there are just too many of them.”
Domenic sucked in a shallow breath.
Even in the brief time they’d spent comforting the hedge magician, the wind had intensified. Strands of Ellery’s hair whipped across her forehead, then froze there. All around them, people ran—some fleeing indoors, others distributing supplies and readying for battle. NDC soldiers strapped on goggles and secured their hoods. Yet with each passing second, darkness encroached further, until even those closest to Ellery and Domenic appeared as little more than silhouettes.
“We could get to the edge of the compound,” she hollered to Domenic above the wind. “Try to defend it.”
“No, the NDC probably had sentries guarding the compound already.” Determination steeled across his features. “You remember how I told you that in Oldermere, I found the scurge’s eye?”
Ellery did. “You think we should try to stop the storm from its center?”
“Yeah, together.”
They took off through the compound, following the storm’s magic to where the cold was most intense, the pressure crushing. But they’d barely made it across a single courtyard before whirling fractals coalesced into a shape several yards ahead.
The winterghast was hideous, and although it was not nearly as gigantic or eerily humanoid as the Dire Three, it was far more fearsome than the one in Mercester Square. Dirt and blood crusted its ice-sculpted body; a writhing mass of tentacles unfurled as it heaved closer to them. Its lone eye gleamed a haunting blue.
Instantly, Ellery and Domenic attacked.
With a burst of frost, she pinned it in place. Its body contortedgrotesquely, and a screech emanated from deep within it. But she held it effortlessly while Valmordion’s flames burned it in a blaze of gold.
It screeched again, then exploded into a spatter of ice.
But as its screech faded, another rose nearby. Then another, and another. Cries echoed across the storm in a terrible chorus.
Ellery thrust Iskarius into the air. Its silver light speared through the darkness.
Winterghasts swarmed everywhere, at least two dozen, maybe more. They were an army, a blight upon the compound. And each of their azure eyes were trained directly on her and Domenic.
Ellery had seen such an army once before, during the fall of Nordmere. She remembered peering through her dirty apartment windows, petrified. The ghasts rampaging through the streets.
Her memories devolved after that. Scrambling for her training wand. Her parents; a smear, a blur. Fleeing from what she’d done, running into the maelstrom outside. And the ghast, looming over a panicked crowd of people rushing to evacuate. She scarcely recalled what the monster looked like. Just its awful roar and the distant sound of her scream and the blood matted in her hair and her reflection in its body, her own eyes too bright, too blue.
Now, Ellery tightened her grip on Iskarius.
“If we want to get to the eye…” she started.
Domenic white-knuckled Valmordion. “We’ve gotta get through the swarm.”
As the first of the winterghasts charged toward them—a creature with tusks that scissored and flayed out into countless points—Ellery pressed her back to Domenic’s.
Together, they raised their wands and struck.
The NDC joined them, combating the initial wave of ghasts in squadrons of three or four, hurling coordinated barrages of nature magic.
Ellery fought as if a scurge unto herself, summoning a gale of frost that swept toward the winterghasts. Some fell prone. Others shattered. Behind her, Domenic’s fire spiraled out in a vortex, impervious even to the winds.
The winterghasts shrieked as the flames consumed them, their forms sagging into even more gruesome shapes as they melted. Still, none compared to Decibel’s power. But the monsters made up for it in sheer numbers, streaming endlessly through the compound as though conjured by the night itself.
Around them, magicians began to fall. Squadrons splintered and fled, until only Domenic and Ellery endured.
In some ways, it was a relief to be separate. Unburdened by the fear of collateral damage, they unleashed a tempest of magic. Domenic’s very shape glowed with a halo so bright it hurt even to squint at him. Ellery’s shadow elongated and spilled outward in a sea of darkness.
Their fight could’ve lasted minutes. It could’ve lasted hours. Until the final winterghast was slain. Steam hissed as its body melted into broken hunks of ice.
“You okay?” Domenic braced his free hand on his knee.
Ellery panted, “Alive. You?”
