Demevirld had answered Reeve’s call. A hoard of Dragons with majestic bodies and regal forms lit up the distance with blue, red, and orange shades of fire, as they melted the creatures of the night below them. The Morconis shifted their attention at once, their wings flailing madly across the frigid air, in pursuit of the dragons with bone-chilling screams.
Maeve let out a frustrated sigh, heat barreling from her palms as she disintegrated the closest Dreaded Dead within a twenty-foot radius. Reeve sensed her, his eyes moving briefly to her as she stalled, Magic prickling up her spine.
What’s wrong?Reeve’s voice was clipped in her mind.
Before she could answer, Magic split wide across the realm. It settled deep in her stomach. It crawled beneath the ice at super-speed, heading straight for the Magical barrier they had erected protecting Crystalmore.
Notit.
They.
Thousands more Dreaded Dead swarmed beneath the frozen Black Deep, heading straight for the city.
“More,” snapped Reeve, “beneath us and making for the wall!” he bellowed out at Eryx, at the Senshi and the Dread alike.
Maeve’s eyes darted far across the ice, tracking them. “They’re everywhere.”
“How could she possibly have more?” spat Alphard, wiping blood from his neck, and then shooting his palm flat, setting fire to a horde of undead that fell from a newly formed Portal.
The Magical barriers they erected cracked as more undead burst from the ice, sinking their sharp-boned fingers into the wall, and began to climb. Blasts of fire blazed from the distance, illuminating the night as the dragons breathed down flames of destruction, each of them efficiently killing the Dreaded Dead by the hundreds at once.
Reeve could do that.
Reeve needed to transform—
Maeve’s thoughts halted, her eyes shot to the Dark Peaks, near the highest point on the planet. Judging by the narrowing of Reeve’s eyes, he felt it too.
Shadow entered the playing field at last.
Before Maeve could open her mouth, Reeve’s hand was on her, Obscuring them. Magic compressed them tightly together as the world shifted, and the snow-covered mountains surrounding Shadow came into view.
Silence settled around them, leaving a hum in her ears from the distinct change in atmosphere. The battles raging below them all across the line that separated the Dread Lands from Aterna couldn’t be seen or heard where Sanctum sat nestled high in the Dark Peaks.
Maeve stepped from Reeve, placing a few paces between them.
“I get both of you?” Shadow’s voice sounded out. “My lucky day.”
Maeve drew the sword Reeve had made for her, the one she’d scarcely used, but cherished all the same.
“You think a sword will do you any good at marking me?”
Maeve did not answer.
With a full and vocal inhale, she gathered every ounce of Aterna Magic that flowed through her, that obeyed her as its master, and poured it into the blade Reeve gifted her. She emptied herself completely, until not a drop of Aterna remained inside her.
Until it was only Shadow Magic, and the power of the Dread Stone at her disposal.
She turned her back to Shadow and gripped the hilt of her sword in both hands as she locked eyes with Reeve. His pupils dilated, and before he could successfully Obscure to her, she slammed the sharp end down, penetrating the snow-covered earth. Her Magic within the blade surged, creating a wall of pale-violet, almost blue, Magic. As it encapsulated only Maeve and Shadow, Reeve’s eyes filled with anguish just on the other side.
“Maeve,” he warned, his voice slipping into anger.
“She owes me a debt, Reeve,” said Maeve calmly, releasing her fingers from the hilt of the sword. The ring of Magic she’d trapped herself inside remained. “And I will collect it.”
She could feel the satisfaction radiating from Shadow behind her. Satisfaction she’d soon squash.
“You are needed elsewhere. I am needed here,” she said.
You don’t have to do this alone,he argued.
