“I don’t care what it does,” I said. “It has to be destroyed.”
The crunch of debris jerked my head toward the mountain, and flames shot up my wrists as I prepared to torch any monster approaching us. Corson held his hands up and stepped in front of Wren.
“Easy,” he said. “We’re here to help. Lix and Bale stayed to protect the others in case Wrath returns.”
“Sorry,” I said as my flames went out. “We’re trying to establish a fire barrier, but there’s nothing here for me to burn.”
“Then we’ll establish ourselves here and kill anything that comes out of the fog,” Hawk said.
“And if the fog rolls over us?” I asked.
“We’ll make sure it doesn’t.”
“Then it’s time to send in the hounds,” Caim said.
I gulped as I rested my hand on the head of the hound standing beside me. Its eyes were focused on the fog as it bared its teeth and vibrated with barely leashed power.
“Be careful,” I said and lifted my hand.
“Achó,” Caim said, commanding the beasts to attack.
I swear the hound grinned at me before bounding into the fog. Standing on the edge of the mist and within the unnatural twilight created by the smoke, everything around me stilled. All I heard was the thump of my racing heart pumping blood through my veins.
I barely breathed as I braced myself for one of the hounds to scream in pain. I wouldn’t be able to take it if something happened to one of them, but the silence stretched until the seconds became minutes, and still the only sound was the thump of my heart.
I opened my mouth to ask where they were, but I couldn’t get the words past the lump in my throat. If one of the hounds cried out, I’d cry with them. The beasts had taken great joy in running all of us into every obstacle they could find. They’d given me a few headaches and bruises, but I really liked them.
Please let them get through this.
And then screams pierced the silence. Muffled by the fog, it was impossible to tell exactly where those screams originated from, but they grew louder as they mingled with snarls from the hounds.
I yearned to throw my hands over my ears and block out the noise, but I forced myself to listen. We’d sent the hounds in there; I had to know if one of them was hurt.
As the screams continued, the fog shifted and rolled faster toward us. Tendrils of it snaked rapidly on the air as it tried to ascertain where to go. Even as the sounds of death emanated from the fog, it rushed toward us and excitement radiated from it when those tendrils encountered us.
I wished there was some way to take a knife or sword to the fog and slice it to pieces, but it was as tangible as air. As we backed further away from the questing tendrils, a clammy sweat coated my body and stuck my shirt to me. I tried not to think about the possibility this might not work and these monsters would escape to hunt others.
When a tendril touched my cheek and another caressed my hand, I yanked my arm away and edged further back with the others. Another wisp grazed my neck while the screams abruptly ended.
The abrupt absence of noise confused me; for a second, I assumed my senses had gone haywire and I couldn’t hear. Then, Wren’s foot crunched on the burnt earth and sound flooded in again.
I held my breath as I waited for the screams to restart or for one of the hounds to howl. I didn’t realize I’d clenched my jaw and fingers until my teeth began to ache and blood filled my palms. The longer the silence stretched, the more my tension mounted until I was on the verge of screaming.
Then the fog rolled back like the sea before a tsunami.
I gaped as the vanishing fog revealed the charred land and the bloody bodies scattered across it. With a woman dangling from its jaws, a hound trotted out of what remained of the mist and dropped the body at our feet. Blood coated her face, and her throat was missing, but I recognized Amber when the hound sat beside her.
“Good boy,” Caim said and patted the hound’s head. “She must have been the one who created the fog.”
“That’s not surprising,” I said.
The rest of the hounds came into view as the last of the mist vanished. A few survivors tried to run, but the hounds took them down before they got far. I didn’t cover my ears, but I did turn away from the screams. Every person in that fog deserved to die, and the world was a far better place without them, but I’d seen enough death recently.
When the last scream ended, relief rolled through me and, with it, came exhaustion. Now that there was nothing left to fight and no adrenaline fueling me, my knees trembled, and I almost sank to the ground. Hawk cupped my elbow to steady me before bending and sweeping me into his arms.
“You don’t have to carry me,” I protested. “You must be exhausted.”
“Nowhere near as exhausted as you, Ash,” he said and touched my hands. “You’ve used your ability a lot recently.”
