I nodded in agreement and allowed him to walk me under the cold shadow of the forest while my mind tried to make sense of what I’d been told.
“There is no point in trying to find logic in any of it. Most of what she told Riordan only came to him in the moment when her predictions were finally coming true,” Orion murmured to me soothingly.
He brought me to a place where water was streaming out of a jagged cliff, and the water was as warm as he promised when I reached for it. I groaned in appreciation and scooped some into my palms to splash on my face.
The others sat down some distance away while I took a moment to recompose myself. Once it felt like I could breathe again, Orion took my chin and tipped my head up to give me a tender kiss.
“Thank you. I needed that,” I whispered.
“I will always take care of your—”
He broke off, tail suddenly whipping as he cocked his head toward the trees at the same time that Helena and Ares both sat up. They all shared a glance I recognized.
Fuath. We need to go now,Orion warned me through our bond as he took my hand to tug me away from the cliff with the streaming water.
“But… Hypatia—”
“She is more powerful than any of us. Only those she wants in her cottage may gain entrance,” he assured me. “We need to get out from under these trees and shift.”
I nodded and ran with him to join the others. We were about to head back toward the clearing, but the sound of the hyena-like cries of the Fuath suddenly reached us.
“Fuck! We are surrounded,” Orion hissed in disbelief. “How did they get so close without us knowing?”
“It’s alright. I can blast through them and provide us some cover to get to the clearing,” I said confidently.
Orion nodded and pressed a kiss to my head before he took my hand and turned to lead the way back toward theenuksha’scottage. It felt strange to go toward the sounds of our enemies, but we needed open skies for the griffins to be able to take flight.
We had not gotten very far when I saw movement in the trees to our right. Orion turned just in time to drop my hand and raise his sword, cleaving a Fuath in half as it leapt at us from a rocky outcropping above. The Ktínos warriors formed a defensive triangle around me and Sofia as a wave of Fuath charged around the outcropping.
Despite being seriously outnumbered, the griffins had no problem with holding off dozens of Fuath. But I knew that it was up to me to clear a path forward to freedom.
I knelt to gather power directly from the earth into my hands, and I noticed right away that it was much less impactful when I was so far away from Riordan. I had not been so far away from him since arriving in the Vale.
Fire can be easily smothered when its air is choked.
I shook Hypatia’s words from my mind and aimed my blazing hands toward the biggest grouping of the Fuath. Not wanting to burn the forest, I was sure to weave my intentions with care through the gathering magic.
I unleashed the magic once I was ready… and it rolled right over the enemy as if they were under shields.
“What—” I blurted, looking at my hands.
“Whoever was fucking with Riordan’s power is now fucking with yours too,” Helena noted with a long sigh. “Guess we need to do this the old-fashioned way.”
I would not be discouraged. Sofia’s power was not being affected, and she was still able to steal the breath out of any Fuath who got too close to her. I let the magic move and swell until it felt like I would burst, but still it did nothing. I even attempted to set fire to the grass under their feet to try indirectly harming them, but the cocky monsters walked through the flames with cackling glee.
Seeing their cocky grins infuriated me so deeply I was almost tempted to delve down to a part of me I knew they could not survive. To open the gates to the Heartfire and let it consume their wards for me.
But I had no wish to risk fire madness.
Another surge of Fuath rounded the outcropping and forced me to abandon my attempts to use magic. I pulled my blades and joined the fray next to Orion, relieved for the extra lessons I had insisted on.
“They are going to overrun us here soon!” Ares called a warning to Orion who looked up at the cliff above us and then toward the clearing through the trees.
“We need to get to higher ground,” he decided, and the others nodded in agreement.
“Where the fuck did they come from?” spat Helena. She shook her head at the sheer number of the creatures as they began to crush one another between the trees.
“We are not getting through!” Ares noted with a hint of concern in his voice now, which I could feel mirrored in my bond with Orion. The Fuath had us completely surrounded, and no matter how many we killed, they had become a wall around us that was starting to crush us.
