My heart dropped as I looked over the gardens. There were hundreds of soldiers already swarming the campus. Elijah had sent the full-force of his army, to crush us. We’d be overrun by numbers alone.
“Take aim!” I shouted, and everyone drew their arm back. Spells amassed in our hands, and I screamed, “Fire!”
Delmare and Stefan began chucking battle orbs down at the soldiers holding the battering ram. They exploded on impact, sending the soldiers flying and cracking the battering ram in half. The others followed their lead, lobbing offensive spells down at the soldiers.
Kiara pointed the priestess staff downward, and an electric stream of light emitted from the griffin stone, immense and swirling. It slammed into a group of soldiers below, and created a crater in the earth that was twenty feet wide.
Kiara was thrown backward. She barely held onto the staff as her body hit the wall, and slid down. Her head lolled on her neck, dazed. Using the griffin stone had weakened her. Alexei helped her back up, but Kiara insisted she was fine, despite her ragged appearance.
I grabbed onto the wolven tooth in my pocket. I’d gathered a host of Unseelie items as I’d fastened my sword on, and so had Emma. I was planning on using them. I pulled magic from the wolven tooth, and felt it turn to dust in my palm as I shot flaming purple circles of fire at the soldiers. They exploded on impact, and expanded outward, leaving gashes in people or cutting them in half, violet flames licking at the sky as the dark magic faded.
It was a gruesome way to kill the enemy, but I held little remorse. Arcanea University was my home, and I would defend it with all that was with me. They had made a grand mistake following Elijah’s orders to come here.
Emma had the same idea. She clenched a griffin feather in her fist, and cast an Unseelie spell. From her fingertips, dark magic erupted. Her Unseelie magic created a black hole that swirled and expanded below. Soldiers screamed as they were sucked into the hole, which ate them alive with a hungry and evil fever. Their bodies disappeared as they were pulled into the blackness, never to be seen again. The black hole she’d made consumed ten bodies before it flickered out, blowing away on a wisp of wind.
People’s mouths dropped open as they witnessed Emma and I casting Unseelie magic, but there was no time to give judgement or harsh words, for shifters soared in from above. Their claws reached out to grab us, to prevent us from casting anymore offensive spells from above. One soldier got his claws around the arms of a Marked, and carried her into the sky. When she was at a tall height, he opened his talons, and she began to drop. The faerie summoned her wings to save her, but she wasn’t fast enough, and her body was crushed against the ground.
From the floor below, I could hear the grieving cry of her mate as she died.
She wasn’t the only one. Other sorceresses were grabbed and hauled into the sky by the enemy shifters, and were dropped to their deaths. Those that tried to fly away had their wings torn to bits. Some shifters saved them, but most didn’t make it. The sound of wings being ripped apart and bones breaking against the ground as bodies struck the gardens was gut-clenching.
Emma gave an anguished cry as she watched a Marked be dismembered between two dragons. The blood spattered upon us like rain, scattering across our faces.
“Get down below!” I bellowed. No longer safe outside, we hurried back down the staircase to the main floor. Above us, the soldiers had landed on the balcony, and were breaking in the topmost windows to get inside the castle. Odette and Theo, as well as the other alicorns, put up shields to stop them, but there were so many soldiers flooding into the second floor we couldn’t stop them all.
Some soldiers jumped down from the second floor. They landed and transformed as dragons, lowering their horns and charging toward the barricade. In moments, the shield protecting the school was snapped in half, and the barricade was in pieces. The dragons breathed fire and lit the barricade aflame, sending the room into a mess of fire and smoke. The soldiers from outside flooded into the building, surrounding us.
“They’ve broken into the Grand Foyer! Shield wall!” Magdalina screamed.
Students conjured shields, and huddled together to create a wall against Elijah’s army. Emma and I created shields of our own, and stuck together with the other students. We moved as one unit, blocking the hits from the soldiers as they swung their swords against our shields. I saw a small opening in the shield wall and poked my sword through it, piercing a soldier’s side. I used my shifter strength to cut straight through his armor. He gave a panged cry, and went down. Students around me were doing the same, striking out their weapons in small openings in the shield wall.
My breathing was ragged, and my heart was tight with fear. We’d been taught all of this in class, but that had been practice, and this wasn’t a horrible dream. Our training hadn’t come in use against monsters, but against each other. Here we stood, brother fighting brother, and there seemed to be no end to it.
The dragons who’d broken the barricade turned and charged at the shield wall, horns down. I pushed Emma out of the way just before a horn struck us, and the students who’d been beside me went hurtling through the air.
The boy next to me lay pierced on the horn of the dragon, dead. The soldier shook him off as if unbothered. The shield wall broke, and students were sent scattering as Elijah’s army stormed through the Grand Foyer, swinging swords and ending lives.
“Malovian Revolution!” Finlay screamed, and he charged into the fray. He changed, and dove down upon the nearest soldier, ripping his throat out. Growls resonated throughout the room as shifters took form and began tearing each other limb from limb.
There was no strategy left to take, because the battle had turned into a bloodbath. Emma unleashedLodburzan, and I jumped forward, shifting into a wolven. I slammed into another wolf mid-jump who was reaching for Emma’s throat, and pinned him to the ground. We snarled as we tumbled, until my fangs created a cavity into his chest. I ripped out his heart, and the soldier gave a rasping wheeze as he died. Beside me, Emma was in hand-to-hand combat with a female soldier, who raised the sword above her head. Emma blasted the soldier back with a burst of blue magic from her hand, and sunk her sword into her gut.
In such close quarters, there wasn’t much room to cast elaborate illusions— you either fought with your sword, or you died. Any time wasted to cast an intricate spell would get you killed. Above Emma, Tygrys flitted from left to right. He bared his little fangs and moved his antennas. If anyone got too close to Emma, the faekin’s magic would nab them, shooting them across the room.
One soldier grabbed Emma from behind, and I rushed forward to end him. But before I could, Tygrys emitted a burst of magic, and the soldier let out a scream of agony as all the bones in his body broke simultaneously. He slumped to the floor, and Tygrys growled proudly.
All around us, there was pandemonium. I lifted my head from the griffin whose throat I’d ripped out to locate my friends. Alexei was flying above the room, and Kiara was on his back, ricocheting spells toward the soldiers on the ground. Stefan had changed, and was warring with another dragon. Their feet caused minor tremors to shake the earth as scales and blood were sent scattering. Delmare sat on Stefan, shielded by his wings. She was throwing battle orbs at the opposite sorceress upon the other dragon’s back, but it appeared neither of them were making any progress.
Odette rode on Theo’s back, swinging her axe and cracking it against the skulls of soldiers. The alicorn stone glowed pink and left a trail of magic behind as she fed the axe more blood. One soldier cut into Theo’s flank, and Theo screamed in pain. Odette’s eyes burned as she sank the axe into the soldier’s chest, and once the blade hit, the soldier dissolved into nothing more than a burst of pink bubbles.
Odette let out a rageful scream, and pink bubbles burst out from the alicorn stone, flooding into the room. Whenever a soldier touched a bubble, their bodies popped— just like a bubble would. Their organs spilled open out of their torsos, heads spontaneously combusting as they fell to the floor and died under the power of the alicorn stone.
Odette’s style of magic was clearly cute, but deadly.
Using the alicorn stone’s power had taken Odette’s strength. She slumped forward on Theo’s back, and Theo called, “My love, are you all right?”
“Yes,” Odette said weakly, but she was lying. She nearly dropped the axe in her hand, before she forced herself to remain upright. She held onto Theo’s mane as they charged back in, and gods, I was praying she didn’t fall off.
A scream from an alicorn caused my head to rip to the side. Jasper was caught underneath the claws of a dragon, in danger of being crushed at any moment. The dragon laughed as he loomed overhead, leaning forward and starting to smash Jasper under his weight. Jasper’s hooves scrambled against the floor, creating marks in the wood as he attempted to escape.
