“Ava, you’re still recovering. You don’t have any magic right now,” Daddy said, laying a gentle hand on my knee.
He was right. Shielding us from the Warden’s blast had taken all my strength, but my rage was fueling my abilities. I could feel my magic beginning to spark, becoming stronger with each moment that passed.
“Just give me a little bit of time.” My demigod powers would regenerate. We needed time to recover, but not much. “I need everyone who can make a shield at the outskirts of Ilamanthe, with me. It’ll take everyone’s power to do this.”
“We’ll come,” Marcus said, holding Kallie against him.
“And me,” Danny said. “We can use simultension to fuse my blood magic into the shield. Anyone who attempts to break the shield will have their magic siphoned, and the shield will continue to drain the Warden’s magic the more he tries.”
“That’s good,” I said. “We’ll add layers onto the shield, so it’ll have more defenses. He's got a lot of power— unlimited maybe— but it’ll definitely slow him up. Even if it doesn’t hold, it’ll buy the citizens time to flee. We’ll craft the shield so nobody can portal in or out of the city.”
“I’ll help too,” Alistair volunteered, coming forward.
“The more casters we have to hold the shield up, the better,” I confirmed.
I turned to Eldin. “I want my command broadcasted throughout the city. Every magic caster of every race is to come to the city’s border and lend their aid. We’re going to need everyone we can to make this shield as powerful as possible.”
“Yes, princess,” she said, bowing to me before running out of the throne room.
“What’s the use?” Cameron wailed. “Nothing we can do will stop that man!”
I couldn’t believe Cassiel, once the most powerful Elven Emperor on Earth, had raised this worthless excuse for a son. Cameron was no leader and couldn’t even begin to fill a sliver of the void Cassiel had left. That meant I would have to.
“Shutup,” I snapped, and Cameron blanched. “I’m sorry you lost your father, but Cassiel is gone, and we need to protect the city before the Warden destroys the rest of us. If Cassiel’s wards fall, his death will have been for nothing. Go to the barracks and order the generals to start stationing soldiers around the perimeter. Hurry up!”
Completely cowed, Cameron obeyed. He hustled off, and the rest of us immediately left for the edge of the city. I hustled to take action, urging Oberi forward while my companions followed behind.
Supernaturals of all kinds were waiting for us when we arrived at the edge of Ilamanthe a short time later. Everyone was here; Kallie’s parents, all of our aunts and uncles, the Demigod Guardians and all the Elvish nobles. Thousands had gathered to help me create the defensive barrier. Oberi carried me on her back as a unicorn as I approached the city’s edge. The crowd followed me, waiting on my signal.
Though Cassiel was dead, I could still feel his wards holding across the city. He’d been powerful, so his magic had still held after his death.
“Peanut, be careful. You could hurt yourself,” Daddy warned at my side, sounding worried. “No one has ever been able to fuse the power of so many different races into one spell before.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Just fucking watch me.”
I raised my voice, and Air elementals used my magic to project my commands to the crowd as I cried, “I need everyone to cast their magic at once! I’ll do the rest!”
There was a resounding response from the crowd, then thousands of small shields began blooming all over the city, blossoming like white flowers as veins of magic grew across the sky. It was a spectacular sight, watching as the shields expanded against Cassiel’s ward, but I didn’t have time to observe it. My mother, Lucas, Nadine, Emma, Marcus, Kallie and Alistair were at the front near me, and their shields were the most powerful, growing to become miles wide.
I used simultension and began weaving all the shields into one, combining each shield into one massive barricade that fused with Cassiel’s wards, preventing any kind of entry. I used intrafusion to combine other kinds of magic into the shield, melding the city’s powers together into one. My magic sewed patches together into a protective blanket that covered Ilamanthe, so thick that the shield itself appeared to be a window several inches thick, expanding it across the city and over the beach a few miles off. When I’d fused everyone else’s power, I called upon my own and funneled it into the shield, making it ten times stronger than it already was.
I wouldn’t have been able to do this as a prisoner at the Institute, or perhaps even a few months ago. This kind of magic had never been attempted on such a mass scale, but I wasdoneplaying the Warden’s games. He’d chosen the wrong bitch tofuck with, and I was going to show him how big of a mistake that was. At the camps, I’d had to make the shield that protected us from the Warden’s attack at the last second, and it’d caught me off guard, stunning me and leaving me weak. Now, I was fully aware of what I was doing, and I could craft this shield to stand up to any magical attack that came, even if that bastard showed up here right now.
When I was certain the shield was secure, I took Danny’s demigod magic and channeled it into the shield, merging his blood magic with the protective power. Danny had a spectacular wealth of power at his disposal, almost as much as Charlie’s, and I took every drop of it I could without harming him to make the shield stronger. The shield flashed a deep red for a moment before it returned to its usual translucence, indicating the blood magic had taken. Even if the Warden dropped a bomb on this place, the blood magic would suck him dry of power for at least a few moments afterward, I was sure of it.
When the shield was finally in place, I drew back my power. It shimmered above us, a round dome that sealed the city off from all invaders. I wished the Warden good luck with breaking through.
There wasn’t so much of a whisper amongst all those people as the stunned expressions of Ilamanthe’s citizens gazed upon me with reverence and awe. They seemed terrified of me.
Good. I was something to be terrified of.
Soldiers from the barracks could be heard marching out of the city, taking their places to stand watch at the city’s edge. I turned Oberi, leaving the area without another word.
Nobody else would’ve been able to do that. Not a damn one of them. ButIcould. I was the strongest supernatural there ever was, and unlike the Warden, I was born that way. I didn’t need to be a pathetic little welp and steal from others in order to gain strength, because I’d been created with it from the beginning ofmy existence. People bowed away from my presence, creating a path for me as Oberi carried me back to the palace, looking at me as if I had the power of a god.
Maybe I did. And that’s why the Warden was still afraid of me.
Very soon, I was going to make his fear all too real.
