I couldn’t. Not when they were coming straight for shore—straight for the treehouses—straight for the families sleeping above us. What if the wards didn’t hold? I’d be the only thing between them and my people!
I was queen.
The closest vampyre lurched toward me and the sand, mouth open in a wet hiss. He hit an invisible barrier, bloodmagick lines flaring out from his impact, but they were black, and as more vampyres pushed and slammed against them, they broke.
Shattered.
The vampyres advanced toward me, eyes mad with hunger
My hand flew to my throat.
“Stay,” I whispered—my voice magicks glowing like silver heat under my skin.
The vampyre froze mid-step.
Then another. Then six more. Their bodies jerked, strained, fought, but the song rising in my chest wrapped around their limbs like chains.
And then Isang.
Female drakens had voice magicks—not that I really knew what I was doing, but I knew I had it. I’d only used it a few times so far.
It wasn’t a melody meant for ears; it was an order meant for marrow. A command older than drakens, older than fire, older than anything that crawled from the deep.
“Back.”
The sound vibrated through the beach, through the sand, through the tide. Vampyres screamed as the voice magick slammed into them, forcing them backward, stumbling, sliding, dragged like puppets toward the seawitches.
Meruse’s coven surged forward at once—snatching the retreating bodies, clawing and binding them with kelp-thick ropes of water and magick.
But still, more came.
The sea behind them rippled with dozens of white, dead faces.
I strengthened the song, pouring every shred of my breath into the command. My vision blurred. My knees trembled.
“BACK.”
The beach glowed beneath me, the sand humming with my voice, the air thick with magick.
The vampyres stopped advancing.
But my strength was thinning.
The baby kicked sharply, a warning. My wings ached. My stomach tightened.
And then?—
A new voice joined mine. A low hum. Then a second. Then a third.
I turned my head just as three shapes cut across the beach, wings unfurled, scales shimmering under the sun.
The reclusive female drakens—rescued from the Overlord’s prison cells—were suddenly at my side as if they’d been waiting for this moment. They rarely came out of their caves, refusing to mate or socialize with the other drakens after the horrors of their captivity. They’d refused all attempts to integrate with anyone else, preferring solitude as they healed from their traumas.
But they were here now.
Enya.
Mara.
